A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. 2 The spirit of the Lord shall rest on Him and the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord. 3 His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
We’ve all seen this while walking in the woods—a fallen tree, its trunk festooned with fungi and woodpecker holes, full of life even in death, and a living shoot springing from its stump. What a hopeful image to remind us that God is aways finding ways to bring life from fallen things!
My final year in college I spent the month of January working with a local farmer, scrambling across snowy hillsides helping set up a network of flexible pipelines to tap his maple trees. He was a true forester, and taught me much about identifying trees in winter, by their bark, their buds, their form, their habit. Although there were no mature American chestnuts in his woodlot, there were young chestnut shoots emerging from root systems still alive eighty years after the chestnut blight decimated the American chestnut. He talked about how some of them would live 10-15 years, but eventually would succumb to the blight. We stood in awe of the gallantry of those roots refusing to give up on life.
Today I read about researchers and students at a college in New York state who, after decades of research, have developed a viable and thriving transgenic American chestnut that is resistant to the fungus that causes the blight. And I think, well done, roots! Well done, foresters! Oh, well done, God! You instilled in those roots a delight in life, a wisdom and strength and understanding that didn’t give up in the face of calamitous pandemic, and you instilled in foresters and researchers a spirit of counsel and knowledge and loyalty to your creation, and look, a new thing is springing up!
Lord, help us to never despair, but to love what we love as we walk upon this tender, comely planet you have created to be our home. Help us to remember that the grieving Ruth, whose future seemed blighted, lived to become Jesse’s grandmother, and the ancestress of our Lord and Savior. Help us to remember that after defeat and exile and subjugation to foreign rule, Isaiah’s prophetic vision of a shoot springing from the stump of Jesse was embodied when a young woman gave birth in a stable in Bethlehem.
“Oh Light born of Light,
Jesus, redeemer of the world…
You who once deigned to be clothed in flesh
for the sake of the lost,
grant us to be made members
of your blessed body.”
Anonymous text from 10th century hymn “Cantiones Sacrae”
Contributed by Jane Steinkraus