O Root of Jesse's Stock

Raised as a standard for the peoples, before whom kings stand mute and still, to whom all the nations pray and do reverence: O come! Come, set us free. Come, Lord, do not delay!
 
Storms can blow hard and fiercely. I am looking with shock at one of the big trees along our driveway, toppled and defeated by last night’s storm. I marvel at its giant roots above ground, naked and embarrassingly exposed, visited by insects and butterflies.

My eyes follow a butterfly’s path, and my gaze is direct toward a small stump from a cut tree nearby. Its surface is hard and smooth, a place of apparent deadness. Right there at the edge, however, close to the bark a single blade of grass is swaying in the breeze, its little root protected in the wood and nourished by whatever lifegiving water lingers there. Only God’s provision ensures its growth.

A blade of grass, tiny, tender, but incredibly determined, as if to say, “I just made it through the crack! Please do not sit down on me!” The Canticle of Mary came to my mind, “He casts the mighty from their throne and raises the lowly.”

“You, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”

Little blade of grass, your beauty outshines anything man-made. More beautiful are you than Salomon in all his glory.

Jesus, a wooden manger was your birthplace and on the wood of the cross you died, crowned with the wood of thorns. Greater are you than the kings of the earth because God has clothed you with the garments of salvation and righteousness. For as the soil makes the young blade of grass come up from the stump, so you, Jesus will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.

O, Root of Jesse’s stock, the world seems like a scary place, but your flower of healing, love, and forgiveness breaks through the dry ground in colors of every variety. The future you promise is a future of hope, not of fear, a future where one day all things shall be well.