When people ask about the importance of the Old Testament prophets for today, it’s easy to note how the content of their preaching expresses a message that remains relevant. As the saying goes, “the more things change, the more they stay the same” — the sins the prophets preached against are the same that rear their ugly heads today. Yet as we approach Christmas through Advent, we also see that the prophets didn’t simply call people to repent (enthusiastically!) but also had much to say about the future birth of the Christ child.
In the Old Testament, there is a recurring image the prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah, and Baruch, for example) use to signify the future coming of the Messiah, and that is the image of the “branch.” The most famous of these references to the “branch” comes in Isaiah 11:1, which is what the “Jesse Tree” devotion originated from: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” A “shoot” from the “stump of Jesse” — so who is Jesse? Father of David, slayer of Goliath, King of Israel, and inheritor of the promised covenant (see 2 Samuel 7, wherein God promises David that the kingship will never be taken from his line, indicating that the Messiah will be of David’s stock). So, according to the prophecy of Isaiah, we read that the Messiah will come from Jesse, father of David. Why is this such a big deal, though? Because a problem arises…
King Zedekiah, heir to the throne of David, refused to listen to the prophet Jeremiah about submitting to the Babylonian empire in the early 500s B.C. Babylon, led by the infamous King Nebuchadnezzar, is the new world power, conquering everybody in their way with their sights set on Jerusalem. Jeremiah says to submit, for it will be worse to fight back because this is God’s punishment for sin. So, failing to submit would imply continued disobedience to God, further worsening the situation. Unsurprisingly, Zedekiah doesn’t listen, choosing to rebel and inciting a two-year siege on Jerusalem by Babylon. Eventually, Babylon breaks through, and Zedekiah and his sons flee, but they are captured in Jericho, where Zedekiah’s eyes are gouged out after he watches his sons be killed. The Babylonians then burn everything down — the king’s house and the people’s, the Temple, and the city — and gather up everybody except a few poor people to ship into exile. This marks one of, if not the lowest point of salvation history in the Old Testament.
Now, at this point in 586 B.C., it looks like everything is lost. How is there any sense of restoration amid this destruction? It seems that the Jews will never again have a Davidic king rule in the political sense.
The Tree of Jesse, Unknown Artist, c. 1240, Würzburg, Germany.
By all accounts, everything is done for, and recovery is a lost cause, the covenantal promise to David revoked. What, then, gave the Jews any hope while off in exile? This is where Isaiah 11:1 and the prophesized “branch” comes in. Herein, the Davidic kingdom is likened to a tree, a tree that is torn down with exile. The “stump of Jesse” is the broken-down kingdom of David in exile, for they were a great tree, and now they’re just a “stump,” seemingly devoid of all life. And yet, as Isaiah says, there will be a branch to rise from its roots. There is still hope because God will raise up another king out of the seemingly hopeless and helpless exile. While from a human perspective, everything in exile looks destroyed and the covenant with David done for, the promises of the prophets of a branch to come are a beacon of light because God is and always will be faithful to His word. We may stray from God’s word, but he never does.
This is ultimately what Advent, with its Jesse Tree devotion specifically, is meant to express as we prepare for Christmas. Throughout Advent, we hear references to Christ’s ancestors in the Mass readings and then place ornaments on a “tree” — a symbol of the Davidic Kingdom — depicting those ancestors of Christ. We’re trying to represent in our devotional practice this beautiful line that was promised to one day bear the Messiah, to show that Jesus is the branch to rise out of the roots of the stump of Jesse. The more modern form of the Jesse Tree also contains ornaments that don’t just depict the ancestors of Christ but symbols of the gradual approach to the Messiah in salvation history. Starting with the world’s creation all the way to Christ, they emphasize not just the bloodline of Jesus but how he is, on a much bigger level, the story of Israel and humanity coming of age to a momentous climax. Ornaments with symbols of Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and so on all lead to Jesus as we follow the course of salvation history from creation to the Flood of Noah, to the patriarchs, to the prophets, and finally to the time of Christ — all of which aim to help us better understand the mystery of what God and his love has done for us in salvation history. God promised a Messiah to come (Genesis 3:15) and promised he’d come from the line of David (2 Samuel 7). We follow that narrative thread through the symbols of the ornaments we place on the Jesse Tree to symbolize the Kingdom of David and the promise that the Messiah would rise out of its conquered and exiled ruins.
When we celebrate the birth of Jesus, we don’t celebrate just that event in itself (as grand as it is!); we celebrate the fulfillment of the long-standing prophetic promise for God to be with us, always faithful to his covenant promises. It is a fidelity that culminates in the birth of the Christ child we celebrate on Christmas day. So, rejoice! And thank God for the gift of the Incarnation of his son.