This is the second Sunday of Advent and we continue the theme of Living in Expectation.  Given the situation our world is in today our eyes can glaze over as we read these verses from Isaiah.  Is it a message that is too good to be true?  Does this word picture of the Peaceable Kingdom (… the wolf living with the lamb…) border on the unbelievable?  The good news is that God holds us even as we have these questions.  And He is God who brings life from death.  “A shoot will come from the stump of Jesse…”  We see that Jesus, the Branch from the stump, has come and His new Kingdom has begun.  God brought life from death in Him.  Death did not have the last word for this Branch – Jesus.  As we place our faith in Him the same is true for us.