Pretty soon you don’t enough space for everyone at the table. You don’t have enough chairs. You blinked, and the family got a lot bigger. It began with the two of us. We had three children. Now we have ten grandchildren. We don’t have everyone together very often, but when we do, it’s a houseful. That huge dining room table must have shrunk. There’s always more than one conversation going on at a time, filling the room with voices.
Now the Lord said to Abram, “I will make of you a great nation…and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:2-3).
It’s a powerful promise for a childless couple who have just moved into a new home. But you have to start somewhere, right? Plus, nothing is too hard for the Lord.
A little later, when Abram is wondering how God is going to do this, “[The Lord] brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be” (Genesis 15:5).
Not only would Abram father a son named Isaac, but one of his descendants would be Jesus, who came to save his people from their sins. Jesus would be a blessing to all, for “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21).
More importantly, Jesus is a blessing to me. I am one of those innumerable stars Abram saw in the sky. So are you.
So we hang a tent on the Jesse Tree to remind us of Abram (aka Abraham), to whom God made a wonderful Advent promise.
I’m tempted to believe that the world is much worse than it has ever been. Just look around. War, communities in ruin from hurricanes and tornadoes, pandemics, contaminated food, and sex trafficking. I could list more, but it’s depressing.
If you think it’s bad now, the bible tells us about a much worse time in history. Just a few generations after Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden of Eden, “Every intention of the thoughts of [people’s] heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). In just a few pages, sin ran amok in God’s “very good” creation.
That reality doesn’t sit well with the Creator, who tells Noah to get to work on an ark because, “I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die” (Genesis 6:17).
Advent is a sobering reminder that when God shows up, he’s not happy. He’s holy. We’re not. This is gonna be ugly.
Unless you’re on the ark.
On the ark, you’re safe from the flood.
On the ark, you float on the water. On the ark, you’ll survive. You’ll be tossed by the waves, heaving over the side of the boat, and have to take care of all those animals, but you’ll survive. You’ll live to tell about it.
Divine judgment is real. “We will all stand before God’s judgment seat” (Romans 14:10). “Each of us will give an account of ourselves to God” (Romans 14:12). And if you’re honest, it’s gonna be ugly.
Unless you’re on the ark.
Unless you find refuge in the arms of the one who comes to rescue you. “Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24,25)
Jesus is your ark, a refuge from the judgment to come. Wrapped in his righteousness, you’re safe from the deluge of wrath. You’ll survive, forgiven and alive. (And he gives you animals to take care of, too!)
One of the most asked questions is, “Why doesn’t God do something about the evil in the world?”
It’s a great question. God is all powerful. He’s holy and cannot tolerate anything less.
And yet evil exists. It exists because his own created people decided to listen to someone other than him. Evil exists because the very people he created decided to disobey the one command he gave.
Isn’t it interesting that we will pray, “God, please fix this,” when we have made a big mess?
Well, God does something. Here’s what he says:
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”(Genesis 3:15 NIV)
The first gospel promise in scripture comes on the heel of Adam and Eve’s disobedience in the garden of Eden. God speaks these words to the serpent who deceived Eve to eat from the tree of good and evil, the only tree in the garden that was off limits.
God could have been angry. God could have been furious. God could have been beside himself.
But God was slow to anger. God was rich in mercy. God abounded in steadfast love.
Enmity: they will know that you are an adversary. You are not looking out for their best interests. You are an enemy. Your are a liar. You are looking for someone to devour.
God doesn’t fool around. Even though the devil prowls around like a lion, the Lord is much more than a lion tamer. The devil might seem strong, but the Lord is going to more than tie him up and plunder his house. (Although he will do just that.) Jesus isn’t going to put the devil in his place with a commanding “Get behind me, Satan!”
Christ comes to crush the enemy. By the time Jesus is done, the adversary is going to look like the car crushed into a small cube of metal before being hauled off for scrap. The one who put enough pressure on carbon to make diamonds is going to put the squeeze on the devil. The pressure at the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean? That’s nothing compared to the weight of God’s boot on the neck of Satan. Messiah comes to crush the enemy.
We’ve got a few “rage rooms” in the area. A rage room is “a place for individuals and families to release stress and tension by breaking various items, from dishes and knickknacks to TVs and furniture.” Sweet. They provide you with bats, axes, and sledges so you can smash and scream to your heart’s delight accompanied by blaring music.
For a moment, the temple was Jesus’s rage room, when he cleared out the money changers. But that was just the coming attraction. Just wait till the Christ goes to town on the forces of evil!
There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. (Isaiah 11:1,2)
Where I live in Florida, winter means cooler temperatures, but certainly nothing like the cold I’ve experienced when I lived further north. The temperature might dip below freezing one or two days in January or February. When it does, all the leaves fall off my Hibiscus, Mandeville, and Bougainville plants.
That’s my cue to get to work. I cut everything down to the ground and fill up bags for the trash guys to haul away on Wednesday.
Within a week, though, small green shoots with leaves will begin to grow from the stumps I left behind. As the weather gets warmer those shoots will grow inches overnight until a new vine is reaching towards the sky. I gather the new vines and use some twine to keep them close to the backyard fence.
It’s not a wintry blast of cold air that freezes God’s people in the Old Testament. It’s the loving discipline of the Lord for his people who have forsaken him to worship idols. Foreign nations and kings destroy and disperse God’s people.
When God decided that someone with a heart like his needed to be on the throne of Israel, he chose David, the son of Jesse. Not only would David be king, but his descendants would always be king over God’s people.
But once a pagan ruler exiles the people to a pagan place far away from Jerusalem, there doesn’t seem to be much hope. All that’s left to hold onto is the promise that “a remnant will return (Isaiah 10:21). And “there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,” a king descended from David infused with the Spirit of the Lord (Isaiah 11:1,2).
This is a messianic promise. That shoot would not be just any king. “The Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32,33).
That’s right, it’s not over till it’s over. God has the final word, and his word becomes flesh to rule and reign over his people. From that dead stump of disobedient and unfaithful people would come the one who would save his people from their sin, overcome death, and defeat the adversary, Satan.
When Jesus is born, a fresh green shoot starts to grow from the stump of Jesse, rooted in the promises of God. All that Jesus comes to be and do results in life, growth, and fruit. And guess what? By grace, you’ve been grafted into his family by faith. This isn’t just his story. It’s yours. You are part of God’s family.
In the song “Made for More,” Josh Baldwin sings, “I know who I am ’cause I know who You are.” Did you ever stop to think what a wonderful Christmas gift it is to know who you are? By grace you’ve been adopted into his family by faith.
If you’ve forgotten your identity, don’t just get out your wallet and look at your ID. Remember the shoot that comes forth from the stump of Jesse!
Since it’s December and Advent, I thought it would be fun to write some devotions for the season. Some decorate a Jesse Tree in the month leading up to Christmas, so I thought it would be interesting to write about the symbols that hang from its branches to remind us that Christ’s coming begins a long time before his birth in Bethlehem. In fact, we know that God had that day on his calendar before creation. “[God the Father] chose us in [Jesus Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:4,5).
When I searched online for a list of Jesse Tree symbols, I found many variations. These devotions are based on one list I found from Martin Luther College in New Ulm, Minnesota. You can find more here: mlc-wels.edu/publications/the-jesse-tree.
I really want to up my readership, so please share this post with anyone you think might be (or needs to be) blessed by some Advent devotions!
A “through the bible” devotion from 2 Chronicles 9.
“Now when the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon, she came to Jerusalem to test Solomon with riddles” (2 Chronicles 9:1 NASB). Other translations (ESV, NIV) say, “hard questions.” For the moment, I like riddle.
A riddle is a question that seems to be silly but has an amusing answer.
What’s black and white and red (read) all over? A newspaper. (A macabre answer: A bloody zebra).
Say my name and I disappear. What am I? Silence.
Samson posed a riddle to entertain and take advantage of the Philistines. “Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet.” Spoiler: it’s the lion he killed with his bare hands where bees made a hive filled with honey (Judges 14).
So if I had a chance to speak with Solomon, a king gifted with divine wisdom, I’m not sure I would come with riddles. Instead of trick questions, I would want to know about his father David. I’d have questions about the temple. And the amazing wealth he had. And all the foreign dignitaries he had come to visit him.
So many tell me the questions they will have for Jesus when they finally see him face-to-face. I just smile. I have a feeling that none of those questions will matter when you’re with Jesus.
A “through the bible” devotion from 1 Chronicles 23-27.
More names? Oh, yeah, and lots of them. King David’s reign is coming to an end and his son Solomon is ready to assume the throne of Israel (2 Chronicles 23:1). So David gets his house in order, and the write of Chronicles chronicles all of it for us.
David organizes the Levites for all the work in and around the temple Solomon will build. He organizes the priests to offer up the daily sacrifices. David organizes the musicians, gatekeepers, treasurers, and military divisions. Every name is recorded. Everyone knows their job.
When I was getting ready to retire from full-time pastoral ministry, there were a lot of lists to leave behind for my successor.
I updated the membership database.
I made sure every member was properly assigned to an elder, and made each elder had a current list of their assigned families.
I left a list of all the children and youth members for the youth directors.
I complied a list of all the homebound members and the last time I had visited each.
I arranged for the welcoming of new members, one last confirmation class, a few baptisms and a funeral.
Just like David, I tried to tie up all the loose ends as new leadership came on board. It turned out to be a larger task than I imagined. Which is why it takes up five whole chapters in 1 Chronicles. I had a lot of that information in my head and on my calendar. I downloaded it all to the church office.
I did a good job. I only got one or two phone calls over the next year about things I forgot to write down for someone else. I’m sure David did a good job, too.
A “through the bible” devotion from 1 Chronicles 1-9. (1 Chronicles? Yep.)
One of the more time consuming administrative tasks in a church office is keeping records of congregational membership and official acts. Weekly updates reflected the transient nature of the community. Families joined, members died, couples got married, moms gave birth, youth were confirmed, young and old were baptized, families moved away or joined other churches, and individuals moved, changed phone numbers and email addresses. We constantly updated the membership database, a spreadsheet to record the changes, mailing lists, and a directory for the congregation.
From time to time I would look through the list of names. Some brought back wonderful memories. I didn’t remember some. A few joined and left within months. Some disappeared without a trace. A small collection of names were charter members.
This information came in handy. A mother came in one day to get a copy of a misplaced baptism certificate so her son could enroll in a parochial school. Another was surprised that they were not an official member of the congregation. The lists highlighted those who hadn’t been to worship for a while, who had stuff going on in their lives.
The first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles are not action-packed. They are endless lists of names, from Adam to the flood to the exile and back again. Yes, my eyes glazed over as I skimmed the pages til I got to the words, “So all Israel was recorded in genealogies” (1 Chronicles 9:1). This was their version of membership records.
Those who returned from exile needed to connect with God’s people of the past. They needed to know they belonged. They were blessed to be a part of a chosen people, a holy nation, a royal priesthood, and a people belonging to God. We’re blessed to be a part of those people, too, saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Imagine page after page of names, including yours.
That’s saying a lot, since his grandfather Manasseh and father Amon were kings who did what was evil, worshiped idols, and brought on Judah the certainty of God’s judgment.
Josiah ascended to the throne at the age of eight. When he was twenty-five, he initiated repair of the temple.
Guess what they found?
Hilkiah the high priest said, “I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord” (2 Kings 22:8).
I’ve always thought it amazing that they could lose their bible, which would have been the Pentetuech (the first five books of our bible). Clearly it hadn’t been read in a long, long time.
Imagine someone asking, “Where is your bible?” And you have to say, as you rummage through boxes of books, “I know it’s around here somewhere.”
In some churches I go to, most people have a bible with them. In others, hardly anyone does. I wonder why?
In some churches they project the bible passages on a screen. In others, they print out the readings in a handout. So I guess it’s not essential to have a bible with you at a worship service.
But it’s helpful. Here’s why:
You can easily read the context of a passage of scripture. Context is so important. The before and after of a verse makes a verse come to life!
You can underline, circle, highlight, and make a note in the margin to read later.
You can look at other notes, highlights, circles, or underlines you’ve made in the past.
You can quickly look at other verses that come to mind or are mentioned in a sermon or by a teacher. Yes, you can do this digitally, but I find it easier to do with paper pages and a thumb to keep my place.
I find it amusing to imagine a couple scrambling around, trying to find their bible so they can leave it out on the coffee table when the pastor comes to visit. Have to make a good impression, right?
When King Hezekiah gets sick, the prophet Isaiah tells him to get his affairs in order. It’s terminal. He’s going to die.
After Hezekiah prays and weeps, Isaiah comes back and says, “Good news. God is going to give you fifteen more years to live!” (2 Kings 20:6). As a sign to Hezekiah, God makes the sun’s shadow move backwards. Yes, Hezekiah, it’s for real.
How would you live if you knew you had fifteen more years ahead of you? I think that much time makes the question a little harder to answer. It’s one thing when the doctor says, “Three to six months,” or perhaps another year. Fifteen years is a long time.
Would it take you fifteen years to get through your bucket list? Or would you coast until you got to the last year to tie up loose ends?
Would you still try to take care of yourself? Or would you cancel the gym membership you don’t use and eat whatever you want? For a while – exactly fifteen years – you’re immortal.
At what point would you begin to sweat? When would you start to worry about your demise? What would you think about in year fifteen? After all, you don’t know how you’ll die, just when.
I believe it’s better not to know. The psalmist prays, “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12). Embrace your mortality, accept the uncertainty of life and death, and make the most of today.
Waite for it... 