Thursday, December 12th

By: Sid Imes-Burkett
Isaiah 11:1-10
Reflection—v.9 ‘they will neither harm nor destroy’

Isaiah 11:1-10 is a beautiful passage—beautiful enough to bring one to despair in the year of our Lord 2019, when the gulf between our world and that of the prophet’s vision seems hopelessly wide. Closing our eyes and thinking of happy-clappy animals feels tone-deaf at best. 2,000 years ago, though, if I’d been focused solely on Roman colonialism and Herod’s genocide, I’d have missed something pretty important. God’s thing has never been hauling the faithful off to a sky-castle. The miracle of the incarnation is that Jesus joins us right in the middle of the worst we do to one another. The powers that be bring death, but Jesus is always on the move on the margins. I never know what I’m going to find on a given day at Mercy. We don’t have lions or snakes, but we do get some dogs, and we get an amazing cross-section of human beings. And we’re a hot mess. And God is incredibly faithful to us. By showing up, I get to see the beloved community that God is creating and the abundance God wills for all of us. Hope, for me, is the work God does in opening my heart to the goodness of those around me and the new thing God is doing in and through and around our brokenness. Thanks be to God!

Prayer: God, come and do a new thing, even and especially, in the midst of our brokenness.

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