"What is that?"
Things like this don't usually stick out anymore. We drive by, shop next to and eat near obviously-worshiped things here everyday. But we were stuck in traffic. To one side sat this stump. One of the girls asked why it was decorated. For Christmas? Is it painted? Who painted it? What is that anyways?
It's a stump. I'm guessing from a banyan tree.
Next to a parking lot of a sports store, across the street from a mall sits this pergola (?!) enshrining, or at least sheltering, this remains of a tree. It's wrapped and painted. It's garlanded and streamered (sometimes you just have to make up words). It's worshiped. "Poor little stump," said Molly.
That stump cannot give life. In fact, it's not even a full tree. It cannot grow anew. But Molly's comment reminded me of the passage in Scripture we had been reading this Advent.
"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..." Isaiah 11:1-2
It stuck in my mind because we had to explain to the girls what a stump was, and why it is so miraculous for a shoot to grow out of it. A failed, broken family tree...cut down...and in God's providence, the tree grows anew. Same root. Same history. But now we can see life. And not just a boy to continue to the line, the family name. But a Savior, a branch that will carry many shoots. A tree that will include all that are His. Here we can grow and rest.
"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." Isaiah 11: 10
Let us not worship the stump. Let us come to the Branch, the Giver of Life!
