DAY 9: Isaiah 11:1-5

1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. 2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD - 3 and he will delight in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; 4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.  5 Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.

We as Christians don't really understand the Holy Spirit. We speak energetically and flowingly about God our Heavenly Father, and about God the Son in Jesus, but when we are questioned on the Holy Spirit, we shuffle our feet and stare at our shoes in shameful confusion. Well, he's a ....ghost? It's a.....feeling I get? We don't really have a concrete, comprehensible picture of the Third Person of the Trinity. This picture in Isaiah shows the integral nature of the Spirit in Jesus' ministry. When the angel Gabriel appears to Mary, we see the Spirit's role in Jesus' conception: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. (Luke 1:35)" When Jesus begins his ministry, his first public words are: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor...(Luke 4:18)" Jesus did not come alone to the world, but came with the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit. This Spirit exists in us as Christians, teaching us, admonishing us, and comforting us. Through the Spirit, Jesus did not "judge by what he sees with his eyes," but instead saw the supernatural world that lies behind and within the world that we can observe naturally. We too are called to look past the physical realities of our daily existence and see what the Holy Spirit enables us to see. We are called to seek righteousness and wisdom, to search for understanding and the fear of the Lord. As we welcome the physical reality of a baby in a manger, let us ask the Holy Spirit to help us look beyond that fact and show us the true wonder of what happened in Bethlehem over two thousand years ago. 

"This little babe, so few days old,

Has come to rifle Satan's fold.

All hell doth at his presence quake

Though he himself for cold do shake.

For in this weak, unarmed wise

The gates of hell he will surprise."