“Homesick” — Isaiah 1:11–10
So… it’s officially that time of year when we go outside, find a perfectly happy, innocent tree—just minding its own business, photosynthesizing, doing what trees do—and murder it.
Then we drag its dying body into the living room, stand it up in a decorative pot, wrap it in lights, and say, “Behold! Christmas joy!”
And the tree’s like, “I was literally fine outdoors. Why am I in here wearing a bunch of electrical cords and glass balls? And what’s the deal with how that cat is looking at me?”
Every December, millions of families reenact this strange ritual. Bring a full sized pine tree into our home to die… to make the house feel more alive. Kind of weird.
But it’s also the perfect image for Advent—we’ll come back to this.
As soon as we finish decorating this poor kidnapped tree, it all kicks into high gear. Because… Christmas has a way of getting out of hand.
Suddenly every night has something on the calendar.
Every weekend is double-booked.
Our inbox is a winter wonderland of “flash sales,” “Black Friday,” and offers for the “perfect gift”—because the true spirit of Christmas is buying a Ninja waffle maker at 2 a.m.
There are parties to attend, photos to take, cookies to bake, Amazon boxes breeding on the porch like bunnies, and school programs where a hundred kids dressed as elves pick their nose and stare nervously into the lights.
And underneath all of it—underneath the lights, the lists, the last minute Target runs, the pressure to make everything perfect—there’s this other thing going on in our souls.
An ache.
A restlessness.
A homesickness.
Not for a particular house or a childhood bedroom.
Something deeper.
Christmas whispers something about “home,” and we can’t explain it, but we feel it.
We long for something that no amount of holiday cheer can manufacture.
A place where everything really is okay.
Where people we love aren’t missing from the table.
Where peace isn’t something we try to create with scented candles and background music.
Where joy isn’t so fragile.
We want a home that actually feels like home.
And Advent steps up and says it,
“We all feel it—we’re all homesick.”
Not for a place we’ve been…
but for the world as God intended it. The eternity He wrote on our hearts.
For the home we lost long ago in the garden, the one He’s promised to restore.
For this Advent season, the weeks leading up to Christmas, we’ll be turning to the Book of Isaiah. Written about 700 years before Jesus was born, Isaiah is speaking to God’s people at a time when everything familiar is falling apart. Their kingdom is splintering, their leaders are corrupt, their worship is hollow, and the storm clouds of exile are gathering on the horizon. They’re not technically “far from home” yet—but spiritually? They’re already miles away.
And Isaiah—this poet-prophet who sees into the distant future—tells them the truth.
“You wandered away from God. You trusted all the wrong things. You cut yourselves off from the only home you really ever wanted.”
They’re already homesick and they haven’t even gone anywhere yet.
But Isaiah’s not just doom and gloom. He’s also the prophet of impossible hope. He looks at a dead, chopped-down stump of a kingdom and somehow sees life growing out of it. He sees a new King coming—greater than David—filled with the Spirit, full of wisdom and justice, gathering people from every nation, and bringing God’s exiles home again.
So when we open Isaiah chapter 11 today, we’re stepping into that Advent tension:
a world that feels cut down… and a God who promises new life.
A people who feel far from home… and a Messiah who comes to bring them back.
Some of what Isaiah describes has already happened for us because Jesus has come.
Some of it is still in the future because we’re still waiting for His return.
All of it is God saying, “You’re not abandoned. I’m bringing you home.”
Isaiah gives us a strange picture of hope. He wants us to picture a stump.
[Isaiah 11:1] “Out of the stump of Jesse’s family will grow a shoot—yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root.”
The “stump of Jesse” is a fancy Bible way of saying, “The kingdom of David is toast.”
Jesse was King David’s dad, so Isaiah is saying God is basically going back to square one—starting fresh on His promise that the Messiah will come from the line of David, rebooting the whole thing.
From a stump that looked dead and hopeless—we will see life rising from death.
At the time of Isaiah, Israel’s kings had failed, their nation was collapsing, everything felt lost.
It looked like God’s promises had been chopped down.
And Isaiah says, “It’s not over. Watch the stump.”
Because God does His best work where everything looks hopeless.
A shoot is going to grow from that stump.
Just a little sprout. Something you’d probably miss if you weren’t looking for it.
Kind of like a baby born in a stable in a backwater town in the middle east.
Kind of like some carpenter’s kid growing up in Nazareth.
This shoot—who will be named Jesus—is not just a survivor of a dead dynasty.
He’s a new beginning.
Verse 2 says:
“And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon Him…” Isaiah 11:2
This is already fulfilled—it happened at Jesus’ baptism, we see it in His teaching, His miracles, His compassion, His authority. Jesus is the divine Son of God. Emmanuel. God with us.
That’s what verses 3–5 are about:
“He will not judge by what His eyes see…”
“He will give justice to the poor…”
“Righteousness will be the belt around His waist.” Isaiah 11:3-5
He will delight in obeying God the Father. He will not judge by appearance nor make decisions based on hearsay. In other words: He sees everything as it is.
We don’t. We misjudge everyone:
We assume the worst.
We fill in the blanks with suspicion.
We condemn people for what we think they meant.
But Jesus sees through all the noise.
He sees clearly.
And He judges with mercy, not hearsay.
In a world that cries for “justice,” that’s actually terrifying—you know how you are—the last thing you would ever want is justice. You want mercy, just like I do.
Verse 4 talks about the “rod of His mouth” which is His Word—His ability to speak truth that cuts through lies, destroys wickedness—not by violence but by speaking.
Isaiah saw all this 700 years before Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Wrote it all down and the people waited for a long time. And then Jesus came into the world—He lived, He died, He rose again. A lot of people missed it.
But it happened and it’s still happening.
Every time the Gospel is preached, every time someone believes, every time a broken soul is healed, every time Jesus confronts sin with mercy and forgiveness—that’s the kingdom of God happening in our midst. Jesus is ruling right now.
The shoot is already growing.
So, is that it? Jesus came, did His work, and there you have it? He said, “It is finished.” Is it finished?
Yes and no. He finished the work of salvation, He brought the kingdom of God, but He’s still in the process of applying what He finished. That won’t be completed until He returns at the end of time as we know it. Which is the mysterious heart of the season of Advent.
Advent means “arrival.” We’re in a season dedicated to waiting for the arrival of Jesus. We remember that God’s people waited before that first Christmas when the Word became flesh and lived among us. And as we decorate our houses and wait for December 25th, when we celebrate Jesus being born to Mary 2025 years ago—we remember that we are also waiting for Him to return in power and glory at the end of time to make all things new.
Isaiah sees all these things, he kind of jumbles them together—first and second coming of Jesus—because he goes on to describe something bigger, stranger, more beautiful than anything we’ve seen so far. Verse six starts talking about…
“The wolf shall dwell with the lamb…”
“The leopard with the baby goat…”
“The lion will eat hay like a cow…”
“A little child will lead them…”
“Nothing will hurt or destroy…” Isaiah 11:6-9
We read this and think, “When did that happen? Did I miss it?”
Because we all know that’s not life on this planet.
Not yet, anyway.
No matter how you look at it. Because, some theologians think it might be symbolic. Like these animals are metaphors for the nations—predators and prey living in peace under Christ’s rule. Other theologians think it’s a description of the Literal new creation where God will remake the world with no violence, no fear, no danger—even the animal kingdom completely at peace.
I think it’s both, but no matter how we interpret it, the point is the same:
It hasn’t happened yet.
The shoot has come and is growing.
But the garden is yet to be completely regrown.
We live in between the two realities.
This is what the season of Advent is about.
The King is here.
His kingdom is here—we’re invited to be part of it and spread the word.
But the fulness of its glory and complete reconstruction of the fallen creation is still on the way.
We all know this. We live in a world where bad things still happen, where justice is corrupt, where creation groans for redemption, where wolves still hunt lambs… but we cling to the promise that one day there will be no more pain or destruction or sadness.
Not even in your heart.
We’re not there yet.
But God guarantees it’s coming.
Isaiah wraps it up with this in verse 10:
“In that day the root of Jesse will stand as a signal for the peoples; the nations will rally to Him.” Isaiah 11:10
Paul quotes this in Romans 15 and says, “This is happening right now.”
Jesus is the banner.
The signal.
The rallying point.
The dead stump that produced a Savior for all nations.
When people of every background gather in a church to worship Jesus—that’s Isaiah 11:10 happening in real time.
When someone comes to faith—when someone gets baptized—when someone returns home to God after wandering far away—that’s Isaiah 11:10 in action.
When you share what Jesus has done for you—that’s Isaiah 11:10.
The shoot is already bearing fruit, and we get to be part of it. This is our mission. To call people back home to a place they have never known but have always longed for.
Every church’s mission is like shining the Bat signal into the night sky to let all the bad guys know Jesus is on the way. Help is coming. This is what NewChurch exists for.
This is what God’s people have always existed for. To call people home—invite them over to celebrate with us. We are the light and the bringers of Joy to the world. At least we’re supposed to be…
But too often we live like sad little exiles sitting in our living room staring at the tree we dressed up to hide the fact that it's either dying or fake.
We’re like, “Come on joy!” We play Mariah Carey, burn cinnamon candles and try to summon the ghost of Christmas spirit.
We stay busy, we wander around distracted.
Trying to find home in all the wrong places.
Looking for peace in the things of this world.
Trying to get joy from things that can’t deliver.
Bad news comes at us from every direction, there’s no escaping it. Where is peace on earth, goodwill to men?
Credit cards rack up debt. The same person who made Thanksgiving awkward will probably ruin Christmas, too. More bad news. Another shooting, another flood, another war. Death is all around us. We feel very far from that home we long for.
We tend to forget God has always done His best work in situations that look hopeless.
But the good news of Advent is God doesn’t wait for you to find your way home.
He comes to you.
The shoot grew from the stump.
Jesus came into your darkness.
Right into your hopelessness.
He came to you.
I said I was going to explain why the Christmas tree is the perfect symbol for Advent.
The tree was perfectly happy outside.
The eternal Son of God was perfectly happy with the Father and the Spirit in heaven, too.
The tree was cut down and brought into the house to die and bring a little joy.
Jesus came into the world to live among us, and to be hung on a tree and die. Willingly, unlike the tree.
1st Peter 2:24 says,
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” The cross is the tree that gives us life.
The angels sang “Joy to the World” on the night He was born, and He brought true joy and hope to the world when He rose from the dead.
Think about this as you look at your Christmas tree this year.
Jesus is the shoot that grew from the stump of Jesse, grew into the tree that would be cut down—on a hill outside Jerusalem—to bring the whole world back to life.
He died so death can’t kill you.
He rose to give you life.
He promises that what God has started in you, He will finish.
What God has started in the world, even though it looks dead or dying right now, He will finish.
So, when you look at your Christmas tree this year—
there’s a reason it stirs something in you.
It’s not just pretty lights and sentimental memories.
Christmas taps into a homesickness you’ve carried your whole life—
a longing for a home you’ve never actually lived in,
but somehow know exists.
Because God pre-wired you for the New Creation that’s coming.
And every December, that shiny tree in the corner is screaming,
“This isn’t it… but something better is coming.”
The Christmas tree is a symbol of that Advent ache—
the already and not yet—
the beauty we taste now and the fullness we’re still waiting for.
It’s not just nostalgia.
It’s rooted in prophecy and promise.
It’s a longing for Jesus.
Because He’s the One your heart is remembering.
He’s the home you miss.
He’s the light of the world you’re decorating to catch a glimpse of.
He’s the gift of grace we’ve all been given.
And one day, that home you’ve only felt in your spirit—
the peace you’ve only imagined in your soul—
the world Isaiah saw in his vision—
that will be the world we wake up to.
No more longing.
No more ache.
We’ll truly be home.
With Him.
Imagine you wake up one Christmas morning and this is what you find under the tree: No fear. No cynicism. No sleepless nights. No guilt. No shame. No anxiety chewing at your soul. No broken relationships whispering ‘This will never be fixed.’ No grief. Just peace. Just the knowledge of the Lord filling the earth as the waters cover the sea.
So let your Christmas tree preach to you this year.
Let it stand there and quietly remind you:
The One you’re longing for has already come. He is making all things new.
And the home you’ve never seen is the one He’s bringing you to.
Amen.