O Root of Jesse - December 18

O Root of Jesse, you stand for an ensign of the people; before you the rulers will shut their mouths; and for you the nations will seek: come and deliver us, and do not tarry.

Jeremiah 23:5-8; Psalm 72:11-18; Matthew 1:18-25

The tree of Jesse is a medieval depiction of the house of David, the son of Jesse.  Jesus is seen as fulfilling the promise of Jeremiah 23:5 - “The days are surely coming, say the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land” - and Isaiah 11:1 - “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.”  I’d suggest reading Isaiah 11:1-9 again this week, to see what the promise is.

We hear in both Matthew and Luke that Jesus is descended from David through Joseph.  In different ways, both Luke and Matthew make clear that Joseph is not Jesus’ biological father, but the Gospel passage for today shows me that Joseph was surely his spiritual father.  This man is engaged to a woman who is found to be pregnant by someone (something?) else.  He could disgrace her, but wants to avoid that.  He dreams that her child is holy and he should marry her - and he does.  He listens to his inner voice, he braves the gossip of the community, he cares for this child as his own.  Surely, when Jesus pronounced blessing on the poor in spirit, the meek, the righteous, the pure in heart, he had Joseph in mind.

Jesus’ genealogy, the reading for yesterday, is designed to remind us that this line of Israel is shot through with questionable characters and “the wrong sort of people.”  Redemption does not come from purity, but from faithful listening for the word of God.  Just as Jesus is grafted onto the line of David through Joseph, David was grafted on through Ruth, and Boaz through Rahab, and back through the whole seamy story.  Jesus is in the line of sinners and misfits called to holiness, to wholeness.

And so am I.  And so are you.

Look around today.  Where in your history or your present is God making salvation out of the muck of your life?

Come and deliver us, and do not tarry.