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We have just finished the most family oriented holiday—Thanksgiving. There were stories in the papers about how to “survive” being around your family for a couple of days. We chuckle but nod our heads. Even if we are scattered across the nation, we want to be in touch if not at table with family on Thanksgiving. They may bring us great joy and heartache—but deep down I think we know: who you are related to, blood or otherwise, matters.
As I thought about our lesson for today, what came to mind were those Ancestry.com commercials. You know the ones—where someone talks about researching their lineage. A little box with a green leaf pops up, and then, they say, if you click on the green leaf, other boxes pop up, with lines that connect your box to other boxes, and WOW, you are related to someone interesting!
It seems that this desire to trace where we come from has deep roots. For we read in our focus lesson from Jeremiah today that the promised one, the one to rescue the people of God, will come from a specific line—the line of David--the greatest king, the beloved of God. A righteous branch will spring up, Jeremiah says. A branch to bring justice and righteousness. God will cause a righteous branch to spring up for David. In other words, we know the ancestry of the promised one, the one we wait for, the Messiah. This is why when the writers Matthew and Luke were presenting their case for Jesus being the Messiah, they meticulously present Jesus’ geneology, to prove that he is of the line of David.
I can imagine someone saying, So what? It’s a nice image, this “righteous branch.” And I’m glad that Matthew and Luke help us see that Jesus has the pedigree to be the one Jeremiah was talking about. But what possible connection could all of that have to us?
I began to think about trees. I noticed that the image Jeremiah chose is a branch. A branch does not spring out of nowhere. A branch is connected to a trunk, to roots, to a tree. A branch is an extension of what was before, a reaching out into new places, new spaces. A branch widens the reach of the tree. A branch can go in a different direction than the trunk. Without branches trees would probably not be as wonderful.
This isn’t just a nature lesson. It is a theology lesson as well. The story of Emmanuel, God being with us, could have been told as God deciding to drop down out the sky. Think about it. No messy relatives to deal with in the present. No bad associations in the past. And no connection to the rest of the human race. But that isn’t the story of Jesus. The story of Jesus situates him in a family, with family history, with ancestors that had successes and tragedies. In other words, like us.
Jeremiah’s image of a branch shows that God’s workings, even God’s own being with us, isn’t something foreign. It comes from within the family.
And then, there is that word “righteous.” This isn’t any old branch, but a “righteous” branch. A branch who will bring justice and righteousness. This tells us something—if the branch is needed to bring these things, then they are not already here. There isn’t justice for everyone. There isn’t righteousness—being right with God and with one another—everywhere. And we want these things, we long for these things, and God has promised them to us.
I know we have been talking about the end times the last few weeks, but I couldn’t help comparing the image from Mark (with the only hint of anything good being that word “birthpangs”) with the reading we have from Luke today. Jesus is still talking about terrible events, but says, “When these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, for your redemption is drawing near.” Stand up, and raise your heads, doesn’t sound like a survival tactic. It sounds like rescue. It sounds like something to be awaited rather than feared.
Jeremiah prophesies: There will be a branch. A righteous branch. A branch that will bring justice and righteousness. A time when things will be better. “In those days, Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety.” We can certainly understand those sentiments. We too long for a day when we don’t have to be worried about others who might do us harm.
We believe that the one who Jeremiah foresaw has come into the world. That the line of David did produce a righteous branch, and that his name was Jesus.
The image of the branch helps remind us that this Jesus is one of us. That Emmanuel, God with us, is not just something pretty to say at Christmas time, but a bedrock of who we know Jesus to be. And our gospel lesson reminds us that although Jesus--the righteous branch, the one who brings justice and righteousness, the one who saves us and helps us live in safety—although he has come, the changes are not complete, there is more work to be done. We talk in Advent not only about Jesus coming as a baby, but Jesus coming again, to complete that turn toward justice and righteousness in our world.
I circle back to the question, as I often do, “what does all this mean for us?” I’m glad for this expanded image of Jesus as the righteous branch. I am glad to hold onto the call this year to “stand up and raise your head” in the face of unnerving events. But preaching to meant to bring the scriptures in contact with our lives, our world, today. So I thought again about branches. And another image from scripture bubbled up. An image from the Apostle Paul in Romans. In his argument about the inclusion of Gentiles (that would be us) in the people of God he says, “ …If the root is holy, then the branches also are holy. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in their place to share the rich root of the olive tree, do not boast over the branches. If you do boast, remember that it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you” (Rom. 11:16b-18).
Do you see what has happened here? The image of the branch, the righteous branch, has expanded. The tree of God is becoming more full. New branches are being grafted onto the old tree, the tree with strong, holy roots. And these new branches are us. We become part of the tree, part of the family. We are offshoots of the righteous branch, and attached to that lineage that comes from the “root of Jesse,” all the way back to God.
And what are we, the new branches, supposed to do? In nature, new branches do what branches always do—maybe on a smaller scale. We should drink deep from the root. We should produce leaves and fruit. We should relish our connection to all the branches around us.
There is a wonderful quote from Teresa of Avila, one of the mystics of the church, who may have been pondering questions much like the ones we have been talking about today.
“Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the
world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”
(DatingGod.org—“O Root of Jesse: The God Who Comes From Within, Dec. 19, 2012)
In Advent we stand up and raise our heads for the promised one is coming soon.
In Advent we stand up and raise our heads knowing too well that the Kingdom of God has yet to be fully realized.
This Advent let us stand up and raise our heads and be the branches we were meant to be—The body of Christ reaching out into the world. May it be so. Alleluia, Amen.
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