Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: Radix Jessei
## Isaiah 11:1-10

Sermon text for today is found in Isaiah 11:1-10. Isaiah 11:1-10. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

There shall come forth a root from the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. His delight is in the fear of the Lord.

And he shall not judge by the sight of his eyes, nor decide by the hearing of his ears, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth. He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips, he shall slay the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his loins, and faithfulness the belt of his waist.

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb. The leopard shall lie down with the young goat. The calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze. Their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole, and the wean child shall put his hand in the viper’s den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain.

For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, who shall stand as a banner to the people. For the Gentiles shall seek him, and his resting place shall be glorious.

Let’s pray.

Almighty God, we thank you for today. We thank you that this is in a sense the resting place, the place where our Savior can be found at this time and on this day. We thank you for the gloriousness of meeting with you and one another and for you coming to renew covenant with us. We thank you, Father, for your mighty and powerful word and for the wonderful words we’ve just read, the great hope and joy and comfort they bring to us, as well as a great longing and desire for a further advent or coming of Christ to our country, to our families, and to our hearts today.

Bless us, Lord God, as we consider your word and what the historic church has told us about it. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

Our topic today is the third O antiphon, which reads—I’m sorry, by the way, if we didn’t have enough handouts for people today. Apparently they ran a little short. If you have one, by the way, and if you see a young child who would like to color the back coloring page, you could give it to them. We’ll talk about it in just a little bit.

But the third of the O antiphons reads “Root of Jesse,” and the title at the top of the outline and the title of the sermon is “Radix Jessei.” Radix means root—Latin for root. Or the radical is the root of a particular number. “O root of Jesse that stands as an ensign of the people”—we just read about that. “Before whom the kings keep silence and unto whom the Gentiles shall make supplication, come to deliver us and tarry not.”

The antiphons are an ancient song of the church. When we talked about wisdom as the first antiphon we said that, and again last week we talked about the need to understand history. We’re not, you know, just cut adrift into what we are now. We respect and honor what the Lord God has done in his church for the last 2,000 years—yea, the last 6,000 years. And for well over a millennium, the church has been singing the seven O antiphons during the time of Advent, and specifically in the time beginning with Septuagesima—usually on December 16th—so-called because of the first antiphon, “wisdom,” which is sung at the first. And so the whole season is seen in that way.

This past week I actually was given a Christmas present by Polly Melody Adams, and the libretto for this CD that they gave me has these various settings that they’ve developed for the seven O antiphons. This is a recording of an Episcopal church in the Seattle area from a few years ago as they sang through the seven O antiphons instead of doing a lesson, an advent lesson of carols and readings, which many churches do. The evangelical churches—I think Trinity Episcopal is doing theirs today. Beautiful thing to behold. But they wanted to do something different up in Seattle. And so they did the seven O antiphons, and as they would process in, the banner for the first O antiphon would process in as they sang “O Sapientia,” and then there would be a reading and another song, and then the second banner, “O Adonai,” would be brought in, etc.

Additionally, I just received on Friday a CD I ordered entitled “O Sapientia.” This is sung by King’s College, and high production values, and they sing these antiphons as well in a very interesting fashion. So this is a—you know, it’s not just the ancient church, but the modern church as well—sings this song that we talk about as the O antiphons, the great antiphons, or the seven O antiphons. So it’s just a song from the church.

“Antiphon” just means sung responsorially. And like other songs that sing of the titles of Jesus—that’s what this does. The seven titles are titles for the Lord Jesus Christ. And so during Advent, another song that’s sort of like this is a song called “Oh Quickly Come Dread Judge of All,” written in 1854. For instance, the first lyrics says: “Oh, quickly come dread judge of all, for awful though thine advent be, all shadows from the truth will fall and falsehood die in sight of thee. Oh, quickly come for doubt and fear like clouds dissolve when thou art near.”

Second verse: “Oh quickly come thou great king of all. Reign all around us and within. Let sin no more our souls enthrall. Let pain and sorrows die with sin. Oh quickly come for thou alone can make thy scattered people one.”

So there are various other verses in this song, but another song that speaks of titles of the Lord Jesus Christ, written for the Advent season to remind us about the attributes of who Jesus is that we seek in our day and age. We celebrate his coming 2,000 years ago. We look forward to his second coming. Our hearts yearn for the sort of thing we just read about in Isaiah 11. And we also seek his coming in our day and age, and as well to see more and more wisdom and a knowledge of God’s law and an understanding of history, etc., as expressed in the O antiphons.

For those who do have handouts, the second page is another old song. It’s not really a song—it’s a poem, 12 stanzas, written by Cynewulf around 750 AD. He was an Anglo-Saxon poet, and there’s a chart there of the 12 stanzas of Cynewulf’s first of three long poems he wrote in honor of Christ. On the right-hand column under “Source,” you’ll notice that several of his stanzas reflect the seven O antiphons, no doubt being used even then where he was.

So verse one in his poem says: “Thou art the corner stone which the builders once rejected in their work,” and the source of that, as we’ll see in a few weeks, is the fifth O antiphon, “O Clavis Davidis.” The next one says: “Oh ruler and righteous king, thou who holdest the key and openest life,” and that’s from the “Clavis David” stanza, the fourth stanza of the antiphons, which we’ll talk about next week. So not all of his 12 verses relate to those, but at least four of them are specific citations of the seven antiphons.

So another example of how Christians for many years—over a millennium—have used these titles for Christ as a way to think about the Advent season, and not just praying in general for the coming of Christ, but for all that he is, all of his attributes.

I mentioned Cynewulf too because Cynewulf in his poem on the coming of Christ talked about the star of Bethlehem coming and the wise men. His poem is really about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. One verse says: “They came three kings who rode apace to Bethlehem town by God’s good grace. Hail Eärendel, brightest of angels they called this”—Cynewulf named the star “Eärendel.” And for those of you who are J.R.R. Tolkien fans, you’ll know that one of the characters in some of his writings is named Eärendel, and this is where he got the name. Tolkien was a philologist, a well-known historian of ancient tongues and languages.

More than that, Cynewulf’s poem wasn’t just the source of the Eärendel character. The same stanzas, translated by another man in this way: “Hail heavenly beam, brightest of angels, thou sent unto men upon this middle earth.” And so a number of times the translation of Cynewulf’s opening stanzas of this poem to Christ reflects the term “middle earth.” So Tolkien—that wasn’t original to him. He was, like we’re doing, thinking about Christendom of the past, and his work, his life, was informed by that, as ours is as well. And so we sing these songs, and the first verse that we meditated on a couple of weeks ago was “Sapientia”—wisdom. God in wisdom, Jesus’s wisdom, who created and sustains the world, keeps it in order in a mighty yet sweet way. And we pray that Christ would come to us and give us prudence, of wisdom in our own lives.

I mentioned the work of Christopher Dawson in his publication called “The Order.” Him and the ordermen had this thing, and the masthead was a quote from Aquinas who said: “According to established popular language, which the philosopher considers should be our guide in the naming of things, those are called wise who put things into right order and control them.”

This is wisdom, and the first verse celebrates Christ as our order, and we ask that Christ would come and give us prudence, a proper sense of order in our lives. Dawson was concerned about the collapse of Christendom in his age, writing in the early 20th century. From a book on him, we read this quote: “Industrialism, compulsory education, and military service, the popular press and party politics, assaulted Catholics from every side.”

This is a century ago. And these are the same forces in some way—not industrial advancements, but industrialism, that saw man simply as a cog in a machine, a tool rather, in the machine for man’s purposes. Compulsory education—we fought that. Compulsory military service in England at the time. Popular press and political parties assaulted Christendom, or the Catholicism, from every side.

And Dawson went on to write that only if Catholics were to reorder their educational system to teach children a true following of wisdom—a science which is directed toward the vision of immutable truth—could the church serve as the popular and effectual stimulus to reawaken the latent spirit of Western man and inspire a new Christendom. So Dawson believed, and I think he was right, that when we sing to Jesus as our wisdom, “Sapientia,” and ask for his prudence, we’re asking for something that is quite important for the reestablishment of Christendom in our day and age.

Each of us individually should order our lives. There should be an order to them, a proper placement of things, understanding their ultimate purpose. I’d encourage you to order your time and use a portion of every day as family worship time or personal worship time. And today, at the end of the service when you’re dismissed, there will be on the tables that had the outlines this morning—we will have copies of the Advent liturgy from the CRC. Randy Booth asked a number of pastors, including myself, to write one-page devotionals for Advent, beginning on December 1st through the 12 days of Christmas. So we printed up enough for one for every family. So please feel encouraged to take this home and use this for your family. But use this time of season as an incentive to order your life properly around the truth of God’s word—once a day at least, coming together as a family or with your own personal devotional time—to think about how to properly order all of your life.

The O antiphons are just a very old song about Jesus. And the first title for Jesus in the song is “Wisdom.” Wisdom is the title for Jesus. Jesus comes to make our lives orderly. So to make our lives orderly, to understand the purpose for everything, and to order our lives in terms of that purpose.

Now, the second name for Jesus that we talked about last week is “Lord”—Adonai in the Latin, but translated as “Lord.” Jesus is our Lord. He saves us. And the antiphon talked about the burning bush, bringing us out of affliction. But the burning bush is at the same place where they’re to return. Moses is to bring God’s people back to praise him for his deliverance and to receive the law as a standard for their lives. And so, “Oh Adonai,” the second antiphon, is a reminder that Jesus is our Lord. He has saved us, but he has given us a law—not to save us, but he’s given us a law as a saved people that provide the coloring lines, so to speak, by which in wisdom we color in the midst of them.

So Jesus is law. His laws are the coloring lines for our lives. And we’re to color in the context of our lives wisely, knowing how to take the law of God, apply it to our lives in wisdom and order.

Now, verse three that we’re going to talk about today is about Jesus as the Root of Jesse. So, “Radix Jessei,” root of Jesse. Jesus is the root of Jesse. This title for Jesus is found in the book of Isaiah. And for you young people—someone’s filling in the blanks—Isaiah is I-S-A-I-A-H. So you got A-I-A in the middle. A little confusing how to spell Isaiah. That’s how you do it.

So this title is found in other places which we’ll talk about. We’re going to look at verses 1 to 10 in Isaiah 11 that we just read, where it’s mentioned twice, as I think bookends for that section of text. And in its obvious meaning, Jesus—or Jesse rather—to know who Jesse is, to know what the root of Jesse is: Jesse was King David’s father. So David’s father was Jesse. And we don’t know a lot about Jesse, but the church for 2,000 years, or at least most of that time, has been singing about him in the providence of God, because God wants us to remember Jesse rather than David here in the passage from Isaiah for reasons that I’ll talk about in a couple of minutes.

Apparently, several families at our church regularly or at least occasionally, over the last few years, have used a Jesse tree as part of their Advent devotionals in their family. This is becoming more and more popular. A Jesse tree—in the providence of God, we put up the Christmas tree for Advent season and brought these sprigs and you know, life, green life, into the sanctuary. And the coloring page at the back of today’s outline for the young kids looks like a Christmas tree, but it’s called a Jesse tree. And the idea is that it looks like a tree, but then there are symbols put on it—for instance, that are emblematic of David.

You’ll see on the coloring page in the middle of the tree, for instance, there’s a harp and a star of David and a crown—reminders of David. Jesse was David’s father. At the base of the tree, in this particular drawing, there are some symbols of a lamb and a couple of other animals—and a baby. And these are from Isaiah 11, where we read about the root of Jesse and its effects upon the natural order. And then at the top, of course, is the alpha and omega, Jesus.

So the Jesse tree is another way to bring this ancient hymn of the church and its understanding into our families, into our family devotional time, and just into our remembrance. So Jesse—a spring, a tree, a sapling—springs forth from the root of Jesse. And so the idea is this: the idea of a family tree of Jesus. That’s what you can think about it as—it’s a family tree.

And if I suppose we were to make a Jesse tree a little more obvious, we’d have a male figure lying at the base of the tree. And in terms of the cover art on today’s order of worship, that’s what this is. This is a blown-up picture of another stained glass window with Jesse on it, and the vines coming up from around him. This is a long chapel window that has Jesse, this figure, lying at the base. And in most of these representations, a tree would be coming out of Jesse’s navel, or maybe sometimes under Jesse. Sometimes Jesse is laying there. Sometimes in some of these representations, he’s in a coffin.

So out of Jesse comes this family tree, and eventually it blossoms out into Jesus. It’s not unusual in cathedrals in England or Europe to have a Jesse tree stained glass window, and then at the top of that a rose window. You know the famous rose windows—these beautiful representations. That’s connected to “Rosa,” and the idea is that a rose is what Jesus is, as we sang about last week, and he ultimately comes from the lineage of Jesse. And so this is a representation—this image of the Jesse tree is quite popular in artworks of the last millennium at least.

I mean, they’ll find old artifacts from five or six hundred years ago—of combs, for instance, ivory combs—and a Jesse tree will be inscribed on the back of the comb.

By the way, this idea of the rose coming out of the Jesse tree: the Latin Vulgate translation of verse one that we just read says, by way of not seeing Latin, but what it says: “There shall come forth a shoot in the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit, shall flower out.” Now it doesn’t say that in the King James version or the New King James, but one textual tradition says that this branch that’s coming out will bear fruit. So we have the idea of a fruit-bearing tree or a tree blossoming out or flowering out. And the medieval church used the Latin Vulgate. And so that’s what the text was, as they understood it, frequently. And so they have these representations of flowers in the artwork involving Jesse trees.

So we have these representations in very ancient Bibles. Bibles from the 11th and 12th century would have illuminated manuscripts in the Gospels or in Isaiah where they would have a drawing of an opening letter—on a page representing this Jesse tree. The Psalter would frequently—we have in the first line of the Psalm 1, you know, in Latin, it’s B—you know, blessed. It’s the one who doesn’t walk in the path of the ungodly or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of the scornful. So “blessed,” and that B would be an illuminated letter. And a B lends itself to kind of an ivy sort of tree blossoming sort of thing. And it would frequently have a Jesse tree as the illuminated letter for the letter B at the beginning of the Psalter, because of course Jesse is David’s father. David produced the Psalter. And so it’d be appropriate to show this Jesse tree at the beginning of the Psalter.

So artifacts—combs, illuminated Bibles—and then most notably, cathedrals. There’s a wonderful article on Wikipedia about the Jesse tree. And you’ll see lots of pictures of different cathedral stained glass windows dating from, as I said, the 12th century on, with these representations of the Jesse tree in various forms and in various ways. So it’s been a very widely used imagery of the Lord Jesus Christ and who he is. This idea of a Jesse tree—very common and widely used in art. And all of these things probably are also, of course, informed because the church would be singing in the medieval period these seven O antiphons. They’d be singing about the Jesse tree all the time, and it became a favorite for artwork as well.

So it’s a big part of church history. It’s kind of coming back. There’s been a resurgence in the last 20, 30 years of Jesse tree use during Advent season. And so it’s more widely known than maybe some of the other symbols in the O antiphons.

Now, one other feature of these cathedral representations of the Jesse tree is that at the top where you see Jesus, it would be common to see seven doves. Okay? Why? Well, because you know, Jesus in Isaiah 11 has this sevenfold resting upon him of the spirit of God. So Jesus as the root of Jesse is linked to the sevenfold description of God’s spirit in Isaiah 11. And then later, when Jesus is referred to as the root of Jesse or the root of David in the book of Revelation, he’s the one that opens the book that can’t be opened, and it has seven seals on it. And he is a lamb as it has been slain, and he has seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent into all the earth.

So the representations of Jesus as the root of Jesse, having the sevenfold action of the spirit, is found both in Isaiah 11 and in Revelation. And as a result, the artwork of the medieval period would very typically have a seven-fold representation of the spirit—by doves or whatever—at the top where Jesus comes from the root of Jesse.

All right. Now, let’s turn to a kind of glancing over. We can’t do more than just that really, but a looking at the use of this term “Radix Jessei” in Isaiah 11.

In Isaiah 11 specifically, it’s found twice. And what we’re doing is we’re going to look at those 10 verses, and it’s referred to at the top and it’s referred to at the bottom. And so there’s a section here of scripture, and there’s a movement in this scripture.

First of all, we see a description of the root of Jesse in verses 1 to 5. This we’ve talked about. We talked about this again a couple of weeks ago when we talked about “Sapientia,” because the spirit of wisdom and understanding—the spirit of wisdom is what we remember in the context of the first O antiphon. And so we talked about these verses specifically. We noted a little structure, but carefully to read:

Now there shall come forth a rod. Now don’t let the word “rod” sound too royal to you. It is meaning royalty. He’s coming from Jesse. Jesse is the kingly line. That’s where David and the kings of Judah come from. But the word “rod” really doesn’t mean a real strong thing. It means a branch. A branch comes forth from the stem—the stump, you might think of it as—from the stem of Jesse. And a branch, a sapling, will grow out of his roots—the root of Jesse.

So “Radix Jessei” is found in verse one, and it’s this picture of Jesus restoring the kingly lineage of Jesse. The greater David is talked about here, but the references to David’s father—not directly to David. And this description of the root of Jesse goes on in verse two to talk about the sevenfold actions of the spirit—a seven-fold description of the spirit. “The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. And then there’s three doublets: wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and the fear of the Lord.”

And as we talked about before, at the middle of that is counsel and might. The wisdom of God is sweet and mighty. So there’s counsel involved. It’s sweet, but there’s a mightiness to it as well. And the center of these attributes—these six, this doubling of threes—the middle two connect up together to give us this picture of what the church has been singing about for 1,500 years. Wisdom connects up with the fear of the Lord, and understanding connects up with knowledge. So an understanding of facts and the application of those facts. This is a description of the root of Jesse, ultimately of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then we read further of who this root is. “His delight is in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by the sight of his eyes nor decide by the hearing of his ears. But with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.”

So the particular people that are affected by him are the poor and the meek of the earth. And we’ll talk at the end of this in terms of why that kind of imagery is used. But if they use David, then it isn’t so much meek, right? But it’s Jesse. We don’t know much about him. Humble origins. And so he connects up with the meek of the earth. And the meek of the earth will have this Savior who will come and bring judgment and equity and justice.

“With the breath of his lips, he shall slay the wicked.”

This is important. The root of Jesse—Jesus is described as somebody that will kill people. He will slay, kill, the wicked with his mouth. Again, in Revelation, the two-edged sword comes out of his mouth to destroy his enemies. And so that means either convert them, and they’ve gone through death and resurrection with him, or to actually kill them. So Jesus Christ is one who slays the wicked.

“Righteousness shall be the belt of his loins and faithfulness the belt of his waist.”

Those of you that like the spiritual armor in Ephesians: this is one of the places it’s being referenced. There is—it’s really they’re all attributes of Christ. Spiritual warfare is putting on Jesus. And here Jesus is belted with righteousness or faithfulness rather. Faithfulness and righteousness go together.

So the Savior is described as the root of Jesse—humble origins. He’s not a big strong oak tree immediately. And yet he’s endued with the sevenfold actions of the Holy Spirit. And these actions lead him to do two things: bringing righteousness and justice, exalting the poor, and killing the wicked. So that’s the description of the root of Jesse in those first few verses. So we have a description of Christ given to us.

So we have this branch, a shoot—it doesn’t spring forth from fresh ground, but rather he comes forth from the old stump or roots of Jesse. And so that’s the description of our Savior given in these first five verses. Jesus will kill the wicked. That’s part of the description of who the root of Jesse is. Okay.

Secondly, we then have the peaceable effects of the natural order and in and in Israel that comes forth from the root of Jesse. So we have a description of him, and now we have the results in the world—and specifically, or primarily, in the natural world—in verses 6-9. And this is that one wonderful description that you just want to kind of pause and think about and meditate on—oh, the beauty of it!

Now this is tied to the coming of Christ. He’s already come, and it has to do, I think, with contemporary events. We’ll look at that in a couple of minutes. But don’t put it far off into the future. That at the second coming of Christ—what will be the effects of the root of Jesse when we sing about “Radix Jessei”? What will the result look like in the world?

Well, we read that “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion and the fatling together and a little child shall lead them.”

Now, it’s interesting to me—there’s again three doublets here and then a single. So we got the wolf and the lamb. We got the leopard and the young goat. And the calf and the young lion. And I think the fatling together—the fatling is a reference back to the calf, the fatted calf. So the young lion isn’t just there with the calf. He’s with a fatted calf, ready to eat. But in any event, we have doublets here, don’t we? The wolf and the lamb, leopard and the goat, calf or the fatling with the lion, and then a little child shall lead them.

Now that kind of looks the same thing that we just talked about in terms of that sevenfold spirit thing. We have the spirit upon him, and then three doublets describing it. And now coming back out the other side, we have three doublets of animals, and then we have “a little child shall lead them.” So it’s the same kind of thing, but then it’s amplified upon here in verse 7.

“The cow and the bear shall graze, their young ones shall lie down together. The lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole, that’s a den or opening—not the den, the opening of where the cobra lives. And the wean child shall put his hand in the viper’s den.”

A modern translation says “in the adders’ den.” So the description of the natural order is kind of stated twice: animals, animals, animals, child; animals, animals, child with animals.

Now, okay. And then the culmination of that is in verse 9.

“They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain. For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

This is what the future is about. This is what it’s all about for us. We believe that the knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. That’s pretty comprehensive. And we believe that because of that knowledge, the world will change as a result.

Now turn to Isaiah 65:17-25. And this is a parallel passage. When can we expect this to happen? And I know good men disagree about this, but let’s look at Isaiah 65. And I’ll tell you what I think.

Verse 17: “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth. Well, we could say that means it’s at the eschaton. But then we remember that John’s Gospel is all about the second creation, a new heavens and a new earth.

“And the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind, but be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create. For behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people. No more shall be heard in the sound of shall be heard the sound of weeping or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days or an old man who does not fill out his days.

For the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner, a hundred years old, shall be accursed. Now what does that mean? If that’s the eschaton, why are people dying? Why would they die at a hundred, young men? They don’t die. Once Jesus returns, death is gone. It’s destroyed. It’s done with forever. This cannot be referring—well, it could be. It could be using imagery or symbolic language, but why would symbolic language of death be included to discuss this? I don’t think it would be.

“They shall build houses and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit. They shall not plant and another eat. For like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the Lord and their descendants with them.”

Now this seems to be saying that childbearing is being described. Now, what he’s describing is the return from exile—in the first instance, the return back to Judah at the end of the period of captivity. But of course, this must be describing more than that, because those things didn’t happen. I mean, they happened somewhat. There was a return. There was joy. You could build a house, and Nebuchadnezzar wouldn’t come and take it away from you. But ultimately, this is talking about the ultimate restoration, the second bringing in of the remnant, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And in that time, it says death will happen, but it will happen after a goodly number of years—more than the three score and ten that man is normally assigned. And children will be born, and they won’t, you know, die in childbirth, and they won’t be brought forth for calamity, but they’ll have a blessed time of growing up.

“Before they call, I will answer. While they are yet speaking, I will hear.”

And then we have the same terminology: “The wolf and the lamb grazing together. The lion shall eat straw like the ox. Thus shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, says the Lord.”

Obviously a repetition of what we just read, but amplified in terms of other things.

Now the point of this is—I believe these verses are speaking about this side of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, his second coming. I believe that the future will result in greatly expanded longevity. Now, we’re 2,000 years into it, and in our lifetime we have seen longevity—the average lifespan—increased fairly dramatically. Now, if you take that increase in longevity and project it out for another 10,000 years, you can begin to imagine that yeah, at a hundred, dying at a hundred, you’ll be said to have died early. I mean, it’s not unthinkable.

Well, what about all these wild animals, you know, living together, dogs and cats living together—apocalyptic or not? Well, no, I don’t think so. And in fact, we can already begin to see a little bit of that. We do actually in families have dogs and cats living peaceably together. Not very many of them, but some of them. And the fact that we have dogs or cats at all in our homes shouldn’t be overlooked or just taken as, you know, “that’s the way it is.” This has not been the history of dogs and cats in the world. Dogs weren’t always pets. They were cur animals that would go around and attack you. We have domesticated them. We have tamed them. This is what men do. We tame the wild animals.

A recent post by John Barrett in the CRC list said he thought it’s pretty odd that people think that wild animals are the best kind of animals, and it’s really too bad that we tame animals. Well, Jesus seems to indicate that as the millennial blessings that he gives us proceeds from this root of Jesse, the effects in the natural order are pretty incredible. Longevity of men, more and more, long-term optimism and joy and blessing, and even the domestication of some pretty wild animals. That’s a blessing. That’s not a bad thing. That’s a good thing.

A postmillennial post said that we kind of morph animals into being human almost. Pets become like their owners. And you know, usually we think about that and hate it. Ah, lousy Disney, treating animals like they’re people. Or you know, gosh, you know, people are always talking to their pets like they’re some kind of people. That’s not a bad thing. I mean, it can be taken to excess, but that’s what domesticating animals is about. That’s what I think, in part, exercising dominion over the world is like.

We don’t have jungles either. Jungles are gardens overgrown. We take the jungles and make gardens out of them. And we wild animals—with a great many of them at least—our job over the centuries and millennia ahead is to tame them and domesticate them. Things will get better. War won’t be around. Now, Calvin and others saw this as reference to nations—that they’re representing nations. And there’s some truth to that. Animals represent nations, and that could be what’s going on. And even there it’s a wonderful picture, because it means that wars over time will diminish.

But I think that the multiple occurrences of different kinds of animal leads us in a little different direction. It leads us in the direction of thinking that Chris W.’s vocation isn’t so bad after all. Helping people take care of pets seems pretty important. It’s kind of “Radix Jessei’s” stuff. It’s kind of the fruiting out of Jesus’s kingdom as people domesticate wild animals and bring them into this picture that we’ve read here.

So the effects of the Savior on the natural order are rather pronounced, and they’re a glorious thing, and they’re a thing of great hopefulness to us. Well, by the way, there is a short, a small reference to Jesus in the Gospels that I think is significant in this. When he’s first—when that sevenfold spirit, we could say, comes upon him—it takes him out to the wilderness. We read specifically that he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him. He was with the wild animals, and you’ll see drawings of this—you know, artistic depictions of Christ in the wilderness—and he’s petting a lion or something, you know. And maybe that’s it. It seems like that’s the direction the text is taking us. He’s with the wild animals and doesn’t get eaten. It’s a picture of the presence of Christ, ultimately through his church, of domesticating and bringing to pass what this is. It’s kind of a fulfillment of this as well. In one sense, the root of Jesse has arrived. Man and animal now can live together, etc.

So the effects of the natural order are given to us here, and they’re quite dramatic. Wild animals become tame under the rule of “Radix Jessei.”

And then, third, the effects of the root on the Gentiles is found in verse 10.

So verse 10, which kind of—you know, is the opposite bookend of verse 1—because it refers to the root of Jesse:

“And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse who shall stand as a banner to the people, for the Gentiles shall seek him, and his resting place shall be glorious.”

Okay. “And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse.” Now it doesn’t say “a branch from the root of Jesse.” Now it says there’ll be a root of Jesse. Clearly, though, it links up with the root of Jesse terminology in verse one. So we have an inclusio—so-called bookends—to a portion of text here about who “Radix Jessei” is.

“He shall stand as a banner to the people. What does it mean? Well, a banner is like a banner. You got banners up, and a banner is an ensign, and it kind of draws people to you. It’s interesting that in the Old Testament sometimes banners are put up for enemies. God puts up a banner, and he calls the nations to come and destroy or chastise his people. After the defeat of the Amalekites, Moses puts up a banner, and he says this is a celebration of victory, and God’s people are to rally to the banner. He then gives a name of Yahweh Nissi—Yahweh banner. This is who our banner is: Yahweh Nissi, the God of banners. And so God himself is a banner, so to speak. And this says the same thing. He is a banner to draw people to him.

“For the Gentiles shall seek him.”

So he’s going to draw all people to himself. And you know, it’s interesting because in the Gospel of John, the Gentiles seek him, right? You know, some Greeks come: “We would see Jesus.” And it’s right in the context there that Jesus says that if he’s lifted up, he’ll draw all people to him. If he’s “Radix Jessei,” he becomes a banner or ensign to the people in his resurrection and ascension on the cross, but then his resurrection and ascension and the effects of that will be that all the nations will come and gather. He’ll draw the Gentiles to him, and his resting place shall be glorious. Where he is will be filled with glory. And that part of the glory here is that now the Jew-Gentile distinction is done away with. The whole world, as we just read, becomes full of the knowledge of the Lord. And the particular dwelling place of the Savior, probably in his church, is seen as a glorious, mighty place.

So he has this sevenfold spirit, and he kills the wicked, and he brings justice and exalts the meek of the earth, etc. And then he has this ongoing program of effects in the natural order and in humankind to get rid of warfare. Animals won’t war, nations won’t war. Even the animals become tamed and domesticated. Men will be reconciled to animals that we were kind of divided from with fear. All this will come about, and we’ve got 10,000, 20,000 years to go here. We can do it. We can pull it off. I’m sure we can. I know we can get to where a hundred is young. And I’m confident that we can domesticate more and more animals. Some we can’t. Those are God’s pets, not our pets. But most of the animals are our pets, and we’re supposed to make them that way. We’re supposed to bring “not hurting or destroying in all his holy mountains.” So the effects, the long-term effects of the coming of the Savior—well, these beautiful, wondrous truths we always sing about at Christmastime—what will happen when Jesus comes, and what is happening now as he comes repeatedly throughout history.

And then, finally, the third section here says that Jesus will draw all nations to himself, and he’ll be the root of Jesse, that is an ensign or a banner to the people. Now this is quoted in Romans 15:7-14.

Don’t bother turning there, but let me read it to you. This specific verse is cited along with several others. And you’ll see the flow here is that the Gentiles are being brought into the church. Therefore, welcome one another. So he’s talking to Jews and Gentiles—the church divided—and he tells them to welcome each other as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.

“For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness in order to confirm the promise given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. So Christ comes to bring the two together. As it is written, Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles and sing to your name. And again it is said, Rejoice, O Gentiles with this people. And again praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples extol him. And again, Isaiah says, The root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles. In him will the Gentiles hope.”

So it’s kind of a sweet and mighty thing again from the wisdom thing. They’re going to—he’s going to rule over the Gentiles, but the Gentiles love him. He’s the desire of the Gentiles. The Gentiles hope. And that’s a very important word in the context of “Radix Jessei”: hope. The Gentiles will hope in Messiah.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abide in hope. I myself am satisfied about you, my brethren, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another.”

So he tells them these things specifically to cause them to hope. He talks about the root of Jesse. He talks about hope, and he does so in the context that the effect on the Gentiles is blessing.

Now, this word “root”—we should say something about this. We had in verse one—we got it in verse 10. It’s “sôresh” in the Hebrew. And “Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament” says “sôresh” is the source of existence, whether personal or corporate. Thus in Judges 5:14, Ephraim’s root is said to be in Amalech. That is, Ephraim’s territory was in the hill country of the Amalekites. So the root, obviously—but just to make sure you understand—is what something else comes out of. The root of Ephraim was Amalekites. They had it first.

Kuyper and Ehrlich in commenting on the root of Jesse here in verse 10 says this: “The new David is Sharesh Yishai, the root sprout of Jesse, and therefore in a certain sense the root itself, because the latter would long ago have perished if it had not borne within itself from the very commencement him who was now about to issue from it. But when he who had been concealed in the root of Jesse, as its sap and strength, should have become [manifest], the rejuvenated root of Jesse itself.”

So something has shifted here in verse 10 from verse one. Jesus now is the root of Jesse. We had read before that the root of Jesse would issue forth this sapling. But now Jesus is described as “Radix Jessei” in a different sense, in verse 10 as in verse one. And he is now the source and existence, the very sap and strength of Jesse himself.

Some of these cathedral depictions—most have the tree coming forth from the belly or navel of Jesse—but some have the tree coming from under Jesse as he’s lying there. Trying to picture, in terms of art, that the source of Jesse itself is this very one who issues forth from the stump of Jesse.

So verse 10 tells us about his effect in that way.

So “Radix Jessei” will draw all nations to him. And the question for the kids is: does Jesse come from the root of Jesse, or does Jesus rather come from the root of Jesse, or is he the root of Jesse? And according to our text, the answer is yes. He is both things. He comes from the root of Jesse, but he is the root of Jesse.

Now, I’ve got a little quick diagram there, under “Summation,” under this description of Isaiah 11:1-10. We go from the root of Jesse to the root of Jesse. Jesus goes from being—coming out of the root of Jesse—to now being the root of Jesse. The sevenfold spirit results in peace in the context of the natural order of things. And that means this description of Jesus’s righteousness and justice is kind of the heart of the matter. It’s at the very center.

And why do I have the zombie level in Call of Duty and the moral imagination? Use your imaginations. No, the point is when I talked about the moral imagination and trying to improve it, some people might have thought I thought all video games were wrong. I didn’t mean that. But video games can either help inspire a moral imagination or they can inspire a diabolic imagination.

The diabolic imagination plays to men’s lust for blood and sex and power and all that stuff. But all that stuff is a proper use of it. And in Call of Duty, beauty—I guess. I’ve never played it, but I hear there’s this zombie level. And so you’re fighting Nazis who are demon-possessed, I guess. So demonpossessed Nazis. I think that would qualify with the wicked that Jesus comes to kill at the center of the text.

So “Radix Jessei” comes to work through his people, through the preaching of the Gospel, and then God’s providential acts, and if necessary, on occasion, actual warfare. He comes so that the wicked would either repent of their wickedness or be destroyed from off the face of the earth. And so that’s kind of at the heart of the whole thing.

Jeremiah 23:5-6 says the same thing:

“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will raise to David a branch of righteousness. A king shall reign and prosper and execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. In his days, Judah will be saved, Israel will dwell safely. Now this is he whose name by which we will be called, The Lord Our Righteousness.”

So again, there’s a summary form of what we’ve read about in our verses. We have the branch of righteousness coming, being raised to David, and he’s specifically described as a king who reigns and prospers by executing judgment and righteousness. So the execution of judgment and righteousness is absolutely critical to an understanding of Isaiah 11:1-10.

Now, I’ve got the root in the book of Revelation. It’s referenced a couple of places in the book of Revelation. Revelation 5:4-7:

“One of the elders said to me, ‘Do not weep.’ Okay, so they’ve got a book with seven seals, and John weeps because no one is found that can open the book. And then the angel says, ‘Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals.’ And in the next verse, it talks about how he has the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

Now, what’s going on here? Well, now he’s the root of David. So the Davidic title is used explicitly because what’s being stressed is power, glory of the kingdom, all that stuff. But again, Jesus is the root of David. He’s not the root that comes forth from David. He’s the root of David. He’s also the root that the plant that comes out of David, right? He’s the alpha and the omega. He’s the first and the last. He’s the beginning and the end. And that title is used here in the sevenfold spirits are used because what he’s going to do is he’s going to open the book, and the book is a history book. It’s what’s going to happen leading up to AD 70 and what happens thematically any time reformation comes to a land.

The idea here is that Jesus is described as the source and meaning and controlling power behind all human history. It’s a covenantal book. It’s a history book. And Jesus is the only one that can open it because he is the source of history. He’s the fulfillment of history, and he is the only way to understand the meaning of history. All history is Christian history. All history is the story of Jesus and his interaction with men and nations, blessing and cursing depending on their obedience or lack of it to him.

The root of David—the beginning of everything—is the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Jesus is the beginning and the end. He is the meaning, understanding the beginning and the culmination of all history. And this same thing is issued at the end of the book, Revelation 22:12-17.

Verse 12: “Behold, I am coming quickly, and my reward is with me to give to everyone according to his work. That’s in history. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.”

And then he says, “Blessed are those.” Then he identifies himself in verse 16: “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright and morning star.”

“The spirit says come.”

So again, at the conclusion of the book of Revelation, describing the history of events shortly to come to pass, he says he is both the root and the offspring of David. Jesus is the meaning, young people—the meaning of all of history. Now the next few verses, I’m going to skip over—”the branch and planting of the Lord”—but they’re verses that describe growth. The branch and the planting of the Lord are words that are used—titles used for Jesus—and they describe him as coming forth as a plant and growing and having influence more and more. And so I’ll let you look up those verses in your own time, but this is important because it establishes, and we know that from the imagery that’s already been given to us, but what it establishes is that plants grow slowly.

And so “Radix Jessei” is a reminder not that everything comes to pass like that, but as a plant grows, right? Slowly. This is the way things happen in our lives. Jesus, describing the kingdom in the Gospel, said it’s like a wheat plant. First the blade, and then the—or first the sprout, then the blade and the sprout. Is that what it goes? And then the full-blown corn in the ear. First the sprout, then the ear, then the corn in the ear. There’s a development of a wheat plant, right? And you don’t get to that fruiting out at the top without taking time for the thing to grow and to mature upward in stages.

Kingdom growth is gradual growth, overseen, however, by the meaning, the root and offspring of David. So the tree of Judah is planted by God. The kingdom grows slowly like a plant.

Now, concluding thoughts. Oh, well, actually, I skipped right over, didn’t I? The rest of the story. I should have read that. The rest of the story here is found in the verses that lead up to the description of the root in Isaiah 10, leading up to chapter 11.

We read this: “At yet he will remain at Nob. That day he will shake his fist at the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem. Behold the Lord, the Lord of hosts, will lop off the bow with terror. Those of high stature will be hewn down, and the haughty will be humbled. He will cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon will fall by the mighty one.”

The rest of the story is that the preparation for appreciating “Radix Jessei” coming out of the stump—that is, Jesse—is a recognition of two things. One: God has chopped off Judah. This is the picture. The prophecy is that Judah will be destroyed. Judah exalts itself against its maker, God. And God comes along as a woodsman, and he chops that tree down, leaving a dead stump from which nobody can see any hope. I mean, they’re routed. They’re destroyed. Nebuchadnezzar takes them into captivity. They’re in Babylon. They’re dead. The temple’s been sacked. The tree has been cut down.

John the Baptist: The axe is laid to the root. It’s laid to the root again in Jerusalem in AD 70. Laid to the root here in the coming of Nebuchadnezzar to take them into captivity. And on the other hand, there’s a description in chapter 10 of the forests—like the forests of Lebanon—are the ones who are raised up to cut down God’s people. They’re mighty. You see, when Nebuchadnezzar is coming through, when this prophecy eventually gets fulfilled, the people of God are supposed to remember: oh man, we’re a dead stump, and God’s enemies are a mighty forest. That’s the imagery given to us.

But the rest of the story is that dead stump will sprout again. You’ve seen it, right? I got a plant next to my house. Lot that thing off every year. We don’t want it to grow. Here it comes, very quickly actually, every year comes up. That’s the picture. Here you got a dead stump. And yet God says hope. Remember I said that Paul wrote to the Romans about the Gentiles coming in. He stressed hope. Hope. Hope. The root of Jesse is a symbol and emblem of hope beyond all else because it’s dead. It has no future. It’s been cut off. And yet God says to us, when we’re cut off: hope. Jesus is “Radix Jessei.” He’s the beginning and the end. He’s already at work in you as a dead stump to bring forth his blessing, his fruiting out, his branches in your life.

This nation is being lopped off by God. It was a land like Jerusalem, Christian nation. But it exalts itself against God. It doesn’t cry out for wisdom from him—how to solve the economy or other things. Kids are being killed by abortion clinics. Homosexuality, perversion, is reigning. And if you speak—I heard Victoria Taft have more sympathy for the transgender mayor of Silverton with breast implants. This fellow long hair, I mean, he just—it’s horrible. Plastered all over national news these days, as opposed to people. And I know they’re radical, they’re not good people, but who are talking about homosexuality as perversion. Even the conservatives will eventually turn against us on that issue.

God is going to lop us off. He’s already done it to some extent. Does that mean we can’t raise children with hope? No. Because we raise kids to remember the Jesse tree—that life comes out of death, that the stump is cut down, and hope is for us in the future. We know who’s going to inhabit this land. He’s the meaning and terminal point of history. We know who’s going to occupy this piece of geography: Jesus Christ, his glorious place of resting. That’s who’s going to be here long-term. We know it because of “Radix Jessei.”

And the same thing’s true in our families and in our lives as individuals. We get lopped off by God at times, right? He just chops off hope. He chops off our money, our 401k, our hopes of retiring, maybe our ability to pay our bills, whatever it is. He lops it off, and all of a sudden we’re in desperate straits. We’re like a dead stump monetarily. He lops off friends. We don’t know why they don’t like us anymore. They don’t. Maybe we didn’t have friends. We feel like a dry stump, dead. We’re never going to be able to have friends or relationship. Health, man. He puts that axe to me all the time, and he chops me down in terms of health.

Some of you are struggling with health difficulties, new ones for you. The axe has been laid at the root of you for some reason—unbeknownst to you and unbeknownst to me. God has destroyed your hope in the short term in your health or in friends or in money. Love life can be devastating. And I know various people in the context of CRC churches who have had to go through death of a vision. That’s what this all is: death of a vision. A person that we love doesn’t love us. A person we thought was going to bring us happiness in life. God cuts us right down, and we could give up. Some people do give up. But God says in those times of darkness: remember “Radix Jessei.” Remember that if you’re a stump, dead for all practical purposes, there is yet sap running through you. And the Lord Jesus Christ will raise up slowly over time blessing to you as a nation, as a family, as a church.

Churches can do this, right? Salem TRC kind of cut down the last year or two. But God brings new life, new people. He brings new friends. He brings new economic opportunities. Eventually, he brings health, some degree of health. At least get up and preach. At least do that much. So he brings these things back. And our job in the meantime is to understand “Radix Jessei” is a symbol of great hope. Even the animals will be tamed. Wars will cease. Everything will be great in the assembly of the church, this side of the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in your life, you’ll be part of that worshipping, thankful host, looking back at it at the end of time to recognize that yeah, you are cut low. You maybe didn’t even admit it to yourself. And yet God slowly and gradually brought you into a place of blessing once more.

Let’s pray.

Lord God, we do thank you for hope. We thank you for this wonderful image that the church has found so much artistic inspiration in over the years. May we find inspiration in “Radix Jessei” as we face, as we face potentially difficult times. And let us, if we’re not facing difficult times, to store away the knowledge of “Radix Jessei” and to recognize that you give him as an ensign banner to us of great hope. Thank you that he is the beginning and end, the root and source of David and root and source of all history as well and its terminal point.

Help us, Father, then to rejoice today. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.