From Dan Roukema’s message, December 7, 2025
Isaiah 11 and Advent: A Vision of Hope in a Broken World
Isaiah 11:1–9 is one of the most powerful Advent passages in Scripture. It begins with a promise—a shoot growing from the stump of Jesse—and expands into a breathtaking vision of a renewed world often called the peaceable kingdom.
But Isaiah’s prophecy isn’t escapist fantasy. It is a real-world vision of how God heals creation through the Messiah and through people filled with the Spirit of God.
This passage speaks directly into our moment—into a world full of beauty and yet scarred by injustice, war, loneliness, and despair. Many of us know exactly what it feels like to live among “stumps.”
And Isaiah announces:
Hope grows where we assume nothing can grow.
Two Sections of Isaiah 11: A King and a Kingdom
Isaiah 11 unfolds in two distinct movements.
1. Isaiah 11:1–5 – A Spirit-Filled King
These verses describe a leader filled with the Spirit of the Lord:
- wisdom
- understanding
- counsel
- might
- knowledge
- the fear of the Lord
This King judges with righteousness, prioritizes the poor, defends the afflicted, and refuses to be swayed by the powerful. This is leadership we can imagine—a real political transformation rooted in justice and compassion.
2. Isaiah 11:6–9 – The Peaceable Kingdom
Suddenly, the prophecy becomes startlingly poetic, even mythical:
Wolves lie down with lambs.
Children are safe around once-dangerous creatures.
The earth is filled with the knowledge of God.
We read this and think: “This has never happened.”
Exactly—that’s the point.
Isaiah envisions a complete reversal of how our world works, where violence and domination are finally undone.
This is not a world we build through human effort alone.
It is a world only God can bring.
When Life Looks Like a Field of Stumps
Isaiah uses the image of a stump—a tree cut down, life reduced to memory. Many of us know this image personally:
- grief
- exhaustion
- broken relationships
- unanswered prayers
- despair about the world
We also know the world’s beauty, and Advent invites us to hold both: joy and lament, beauty and brokenness. To ignore the stumps is to ignore our neighbours, the vulnerable, and even parts of our own story.
Isaiah’s message is for anyone who has decided too soon what cannot grow.
Why Isaiah Longed for a New King
As a court prophet, Isaiah watched corrupt kings devastate the nation. Bad leadership produced social collapse, poverty, and suffering.
In the Old Testament worldview:
As the king goes, so goes the nation.
Isaiah imagines a new kind of ruler—endowed fully with the Spirit of God. A leader whose internal life is shaped by reverence for God, not fear of the powerful. A leader who lifts up the poor and confronts the wicked.
This is the type of leadership that could create a world where “they will neither harm nor destroy.”
It’s also a glimpse into God’s own character.
If this is what God’s Spirit does in a king, what must God Himself be like?
Jesus and the Fulfillment of Isaiah 11
Christians read this passage during Advent because Isaiah’s promised King is fulfilled in Jesus, born from the line of David.
Jesus begins his ministry by quoting Isaiah:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor…” (Luke 4:18)
Mary sings the same message: God lifts up the humble and brings down the proud.
Jesus is the verses 1–5 King—the Spirit-anointed ruler who brings real-world change.
And he forms a verses 1–5 people, filled with his Spirit, who begin to manifest a verses 6–9 world.
This is why Advent is not nostalgia. It is longing.
Longing for Christ to be born anew in us.
Longing for his peaceable kingdom to take deeper root in our world.
What Isaiah 11 Means for Us Today
1. Speak the Full Good News
Many people think Christianity is mainly about heaven after we die. But Isaiah 11, the Gospels, and the entire biblical narrative proclaim something larger:
Jesus came to renew creation, restore justice, lift the poor, and transform societies.
Isaiah says:
“The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”
This is public salvation, not private escape.
It affects cities, nations, policies, relationships, economics, and the vulnerable.
When the Spirit of God moves, lambs feel safe. Wolves become gentle. Systems become just. The poor are lifted. The oppressed are freed.
2. Act with Jesus in His Mission
Some of us are already joining Jesus in making life better for the vulnerable—and in that service we taste the future kingdom.
Some of us sense our faith feels stagnant. Often this happens when we receive Jesus’s comfort but resist Jesus’s calling.
And some of us feel overwhelmed. Isaiah’s vision feels too heavy.
If that is you—hear grace:
You may be the afflicted one today.
Your call is not to do more, but to receive mercy.
Jesus sets a table in the wilderness for you.
Advent is for the weary as much as the ready.
Advent Hope: Waiting for the World to Be Made New
Isaiah 11 ends with a promise big enough to carry the whole world:
“They will neither harm nor destroy…
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord.”
Until that day, we speak, act, hope, wait, and walk through the field of stumps—
watching for shoots of new life.
This is Advent hope.
This is the peaceable kingdom.
This is the world Jesus is creating—
as far as the curse is found.
View the full message here.
The Table Church 