Isaiah 12:1-6

Advent is sometimes overlooked in our rush to Christmas because Advent asks us to do the very thing we hate to do most – wait in patient, abiding hope. Advent is the between-time. It is the pregnant pause intruded upon by the labor pains of a groaning Creation. We know new life is about to burst forth, but we only sense the pain of the present moment. We dare not hope that things might be different because we have been disappointed by false hopes, empty promises, and shattered dreams.

“You will say in that day.” That day. Not today. The future planted in the present. Today, however, they walk through the ruins and rubble of dilapidated memories. The ground is scorched earth. The land is salted-laced barrenness. The surety of their kings and kingdom are utterly shaken. Though a shoot may be sprouting from the stump of Jesse, it is hardly a tree worth noting in the devastating landscape.

“You will say in that day.” Strange that a command for song would be given in the midst of such brokenness. But songs have a way of burrowing deep into the ground of our sorrow and sprouting new imaginative possibilities previously inconceivable. “You will say in that day” is a surprising turn because the community has not yet experienced their salvation. This call to sing songs of joy feel like throwing a party by the bedside of a dying friend – out of place. The assertion that these songs will be sung lifts eyes beyond the settling dust to see a new future emerging, even in the midst of death. You will sing the song of praise on that future day of deliverance. But, even now, you will begin to fan the flame of hope by singing this song in anticipation of God’s made-complete promise.

The initial “you” is masculine singular. Following the stump and shoot of Jesse from chapter 11, the “you” in 12:1 seems to point to the Davidic branch. The kingly line of David was a rotten tree. It was dried up from lack of living water. It sank its roots into the soil of oppressive practices, leaching the life out of the very people it was meant to serve. It shed blood with violent hands, subverted the courts, denied justice, oppressed the poor and helpless. God’s anger was kindled against these leaders, this Branch. Yet, God’s promise to bring a shoot from the stump elicits praise from the kingly remnant (the singular “you”). God’s judgment may wound but it also consoles and heals.

God’s judgment is ultimately salvation. Verse 2 calls up the song of salvation sung by the people delivered from Egypt (Ex. 15:2). God is delivering Judah through a new Exodus. This is not only a deliverance from Exile. Rather, God will deliver Judah from Judah’s own destructive practices. It is deliverance from the pharaonic brick-making quotas, the systems of coercion and manipulation, and the dragging chains of economic slavery which they have enforced on the weak and vulnerable in their midst, citizen and foreigner alike. It is judgment that precipitates a return to the ways of neighborly shalom and well-being.

This is the “water from the wells of salvation.” This is the living water which will give life to the dead stump. Not the same life. Entirely new living. To find abundant supply of living water (“wells”) in the desert-land, marks the generosity of the life-giving God of Judah. Whereas the judgment of God has made Judah like a wasteland, the turning of God will “make it rain” on all (plural “you” in verse 3). These will not be the floodwaters that sweep away (chapter 10). Rather, God will sustain and bless the life of all, greatest to least, for the mutual flourishing of all Creation. The throng of the faithful will gather in exultant adoration and praise, proclaiming God’s new creation works. Perhaps this living water will spill out into all nations, like water sloshing from a bucket’s open mouth (v. 4b).

“You will say in that day.” The “you” has turned toward the plural. The promise of God encompasses, not only David’s line, but the whole community. God’s promise ripples outward in concentric circles of particularity. David’s Branch, people of Judah, the nations. Here, in the midst of captivity, Judah’s praise will testify to God’s wondrous deeds. How strange it may seem that praising God in the midst of life’s storms could be the very thing that impacts those living apart from God. Praising God in the darkest moments of life does not come naturally but it is the necessary turn so that our vision might be reoriented to the Ground of our Being. God’s future promise becomes present in our praise.

What is this great promise? What is the shape of this future-but-now-strangely-present home? “God with us.” God’s very presence. “Shout aloud and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.” Where Exile suggested that God had finally abandoned them, the promise comes in a whisper that erupts in a shout. God has not abandoned us but is in our midst. Advent recalls this promissory note redemption, knowing that Christ has come and will come again. Though the night may be dark, yet we lift our voices in praise declaring the mighty works of God among us. “You will say in that day… Surely God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid, for the Lord God is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation.” May all God’s people say, “Amen!”