February 10, 2025

Today's Reading: Isaiah 6:1-8 (9-13)

Daily Lectionary: Job 6:14-30; John 3:22-46

Then I said, “How long, O Lord?” And he said: “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste, and the LORD removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled.” The holy seed is its stump. (Isaiah 6:11-13)

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

This is the Word of the Lord? Talk about doom and gloom! This isn’t something you would want to talk about in Sunday School, is it? Yet, there is a glimmer of hope here.

Isaiah is called to be a prophet in a strange and miraculous way. He sees the Lord God while praying in the temple. God sends him to the people of Israel and tells him to speak in a way that they will refuse to understand and comprehend. And he does. 

Isaiah doesn’t prophesy like he’s just gotten a thesaurus; he is very down to earth in his prophecy, and the people are so stunned by his simplicity that they think he’s too dumb for them to hear. So, he tries again, and they refuse to hear him again because he does the same thing—he tries to explain it in a way that a child could understand.

God tells him to keep doing this until Israel is a barren wasteland and the cities are empty. Their sin is so great that he will lay waste to his own people and send them away into exile for their iniquity (some of them will be gone forever).

But look at the very last sentence of the reading. There is still hope; there is still a promise of love to be fulfilled. The tree is burned and cut down, but the stump remains, and that stump is the holy seed; it is the new growth to come. 

The shoot from the stump of Jesse, as it were. From the tiny remnant that remains, the few people still in the land, a great people will grow again, and from that people will come the Savior God promised since the Garden of Eden.

And that people will keep growing, branches and vines and shoots from that Savior, until God’s people will cover the earth. That is us. We are the ones who have grown from that burned and scarred stump that was left for dead.

It grew into Jesus, and he has grafted us into himself. We are now those who live in him, a life of promise that will never end.

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

Preach you the Word and plant it home To men who like or like it not, The Word that shall endure and stand When flow’rs and men shall be forgot. (LSB 586:1)

-Rev. Duane Bamsch, pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Grass Valley, CA.

Audio Reflections Speaker: Pastor Jonathan Lackey is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Vine Grove, KY.

What makes a church "good?" Come join the fictional family as they test out eight different churches in their brand-new town and answer this question along the way. Will the Real Church Please Stand Up? by Matthew Richard, now available from Concordia Publishing House.