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Each stump becomes an altar of transformation.

December 19, 2022

Isaiah 11:1-9 | Revelation 20:1-10 | John 5:30-47

During the bleak days of Covid, my husband coped by realizing a new purpose in life. Our home on a river, was visible only after a short walk through dense shrub and many trees. The new purpose: to wake each morning with a clear view of the ever- flowing and changing river.

As a covid goal, the vision, however, proved to be a two-edged sword. Creating a new and beautiful horizon also produced a mid-project view of a field of stumps. There could be no new river horizon without the stumps.

The poet Rumi once commented, “sell your cleverness and purchase bewilderment.” This was especially true as we observed the stumps over the next several months. Although each stump incurred a significant wound to its original tree-being, with a consequent reordering of its physical form, they constantly and persistently produced shoots of new life. With their roots holding deeply in the earth, new life sprouted forth in an unending parade of green shoots. The process of transformational change is the same for humans as it is for trees. Loss, trauma, hurt, illness, and divorce are some of the myriad ways in which we can get cut off and wounded, both psychologically and physically. It seems clear from Jesus’ teachings that in the crucible of transformation what he wanted to teach us was how to be as he was. What Jesus taught was a way to be rather than something to know or believe.

Isaiah11:1-9, uses the stump of Jesse as a metaphor for the kingdom of God. A kingdom in which ending life and new life are inextricably bound in the whole of God’s creation. A kingdom in which all will eventually be reordered in God’s love. A kingdom in which each stump becomes an altar of transformation. A sacred space and process where the old becomes the cornerstone of the new, and each transformation brings us closer to seeing Jesus’ kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. A dance of creation and transformation in which the kernel of hope and new life is embedded in every struggle and loss.

This Advent may God grant us all strength to endure the struggles and woundings, and joy to celebrate the new life that flows from them. This Advent may we all realize the hope and love expressed in words from the hymn, O Holy Night, “For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn”; always wrapped in God’s transforming love.

Patricia Warburton