In the name of the God who coaxes green shoots out of stumps, and makes prophets shout in the wilderness. Amen.
A few years ago, I met a man who was restoring an old orchard. His walled garden was really just a rectangle of mossy brick—and, to be honest, it looked a bit forlorn. Huge, old apple trees, twisted by time; stumps where others had once stood; patches of earth that seemed exhausted. But the man had vision. He could see what would grow.
He showed me one of the stumps—one so dead that it really needed digging out. “Look at this,” he said. And there, right on the tip of the stump, was a single green shoot—absurdly fragile, but alive. “Give that a season,” he said, “and we’ll have apples again.”
I thought of him this week as Isaiah spoke: “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse.”. That stump is human history. And that stump is our habits, our stuck thinking. That stump is the part of us we’ve long since written off—“nothing good will grow here.” And Isaiah says, “Watch.”
Now, picture a wilderness—hot, dry, unpromising. People trudging down to the river, not for a picnic, not for sightseeing, but because someone is shouting a message that will not let them stay asleep. John the Baptiser. John—the spiritual equivalent of a cold shower. John, who appears without backstory, without pleasantries, wearing camel hair and smelling faintly of barbecued locusts. “Repent!” he cries.
But he doesn’t mean “feel guilty.” He uses a specific Greek word - ‘metanoia’; change direction; adjust the compass; turn around. Adjust your thinking away from ego, away from prejudice, away from self-service, and turn your thinking towards the mind and the heart of God. It’s the moment in the orchard when you stop assuming nothing will grow and you start tending the tiny shoot. Repentance is when the gardener decides: “I’ll water this patch again. I’ll prune. I’ll try.” That’s metanoia.
People mistakenly assume that repentance is the dramatic moment, the lightning bolt, the conviction of sin. You walk down to the Jordan, get dipped, shake off the water – and the sin - like a confused Labrador, and go back home...job done. But John says no. He says, “Bear fruit worthy of repentance; worthy of metanoia.” Fruit takes time. Fruit takes tending. Fruit is patience in edible form. Nobody eats fruit from a stump. Fruit comes only when the shoot grows.
And now Paul enters the discussion, writing to the Romans; city-dwelling Christians who probably didn’t have an orchard between them. They understood concrete better than compost. And to them, Paul says, “Everything written in Scripture was given for hope.”
Hope is not optimism. Hope is not “things might be better by Friday.” Hope is the refusal to believe that the stump is the final word. Perhaps Paul would have planted that tiny shoot from Isaiah right in the middle of the Roman Forum—between the Senate and the sausage stall. And watched it confound everyone.
Now let’s bring this closer to home. Years ago—before anyone referred to St Francis as the Cathedral of Leigh Park—this was a field of possibility. A congregation gathered together, reached out, and planted something. Perhaps some of you were part of that first congregation. And it grew—not perfectly, not always vigorously, but unmistakably alive. And yes, over time, some branches have been pruned. Some ideas have dried. Some initiatives have produced bruised fruit. But when I walk into this place, I do not see the stump. I see shoots. A community that still gathers, even when the heating is broken; Lives touched by pastoral care and school ministry; community bursting into life at pantomime time; The kindness exchanged in quiet, ordinary ways; prayers unceasing, Christmas joy. All of that is hope – the green shoots.
And repentance today might look like deciding: “This corner of the orchard still deserves tending. That neighbour deserves a fresh conversation. That ministry deserves pruning instead of abandonment.”
Let me tell you another orchard moment. A year after seeing that abandoned stump, I went back—and the gardener had staked it upright. He had shielded it from wind and frost. And now it had leaves—small, waxy, defiant leaves. I asked him why he bothered. He answered with something Isaiah would have loved: “Because someone before me planted this. And someone after me will taste the fruit.” That is metanoia. A change of direction not just for ourselves, but for the next generation.
Ultimately, that’s Advent thinking. And now, John’s preaching suddenly sounds less harsh, less condemning, doesn’t it? “Repent, because someone after you will taste the fruit. Prepare the way, because someone after you needs that road. Make straight paths, because the Messiah walks behind you as well as toward you.”
Then Matthew offers the final contrast: John baptises with water for cleansing—symbolic, temporary, refreshing. But Jesus baptises with Spirit and fire—not destructive fire, but refining fire, orchard fire: the fire that clears brush, stimulates seeds, prepares soil.
John clears the weeds; Jesus plants the Kingdom. John wakes us up; Jesus carries hope into the bloodstream of the world. John points; Jesus arrives.
So what do we do with this? We look for stumps. Inside ourselves. Inside our community.
Inside our church. And we listen for Isaiah saying: “Watch.” We turn—metanoia—and tend what grows. We water with kindness. We stake with prayer. We protect with courage. And we wait—not passively, but actively. Because someone after us will taste the fruit.
Let me tell you what I saw the third year. Blossom. Ridiculously pink, all fluff and fragrance. And that’s when orchard keepers know the future. Blossom is fruit foretold. No apples yet—but absolutely inevitable. Isaiah saw a shoot. John cleared space. Jesus planted the orchard. Welcome to Advent: we live among blossoms. Amen.
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