June 24th

Today's reading in the One Year Bible Chronological Reading Plan is Isaiah 8-11

A couple of things stood out for me in today's readings - all of them beautiful pictures and promises of hope in the midst of a very dark time in Israeli history.

First, I don't think I've ever really caught the meaning of the symbolism Root of Jesse before. From my Life Application Bible.....
Assyria would be like a tree cut down at the height of its power (10:33-34), never to rise again. Juday (the royal line of David) would be like a tree chopped down to a stump. But from that stump a new shoot would grow - the Messiah.

I always knew the Root of Jesse was the Messiah of course, but I've never seen it through the end of Chapter 10 like that. What a beautiful picture of hope. We've all seen pictures of forests ravaged by fire or simply chopped down to stumps - such a bleak and hopeless lanscape. But out of the ravages of evil and war would come the promise of hope to the whole world!

The famous "to us a child is born" portion I loved of course, but what jumped out at me more this time was more at the beginning of this chapter...

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. Isaiah 9:2

The light of course refers both to the hope of the Messiah and Jesus himself. The apostle John refers to Jesus as the "light" (John 1:9) and Jesus refers to himself as "the light of the world" (John 8:12).

For me this is such a beautiful pictures of hope, especially for the few people who remained faithful to God throughout the reigns of evil and good kings. No matter how bad it was, there were always at least some faithful people amongst the darkness of the times and they must have just clung to this promise of hope.

And I think it's a great promise for us to cling to as well. We too are walking in a time of darkness, but the Light will come again in power and majesty to reign forever more.

Come Lord Jesus!

Tomorrow's passage: Isaiah 12, 17, 2 Chronicles 28:16-25, 2 Chronicles 29:1-2, 2 Kings 16:10-18, 2 Kings 18:1-8, 2 Kings 15:30-34, 2 Kings 17:1-4, Hosea 1-2:13