“Surprise! Surprise!
Surprise!”
I suppose that I am showing my age using
that catch-phrase . . . “Surprise!
Surprise! Surprise!” It was one of Gomer Pyle’s favorite utterances
on the 1960s series, The Andy Griffith
Show and Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.,
whenever he had a sudden revelation in his life. Gomer, played by Jim Nabors, could not help
but to show his exuberance and delight by uttering, “Surprise! Surprise!
Surprise!” whenever stumbling upon some new insight. Whenever one heard that phrase, one knew that
what was being learned was completely unexpected and off-guard.
Such would probably be the response of
the captives of Babylon as they hear the words of the prophet Isaiah. It is not what the people are expecting when
they look towards the future and some day returning to their homeland. What Isaiah delivers and what the people
expect are two different things. Deep in
the hearts of the people there is the hope that God will come deliver them from
their captivity . . . come to set them free and allow them to return to their
homeland. Probably couched in that hope
is the idea that it will be done in the same way that they were taken in the
first place . . . in a war-like way.
But Isaiah’s words speak nothing of a
mighty rescue, instead he speaks in metaphors . . . “A shoot will come up from the
stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.” He
speaks not of violence, but of peace.
Out of deliverance the kingdom to come will be one of peace . . .
enemies will be friends and work together.
The wolf will lie with the lamb . . . the calf and lion will be together
. . . the infant will play with the cobra.
The one who comes to rescue the captives come in unexpected ways and
will establish a kingdom that is built on peace and love.
“Surprise! Surprise!
Surprise!”
As I said earlier, this was not quite
what the people expected . . . it was not quite what they had their hope
wrapped around. Yet, this is the message
that Isaiah delivers for the Lord. This
is the message Isaiah proclaims for God.
It is something completely unexpected.
Using the metaphor of the shoot coming
out of a stump. I watched my neighbors
cut down some trees in their yard about two years ago. They sawed the trees down leaving nothing behind
but a stump. That is all that they
did. In doing this they thought that
they had gotten rid of the problem of the dying trees. I guess they didn’t understand trees. Out from those stumps popped shoots . . .
little branches growing out of the stumps.
New life! New life from what seemed
to be death. Out of woundedness, new
life sprung . . . and, they grew into quite big bushes. The next summer they dug the stumps up.
Imagine their surprise when those shoots
began sprouting up! This is the message
that Isaiah shares with the people. Out
of the woundedness . . . out of what seems to be a death sentence . . . new
life will spring forth. Out of this new
life will come a new vision of God’s Kingdom.
It will be a peaceable kingdom . . . a kingdom based on God’s desires
and will. It will be built on loving God
and loving others . . . of bringing the whole family together. It will be nothing like the people expect.
That which Isaiah speaks of is a work in
progress. We are still working towards
that goal as the children of God. As the
followers of Jesus, we recognize that the “shoot” that Isaiah speaks of is
Jesus himself. We see in the words of
Isaiah here and elsewhere that this “rescuer”—this “messiah”—that he is
speaking about Jesus. And, we know through
perfect 20/20 hindsight that we have yet to realize the kingdom that he is
describing. As I said, it is a work in
progress.
As we step more solidly into this second
week of the Advent season, we are greeted with these words of Isaiah . . .
words that catch us off-guard much as it did the original listeners. They are meant to be words of hope and yet
they do not fit into the mind’s idea or thoughts of hope. There a clash of expectations. Despite the clash of expectations—then and
now, Isaiah never changes his words.
Despite the clash of expectations—then and now, God never veers from
their intention. And, despite the clash
of expectations—then and now, Jesus’ confidence on the goal never wavers. It is not over until the desired goal is
achieved.
Even though we are not captives in a
strange land, we are living in a time in which we seek hope . . . we seek
something that we can hang onto that gets us through the night. We are living in disjointed and broken times
where it seems as we are straying farther and farther away from Jesus’ command
and God’s desire “to love.” Sounding
like a broken record, we are living in times that are easily equated to the
“end times.” As we look around the world
and our lives we are witnessing less and less love . . . as we know, it fills
our television screens, newspapers, and other sources of information. These feel like desperate times, and we could
use a little something to hang onto . . . a little hope.
So, why wouldn’t we go to God for a
little hope? Why wouldn’t we ask for
something to hang onto . . . something to get us through the night? Well, we do.
The problem is that God’s response is not quite what we expect . . . not
quite what we want. There in lies the
quandary. How do we embrace and make this “unexpected” hope our hope?
Again, think about it. From a “shoot” a mighty forest is to
rise? Odds are pretty much against
that. Same goes for what we are hearing
in this season of Advent . . . from a small child a new kingdom will be
born? Seems impossible, and yet that is
the “hope” we are called upon to hitch our wagons to. It seems far-fetched, but . . .
“Surprise! Surprise!
Surprise!”
God is a mystery . . . especially for
me. Every time I thought I was ready for
what God had to deliver . . . every time I thought God was going to throw me a
fastball, God threw a curve ball. God has
constantly surprised me with the unexpected.
But God’s ways are not my ways, nor are they your ways. They are God’s ways . . . what God desires .
. . and, sometimes God catches us completely unprepared.
God caught the Babylonian exiles
unprepared. From a shoot a new kingdom .
. . a peaceable kingdom . . . would rise.
It would be a kingdom that no one had ever imagined in which the
impossible would happen. Isaiah
proclaimed: “In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples;
the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious.” This hope spoken for God by Isaiah is God’s
will . . . so be it.
So be it . . . it is a work in
progress. Set in motion generations ago
by the children of God and picked up by the followers of Jesus, the work
continues. It continues until the
kingdom comes . . . until it is fulfilled.
What we are experiencing—and what every generation has experienced—is
that movement towards fulfillment. That
is the hope of God . . . that was the work of Jesus . . . and, that is what we
strive towards today.
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