1.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from
God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The
message from God’s Word in this 4th Lenten Midweek Service is taken
from Psalm 80, Isaiah 6 & portions of Isaiah 10 & 11. It’s entitled, “Jesse’s Tree,” dear
brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
During Advent, First Presbyterian
Church in Tyler, Texas, hangs on its lectern a dramatic purple parament
depicting the stump of Jesse blossoming with a bloom resembling a lily. In our
Second Reading tonight, you heard reference to a “shoot” and a “branch”
from the “stump” and “roots” of Jesse (sometimes translated a “rod”
from the “stem” or “stock” of Jesse). Jesse, of course, was King
David’s father. Based in part on a Latin translation, some even extend the
figure of speech to make the stem to be the Virgin Mary and to make her flower
(sometimes “bloom” or “rose”) to be Christ.17 Regardless,
that lectern parament presents a striking image of the “Jesse Tree” that
we focus on in this fourth sermon of our special Lenten series themed “Living
among the Bible’s Trees.”
3.
Considering Jesse’s Tree, we realize
that, though we, like the people of Judah and Jerusalem, are laden with iniquity,
Jesus, the Shoot and Branch of Jesse, comes forth and conquers for us. In our First Reading, we heard God call
Isaiah to proclaim a message of judgment against Judah and its capital
Jerusalem at the hands of the Assyrians. Their land, Isaiah was to tell them,
would be burned, like a tree reduced to a stump. But all hope wasn’t lost, for
the holy seed was in that stump. The stump might appear to be dead, but it wasn’t
dead; new shoots could sprout from its roots. In the Book of Job we find this
contrast of such a tree to a person who dies and is laid low: “For there is
hope for a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its
shoots will not cease. Though its root grow old in the earth, and its stump die
in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put out branches like a
young plant” (Job 14:7–9).
4.
So, not surprisingly, in the Second
Reading, as Isaiah proclaims a message of judgment against the Assyrians and
the start of new life for God’s people, Isaiah returns to the image of the
stump in order to prophesy of the long-promised Messiah. In short, judgment was
necessary, but all hope for the future wasn’t eliminated. Judgment was necessary, as you might know or
expect, because the people of Judah and Jerusalem, especially their kings, had
been unfaithful to God. Isaiah rebukes their many sins, but he especially
addresses their idolatry, their worshiping false gods. Maybe striking to our
ears when successive generations are less and less “churched,” God,
through Isaiah, calls Judah children whom he reared and brought up who rebelled
against him. He calls them a sinful nation, a people laden with sin, offspring
(or “seed”) of evildoers, children who deal corruptly, who had forsaken
the Lord, despised the Holy One of Israel, and were utterly estranged. Through
Isaiah, God says that an ox knows its owner and the donkey its master’s crib,
but his people didn’t know or understand (Is 1:2–4).
5.
We’re no different by nature, and
all too often we’re no different by thought, word, or deed, omitted or
committed. We fail to fear, love, and trust God above all things, and so we
misuse his name. We despise preaching and his Word in its verbal and
sacramental forms. We disobey our parents and other authorities and we don’t
help and support our neighbors in every physical need. We don’t lead sexually
pure and decent lives. We do not help our neighbors to improve and protect
their possessions and income. We don’t explain everything in the kindest way,
and we aren’t content with the possessions, people, and animals that God has
given us. We deserve not only the sort of temporal punishment God through
Isaiah promised Judah and Jerusalem, but we also deserve eternal torment in
hell.
6.
In another agricultural figure of
speech, that of a vine, our Psalm (Ps 80:8–19) recounts the Lord’s favored
regard for Israel and its kings until the people’s unfaithfulness prompted God
to let them suffer—as part of his enabling call for them to repent. And
as part of an answer to that enabling call to repent, the psalm pleads for the
Lord to favor the king again and restore the people that they may call upon his
name and be saved. We made the psalm’s words our words! We rightly confess our
sin not only on Sundays and Wednesdays during this penitential season of Lent
but also every day of every season. For, when we confess our sin and trust God
to forgive our sin, then God does just that: he forgives our sin, all our sin,
whatever our sin might be, for the sake of his Son, Jesus the Christ, the Shoot
that comes forth from the stump of Jesse, the Branch from his roots that bears
fruit.
7.
By the time of the birth of Jesus,
that royal line of David, the son of Jesse, seemed long dormant and dead. Yet,
whether traced to the Virgin Mary, Jesus’ mother, or Joseph, Jesus’ legal
father, Jesus descended from David (Lk 3:23–38; Mt 1:1–17). As Isaiah
prophesies elsewhere, Jesus grew up like a young plant, a root out of dry
ground, of humble origins and an unlikely prospect for success (Is 53:2). But,
far greater than Solomon or any other king (Mt 12:42), Jesus is Jesse and
David’s key descendant, who epitomizes all that the Lord promised to David
(2 Sam 7:1–17). Out of his great love for us, the whole triune God at
Jesus’ Baptism is involved in anointing him for his work, with what is called
the sevenfold gift of the Spirit. Jesus was and is the promised Savior (Acts
13:22–23). Jesus is the holy Seed of the woman, who on the cross bruises the
serpent’s head to defeat him, though there the serpent bruises his heel to
strike him dead for a time (Gen 3:15). The Root of David has conquered (Rev
5:5; cf 22:16), and he has conquered for us! As we with repentance and faith
rally around him who stands as a signal for the people, we’re forgiven, and so
we participate in his kingdom of peace and righteousness.
8.
In the First Reading, Isaiah knew
that he was undone in the presence of the King, the Lord of hosts, because he
was a man of unclean lips who dwelled in the midst of a people of unclean lips.
Yet, one of the seraphim touched Isaiah’s mouth with a burning coal taken from
the altar and so took away his guilt and atoned for his sin. Similarly, we who
are sinful by nature can only stand in the presence of the Holy God by virtue
of his first atoning for our sin on the cross and then giving us that
forgiveness through his Word—the Word read and preached and sacramentally
administered to us individually in Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and Holy
Communion. In Holy Communion, the body and blood of Christ are present on this
altar in bread and wine, distributed by me and received for the forgiveness of
sins, life, and salvation. And then, as Isaiah’s service followed, so our
service follows. Not all are called and sent as Isaiah was, but all have
callings (vocations) in life. In those, we, drawing on the rich provision of
God’s grace, do the good works prescribed by his Commandments. In other words,
abiding in him the Vine, we branches bear much fruit (Jn 15:5), ultimately
bringing glory to God the Father as our good works lead others to hope in the
Root of Jesse (Jn 15:8; Rom 15:12). And though we die and be laid low, on the
Last Day we will be made alive again! Considering Jesse’s tree, we realize
that, though we, like the people of Judah and Jerusalem, are laden with
iniquity, Jesus, the Shoot and Branch of Jesse, comes forth and conquers for us.
9.
Depictions of the “Jesse Tree”
go back at least to the 11th century, and those depictions are said
to be the origin of representations of other family trees.18 Jesse’s
tree often has Jesse lying on his back and a vine or tree growing out of his loins;
symbols or depictions of various people in the line of descent are attached to
the tree, and the Virgin Mary and the child Jesus usually appear at the top.19
Similar is the portion of the “Jesse Tree” window from the cathedral in
Chartres, France. We thank and praise God for bringing forth our new life from
Jesse’s seemingly dead stump, and, with expectant hope and peace and joy, we
look forward to God fully and completely fulfilling the prophecy through
Isaiah, by gathering his dispersed people from the four winds, from the ends of
the earth to the ends of heaven (Mk 13:27). Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all
understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life
everlasting. Amen.
17. John Bradner, Symbols
of Church Seasons & Days
(Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 1977), 25.
18. Jean Anne Hayes Williams, “The Earliest Dated Tree of Jesse Image:
Thematically Reconsidered,” Athanor 18 (2000): 17; archived:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070125034845/http://www.fsu.edu/~arh/events/athanor/athxviii/AthanorXVIII_williams.pdf,
accessed March 22, 2019.
19. Bradner, Symbols, 25.
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