A Little Child Shall Lead Them
Photo by S. Tsuchiya on Unsplash
I’d like to focus our attention this morning on the first lesson from the prophet Isaiah which begins like this: “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” but listen for a moment to the verse that comes right before today’s lesson that’s not included in today’s lesson. “Look, the Sovereign, the Lord of hosts, will lop the boughs with terrifying power; the tallest trees will be cut down, and the lofty will be brought low. He will hack down the thickets of the forest with an ax, and Lebanon with its majestic trees will fall.”
Judgment rained down on the oppressors, the Assyrians, just as judgment rained down on the Egyptians before them. The Sovereign, the Lord of hosts, will chop down, like trees in a forest, those who exploit the vulnerable, those who abandon the weak, those who ignore the hungry, those who turn away from the lonely, those who walk away from the sick and from that stump will come the descendants of Jesse – King David – and King David’s descendants all the way to, all the way to… A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse – and his name will be Jesus.
And what will he be like? How will we know it is Jesus? Listen – Here’s how, “Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.” Now listen, listen and imagine what it’s going to be like when Jesus is here among us! Listen! “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.”
A little child shall lead them: listen, listen if you will to this synopsis of a children’s story called, The Child’s Garden by Michael Foreman:
“A young boy is living behind barbed wire in a war-torn country. His neighborhood is nothing but rubble and his family are struggling to survive. He sees a small plant poking through the rubble. It won’t survive without help, so he collects some rainwater and tends to it. It grows into a beautiful grapevine that covers the barbed wire – barbed wire which divides the neighborhood, and that beautiful grapevine grown from a tiny plant poking through the rubble creates a shady area for children to play. Then the soldiers come and tear down the vine.”
“A little child shall lead them.” This child, this young boy sees in his bombed-out yard nothing but destruction yet poking through the rubble is this tiny, green plant, and this child nurtures it and cares for it until it is a protected and fun place to play with his friends until, that is, the soldiers come back and tear it all down. The soldiers tear down what the children create.
The pictures in this children’s book make it look like the war-torn country is somewhere in the Middle East – probably Palestine, but the story is neither anti-Israel or pro-Palestine, but instead the story is about what happens when a child leads us. It’s as story about what happens when we plant seeds of hope. It’s a story of what happens when life, not death has the final word. And the story doesn’t end there.
Yes, “the soldiers did tear down the vine the boy grew from the rubble, but that doesn’t stop seeds on the vine from dropping on the other side of the barbed wire. A young girl from the other side of the barbed wire tends to the plant and it grows again. More shoots appear on the boy’s side of the barbed wire, and the two vines entwine and grow together, with children playing happily under each side.”
From nothing comes something. From destruction comes beauty. From death comes new life. “A shoot comes from the stump of a dead tree, from Jesse, to King David, to Jesus and new life, and yes, that child shall lead us. “What child is this who lay to rest on Mary’s lap is sleeping.” This child shall lead us.
This child shall lead us. “When air-raid sirens sounded in Kyiv, Ukraine recently, the Shchedryk Children’s Choir, which was deep in rehearsal for a Christmas program, went into action. More than two dozen young singers, carrying sheet music and backpacks, rushed from the Palace of Children and Youth, their longtime practice space, to a nearby bomb shelter. There, using cellphones as flashlights, they resumed their singing, filling the cold, cramped space with folk songs and carols until the sirens faded. “I was scared, but I was also hopeful,” recalled Polina Fedorchenko, a 16-year-old member of the choir. “We knew that if we could get through this, we could get through anything.”
The children of the Shchedryk choir, (which performs at Carnegie Hall in New York City today) have been hit hard by the war. They have lost friends and relatives in the fighting; watched as Russian bombs have devastated schools, churches and city streets; and grappled with the anxiety and trauma of war. But in the midst of such trauma, the children are determined to use music as a way to heal Ukraine and promote their culture around the world.”
“The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together” and a child shall lead them. “And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of a snake and not be bitten.” And a child shall lead them.
Listen to this testimony by one of the children of the Ukrainian choir. Her name is Oleksandra Lutsak, and she says the war had deeply affected her music. Now, when she sings, she said, she sees the faces of five friends who died in the war. Sometimes, she imagines the experience of a friend captured by Russian soldiers. When rehearsing folk songs, she envisions “destroyed homes with no roofs, collapsed walls, everything burned down — and people standing around who have nowhere to spend the winter.” “These songs remind me of the pain,” she said, “but they also help me somehow deal with the pain.” And she along with all the children of the choir are bringing their music around the world to raise awareness about the evils of war that’s leaving their country in ruins.
From silence comes music. Better yet from air raid sirens comes the voices of singing children. From nothing comes something. From destruction comes beauty. From death comes life. “A shoot comes from the stump of a dead tree, from Jesse, to King David, to Jesus and new life, and yes, that child shall lead us. “What child is this who lay to rest on Mary’s lap is sleeping.” This child shall lead us.
The story comes in many forms doesn’t it, and it’s the same story whether from a children’s picture book or from a news article about the Ukrainian children’s choir preparing for Carnegie Hall or from the Bible and the prophet Isaiah and its story of the ancestors of Jesus all the way from Jesse to King David to a manger in Bethlehem, it’s a story of a child leading us – leading us from darkness to light, despair to hope, grief to joy, Good Friday to Easter morning.
It’s a familiar story – isn’t it. We’ve all been there. We all know what it’s like. So I ask you – what do you remember about one of your darkest days – when grief or shock or trauma captured you and wouldn’t let you go?
There’s one enduring, timeless memory from a particular dark time in my life. It was the sudden death of my father 33 years ago. I was in a state of shock. It was just so unbelievable and unexpected – a heart attack killed my dad at the age of 61 years old. We were at the funeral home for the visitation. My two sons, William and James, were five and two-years-old, and for the most part were acting like a five-year-old and a two-year-old ought to act like – running around and being kids. And then at one point, James, the three-year-old, wanted to look into the open casket at his grandpa. I lifted him up and un-prompted he blew grandpa a kiss! And unfazed, got down and continued to run around.
From grief comes joy. From death comes life. From sorrow comes hope. From air raid sirens comes the sound of children singing. From a tiny green shoot comes a leafy grapevine. “A shoot comes from the stump of a dead tree, from Jesse, to King David, to Jesus and new life, and yes, this child shall lead us. “What child is this who lay to rest on Mary’s lap is sleeping. Whom angels greet with anthems sweet while shepherds watch are keeping.” This, this child – whom we await – shall lead us. Amen.
Review of “A Child’s Garden” by Michael Foreman comes from the website, “The Bookbag” authored by Betty Shanks.
The Ukrainian Choir story comes for the New York Times, written by Javiar C. Hernandez, December 1, 2022