During Advent, we will be using study prompts and other activities tied to the sermon for the week. Read the sermon aloud and follow-up with spoken responses to the two questions at the end. Find our full sermon compilation for individual, small group, or congregational use, Sermons for Advent and Christmas 2022 at www.sermonsthatwork.org. [RCL]…

Isaiah 11:1-10 It is interesting that the text offers a telltale expansive view of justice that includes all creation. The prophecy describes the peaceful cohabitation of the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the kid, the calf and the lion, humans and snakes. Life against life is pacified. The language is rich with the…

Isaiah 11:1-10 In the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, Chapter 11, Verses 1-10, Isaiah shares his prophetic vision, most likely revealed to him in a dream, of the coming of the long awaited messiah, who we as Christians now know to be Jesus, and life in the messianic age when the wait was finally over….

Isaiah 11:1-10 “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” As with the rest of Isaiah, especially this passage, this first verse has exerted a strong influence on Christian imagination. For example, in medieval art – illuminations and stained-glass windows, the Jesse Tree these…