Advent Devotion: “The Branch”

My boys and I like to cut down trees. That’s one of our hobbies. Not big trees. Little scrub trees. All along the fence in our back yard are little trees growing where they are not supposed to be growing. So, one by one, we’ve been cutting them down. You can see our progress: Little stumps sticking out of the ground. Some one inch thick. Some two or three inches. Stump after stump.

That’s what God called his people long ago: A stump. Did you hear that? The “stump of Jesse.” Do you think that was a compliment? No way! Jesse was King David’s father. But hundreds of years later, all that was left of Jesse’s family tree was a stump. The Israelites had been cut down—literally. That was Isaiah’s message, and it came true. The Babylonians attacked Judah and cut it down like you cut down a tree. Even Jerusalem was burned to the ground. When their country fell, it crushed those people. We can’t imagine that. It’s never happened to us. It must have felt like their hearts had been cut right out of them. Just a few people were left. A stump.

Actually, it was worse than that. There was something even worse than having their country destroyed. They deserved it, and they knew it. Their own sin had brought all that on themselves. Prophet after prophet had warned them. When we confess our sins on Sundays, notice how often the verses we use come from Isaiah. But they didn’t listen. So they weren’t just separated from their homes or their homeland. They were separated from God. They were defeated as God’s judgment on them. So how do you think they felt? Like this big. Just a little stump. After all the greatness of King David and King Solomon, all that was left of Jesse’s tree was a stump.

I bet you know how that feels. Maybe you’ve never gone through life thinking, “I feel like a stump,” but now that the Bible mentions it, you know how that feels, don’t you? Cut down. Maybe not by foreign armies. But by people you thought were your friends. Cut down. Destroyed. Maybe not because your city is ruined, but because your body seems to be. Your health is failing. Discouraged. Maybe not because you’ve been taken into exile, but because you don’t feel like you belong in your own house. A stump. Do you know that feels?

And just like for the Israelites, there’s something that makes it even worse. It’s often my fault. It’s often your fault. Now, we have to be careful. God tells us that his judgment on Judah was directly connected to their sin. He doesn’t tell us that with each problem that we face. Don’t look at the difficulties in life as God’s judgment. But it’s still true that when we take an honest look at our difficulties, we recognize that many of them are our fault. That thing we knew we shouldn’t do, we did. That decision we made out of selfishness or greed is coming back to haunt us. And we feel it. Guilt. Regret. Shame. Even Christmas lights can’t hide it. You feel like a stump.

But when my boys and I cut down those little trees, I noticed something. A month later, when I went out to where one of those stumps was, do you know what I saw? A stump. Still there! But something more: Shoots shooting out. Lots of them! Have you seen that before? The tree was cut down. It’s branches were gone. But that stump wasn’t dead (unless you put stump killer on it.) It was cut down, but not destroyed. Damaged, but not dead. It had all these shoots with new life.

Now listen to God’s promise about the stump of Jesse: “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.” Like that stump, God’s people were cut down, but not destroyed. They were damaged, but not dead. They had been beaten. They had been punished. But there was still hope. What was the hope? A Branch. A Branch was going to come up from that stump of Jesse and bear fruit. Who do you think that Branch is? Jesus! Jesus is the Branch. In fact, in six different prophecies in three different books, Jesus is called the Branch. God’s people looked like a stump and felt like a stump, but there was hope. Because behind the scenes a miracle was happening that no one could have ever dreamed of, except for God. God hadn’t given up. God hadn’t stopped loving them. God was going to bring his people back to life.

Through Jesus. It’s that cool? Listen to how Jesus is described: “He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.” Jesus would come with justice and righteousness and faithfulness. He was going to preach good news to the poor and bind up the brokenhearted and proclaim freedom for the captives. At the moment with God’s people felt like they were at their lowest point, at the very moment when God’s people felt like God had given up on them, God himself was preparing to come. From the stump, a Branch would bear fruit.

The Branch. Take a minute to think about all the trees in Jesus’ life. When he was born, Jesus was placed in a… manger. God with us. Time and time again, Jesus climbed into a wooden fishing boat and sailed on the Sea of Galilee. More than once, he told the wind and the waves to stop. God with us. Some thorny branches were twisted together to make a crown of thorns for the King of kings. God with us. And then Jesus died upon a wooden cross, where “he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). God for us. The Branch came to bring life to people dead in sin, to bring forgiveness to people weighed down by guilt, to bring hope to people feeling like stumps. “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse.”

So you can be sure of this: Even if you’ve been cut down, there’s hope in Jesus. Even if it feels like all is lost, there’s hope in Jesus. Even if it seems like there’s no solution, there’s hope in Jesus. Even if you realize that it’s all your fault, there’s hope in Jesus. God makes stumps live. God makes stumps grow. He does it every day for you when he forgives you and restores you. God takes what was cut down and makes it more beautiful than it ever was before. Because of the Branch—because of Jesus. When you look at your life and all you see is a stump, remember this: “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.”