Saturday, Day 21: O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

For Kids:

Have your parents put up a Christmas tree yet? 

Is it decorated with ornaments and other things?

Why do we do that?

The idea of putting up a tree goes back a long time ago…way before you, or your parents, or even your grandparents were born.

A long time ago there was no electricity to light up the homes, so people use to light candles in their homes, especially in the winter when the daylight was shorter and the nighttime was long.

Once, when a man who loved God, was walking outside in the winter he saw the stars shining through the trees and with Christmas soon coming he thought of an idea – bring the tree into His home and put candles in the tree and decorate it to celebrate Jesus’ birth.

When we’re going to have a party, we decorate the house, don’t we?

Well, we’re only a few days away from celebrating Jesus’ birth, so it’s fun to decorate the house to welcome him in.

Here’s a kid’s song that is called “Oh Christmas Tree”…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2_pxKxxVA0

One special thing you might ask your parents to do is create your own decoration to hang on the tree.  There are lots of things you can do. 

And, here’s a tree to color:

For Parents and Other Not Kids:

Christmas for most people involves a tree.  

For years we have gone out and gotten a freshly cut tree; but I realize that a lot of people prefer the convenience of the artificial trees – which frankly have gotten amazingly better over the years.

What is it about Christmas trees?

There are many historic reasons for the inclusion of the evergreen tree in the Christmas season, and perhaps the most basic one is that in Autumn (in the Northern Hemisphere that is) the leaves fall from the deciduous trees and the days of light grow shorter, darkness more and more invades the earth, and the cold weather drives us indoors.

I personally love winter, but the symbolic part of "life" retreating can't be missed. 

Along comes the evergreen tree and reminds us that life continues in the midst of the darkness, the cold, the winter season. 

Biblically though, almost three thousand years ago a prophet looked all around the land of Israel, and all he saw was "darkness, gloom", a foreboding sense of trouble that would lead to war, captivity, exile for his people, Israel.

The prophet, Isaiah, prophesied faithfully to a nation that had lost hope, and forgotten it's heritage. He spoke truth into the situation but also spoke of hope for the Messiah to come. 

Note carefully, the idea that from brokenness, comes God’s work and new life.

Isaiah 11:1-10
¹  There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
²  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.
³  And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
⁴  but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
⁵  Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
⁶  The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.
⁷  The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
⁸  The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.
⁹  They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
¹⁰  In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.

The passage speaks of a different day in the future when "shalom", the peace of God's Kingdom will cover the whole of the earth.

Where does this begin? It begins with the "root of Jesse...a branch" that speaks of Jesus' coming in the future. 

Remember that Jesus' family line comes from David, who was a son of Jesse.

Psalm 72:18-20
¹⁸  Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things.
¹⁹  Blessed be his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen and Amen!
²⁰  The prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended.

When the angel visited Mary to tell her of the miraculous birth she was to have, he said to her,

Luke 1:31-33
³¹  And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
³²  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David,
³³  and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

The tree, the tree of life from God has continued to grow, to survive even when chopped down, and all that remains is a root, and a branch from a stump. 

The image from Isaiah of the Messiah is full of wonder. "The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and strength, The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And He will delight in the fear of the Lord".

We do not live in a day where it's popular to embrace "the fear of the Lord".

We live in a culture that is centered on "me".

The selfish aspect of that hearkens back to the reminder of what the Jesse tree is all about...that our roots are roots of faith that are linked to God's creation and his ultimate purposes, and the means for all of that is in His Son, our Savior, the branch, the Son of David, Jesus.

Peace