Recovering Your Imagination
Second Sunday of Advent. December 7, 2025
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the LORD shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge, and the fear of the LORD. His delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge for the poor and decide with equity for the oppressed of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist and faithfulness the belt around his loins.
The wolf shall live with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the lion will feed together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious. Isaiah 11:1-10
Dear friends,
As followers of Christ, we see the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy in Jesus, the Nazarene. He restores the royal line of faith with “the Spirit of the Lord” resting on him. He is the Savior who ushers in a new kingdom that is our way of life forever, bringing justice and peace.
But for Isaiah, his words summoned something else. When he considered the Davidic dynasty in his time, he saw failure, compromise, and decline. The kingdom was only a shadow of its former glory, threatened by powerful enemies and weakened by faithless kings. By all practical measures, the story appeared finished—the tree cut down to a stump. Yet Isaiah’s imagination, guided by God’s promises rather than the current situation, allowed him to see what no one else could: a shoot emerging from that dead stump, a new beginning when endings seemed inevitable. Kings and rulers were to take note: use your imagination to envision a new world that God is bringing about.
Today, we live in an age saturated with human imagination—we can envision technological marvels, economic possibilities, and social innovations. Yet our imagination for God’s kingdom work has withered. We can dream up artificial intelligence but struggle to imagine authentic transformation. We can envision colonizing Mars, but find it harder to picture the kingdom of God breaking into our families, our neighborhoods, our cities. The problem is not that we lack imagination, but that we’ve disconnected it from the Spirit of God. We’ve tried to dream God-sized dreams with human-sized vision, and perhaps we’ve exhausted ourselves in the effort.
How can we recover our imagination? Let’s revisit the stories that shaped Isaiah’s vision — the God who led Israel through the Red Sea, who transformed David from a shepherd of sheep to a shepherd of a nation, and who came as a child and now prevails as Lord of all life! These are the stories to spend time with, plus others. Allow them to expand what you believe is possible. Then look again at the stumps in your life and ask: What if God isn’t finished here with me? We regain our imagination not by trying harder to believe but by immersing ourselves in the testimony of what God has already done. Then, ask, What if…?”
Watching and waiting,
Lo, how a rose e’er blooming,
From tender stem hath sprung.
Of Jesse’s lineage coming,
As men of old have sung;
It came, a flow’ret bright,
Amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night.
Lectionary Readings for Second Sunday of Advent: