By Conrad Navarro
Isaiah 11:6-9
As I sit writing this devotional I’m still feeling sick, still shedding tears, and still praying for the survivors and the family members of our brothers and sisters of this week’s massacre in Sutherland Springs. King Ahaz, facing an attack from Israel and Syria, asked Assyria for help. Assyria saved Judah from destruction but made Judah a vassal state. As good a king as Ahaz was, he could not bring about the kingdom described in these passages. After all, he was only human. The kingdom on earth that the prophet Isaiah described here, the reversal of the Original Curse due to Original Sin, will only be accomplished by the King of all kings, the long-awaited Messiah, Jesus.
Notice that this picture-perfect restoration of God’s creation is here on earth. It’s not in the by-and-by. It’s in the here-and-, and still waiting for the, now. God will defeat hatred, hunger, fear, illness, violence…evil! We will live in true peace with one another and in harmony with our environment. Some still wait for the Messiah, but we know that He has already come. He has come in our lives and in our world. There is always “room at the inn” for God in us and in His world.
Yet, we yearn and groan as creation does for our final redemption. At times like this, I can’t help but ask, “How long, Lord?! How long before we are rescued from ourselves?” And then, I force and remind myself once again, that in spite of the evil in this world, God is still in control of time. Then again, I remind myself that we are in a perpetual Season of Advent, still waiting for the final triumph of good over evil. There is “room at the inn!” Maranatha, come Lord Jesus!