First Sunday of Advent         
Jesse Tree
Isaiah 11:1-10 (NRSV)

A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.  The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.  Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.  The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.  They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.        

The image of new growth coming out of the stump is a great sign of hope.  Advent is a season of hope in what God will do.  The history of our Judeo-Christian faith is long, and it is filled with complicated stories that challenge the modern believer.  However, at the basis of the story is that God has never left the people he created, and he has continually brought new life out of what seemed so hopeless.  An important message for our day is that God has not left us and has not stopped moving things toward the good and toward new life even if it seems to be so hopeless.  We remember that good and evil, life and death are not equal powers.  God, the giver of life has dominion over all, even the evil and death he has allowed to happen in his divine providence.  A faithful person of God looks for the new life, the new beginning and the new growth happening in our world today.   

When you look at nature, you see that God made it so everything is renewable and useful for the rest of creation.  Even when it seems that something is dead or no good, God can bring new life from it and can turn it into something good.  In God's world, nothing he created is wasted and everything God made is recyclable.  One image of Jesus coming at Christmas is the image of a stump of an old tree that was cut down that has a new tree growing from it.  God always calls us to bring goodness and life in every part of our lives, most importantly in places where there does not seem to be anything good or where there is not any happiness and love.  

Talk to your family about how Jesus came to bring goodness and peace in places that do not have any and he asks us to do the same.  Discuss places where children and adults can bring happiness in sad places or goodness in bad places in this world.  Ask them of a time when they helped change things by turning a bad situation into a good one and explore how it made them feel.