Journey to Bethlehem day 9

Monday, December 9 Isaiah 11:6-10

6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;
and a little child shall lead them.
7 The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,
and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
9 They shall not hurt or destroy
in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
10 In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.

The question of rightful authority always dogs human existence. In our beginnings we all ask at some moment “Says who?”—who will we let tell us what to do? Maybe our sentience is rooted in or related directly to this rather uppity challenge. Maybe we become who we are in asking; maybe it is a defining moment for us. It could even be that we seize our selfhood only by blurting it out; maybe it’s like the cutting of the umbilical, a profound reason for those terrible twos.
And then afterwards? As we always get it wrong, we chart our way on answers that always point us in the wrong direction. Turbulence follows, as night follows day, surrounding our foul-ball trajectories like the rain bands whipping around the hurricane’s eye, our free will guiding us ever downward, self-creating the low-pressure center.
And there we sit, quizzically surveying the havoc around us, wondering why, missing the point, blind. We need a healing to see rightfully how to answer that question, a supernatural healing.
Blind free will is a terrible actor. Millions die from it.
It need not be so. There is a true, rightful authority that quiets all storms of whatever magnitude, wherever they occur. He has the capacity to rectify the opposites we have come to regard as normal, gazing out as we do from our blind sighted centers. This true authority’s incomprehensible power is what the prophet proclaims above. We read it and say honestly, “How can this be?”
The Zechariah within us always asks from the blind, hardened center. Let’s ask this Advent from Mary’s seeing, pierced heart—and get it right!

Lord Jesus, only your authority quiets storms; only your command gives sight to the blind. Come Lord Jesus, come into our always-wrong hearts. Set them anew. Amen.