O Root of Jesse

O Root of Jesse, standard raised for all people—kings will stand dumb in your presence, the Gentiles will pay you homage: come!  Deliver us!  No longer delay!
 
You, Root of Jesse, have always enjoyed planting things in the earth.  At the dawn of creation, you set about your gardening, and you planted the first seeds of your most beautiful vine: the human race.  Its roots delve deep, deeper even than the earth, if the truth be told.
…David, son of Jesse, son of Obed, son of Boaz…
…Judah, son of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham…
…Enos, son of Seth, son of Adam, son of God.
You yourself are our root.
 
You, Jesse’s stump, lopped off our hope after David.  It all became too much: too much adultery, too much blood, too many crooks, too much self-interested mediocrity.  Wild grapes, bitter to the taste, set the teeth on edge.
…David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam…
...Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.
But you felt the ax fall.  They say you went into exile too, barefoot and with head bowed, weeping as you went.
 
You, who were called “branch,” grew out of abject failure.  What does this stand for?  It signals your immeasurable patience, you who wait as generations pass for the fruit of your planting.  What more could you have done, and did it not?  You just kept pruning, digging around the plant and adding more manure.  You are the sort who would water a dry stick until it sprouted.
 
You, Jesus, Son of Man, are like a young plant, a root growing out of the dry ground.  Are we scandalized by your background?  Do we turn away our faces from the embarrassment of your heritage – the crooks, the adulterers, the foreign women and the harlots?  But you sprouted from our stump and our root.  This is the marvel of it.  The heavens rain down their dew and the earth – the mud of our mediocrity – opens and buds forth a Savior.
 
You, Jesus, true vine, have finally fulfilled your Father’s longing for fruit.
Before us stands “a winter tree,
Golden with the fruit of a man’s body.” (R.S.Thomas)
 
You, Jesus, the gardener, have stepped forth into Eden as the new Adam, naked, unashamed, deathless.
 
Have mercy on us, and come.