Peter Wohlleben wrote a remarkable book called The Hidden Life of Trees. In it, he wrote about a walk he took through a grove of beech trees, when he discovered a patch of strange-looking mossy stones.
Curiously, the stones were in a circle, with a hollow space in the center.
When he lifted the moss off one of the stones, he was surprised to discover that they weren’t stones at all, but old wood. Very old wood.
When he tried to lift one up to inspect it, he couldn’t. They were all attached underground. They were connected.
What looked like mossy stones arranged in a circle were actually the gnarled remains of an enormous ancient tree stump, which had been felled several hundred years earlier.
Wohlleben used his pocketknife to scrape a little wood off, and he was even more surprised to discover that the wood underneath was green.
The wood was still alive.
How was that possible?
Wohlleben knew that “living cells must have food in the form of sugar, they must breathe, and they must grow, at least a little. But without leaves—and therefore without photosynthesis—that’s impossible.”
Yet networks of fungi exist that connect the roots of different trees together. So somehow, the surrounding beech trees were pumping sugar through these fungal networks into the stump to keep it alive.
***** Isaiah wrote about an old stump. The stump Isaiah described represents what was left of Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah.
Isaiah had watched the mighty swords of the Assyrian army slice their way through his native land, destroying nearly everything. This happened over and over, and would happen again.
There was little hope. There was little peace. The people could not imagine that there was any future for them.
The nation that was once a mighty tree was now nothing but stump.
But though reduced to a stump, the tree was not dead. And from this stump, Isaiah said, new life will spring forth. The promise of God will not fail. God’s promise is stronger than the swords of the mighty Assyrian army…
Later generations came to see this description of a shoot springing forth from a stump as a description of Jesus of Nazareth…
When all hope is lost, when the night is at its darkest, when the mighty tree has been reduced to a stump or even some gnarly, moss-covered remnants of a stump…
God’s promises will prevail…
And life will be renewed…
And hope will be restored…
And peace will return to the people…
As we enjoy today’s beautiful music, and as we continue with our celebrations of Advent and Christmas,
May it all remind us that God hasn’t yet given up on this world,
that God hasn’t yet given up on us,
that there is still a promise that will be fulfilled,
that comfort will come to those who have suffered under oppression’s load
And that God’s word is never broken, but will—in our lives, and for the rest of time—find its fulfillment in Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph.
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