Family

My Family

This weekend I got to see many family. I got to see my father and step-mother, my step mothers family, my last living grandmother, some distant cousins, a few of John’s family, and even my oldest son and his wife came for Thanksgiving. It was an amazing experience hear stories about loved ones, and sharing stories from my childhood and of my children.

I am a sentimental person, especially when it comes to my family and family treasures. I think this is something that we all can do if think about our family legacy. Think about those that shaped us into the people we are, and think about those that we have had a hand in raising or leading to become the people they are becoming. As we move on from our time of being grateful to God for sending us His son and all Jesus has done and will do for us, we take a step back. Over Advent we will think about Jesus’s family stories, the ancestry, the community and those who shaped his human existence.

Pray and Read Isaiah 11:1-9

Isaiah 11:1–9 NRSV

A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins. The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Who is Jesse? Well when we go back to the beginning of the time of the kings of Israel, Jesse appears as a farmer with many sons. In 1st Samuel, once the first King, King Saul begun to displease God, the prophet of the Lord Samuel was told to go see Jesse because it would be one of his sons who God has chosen to lead reign over Israel. Let’s look at this story from 1 Samuel 16:1-13

1 Samuel 16:1–13 NRSV

The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me.” And the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you, and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; and you shall anoint for me the one whom I name to you.” Samuel did what the Lord commanded, and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, “Do you come peaceably?” He said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord; sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.” And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is now before the Lord.” But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. He said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen any of these.” Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.” He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.” Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. Samuel then set out and went to Ramah.

This is a big deal because, you see, Saul was chosen by the people to be their king. However, this time, God was choosing the King for His people. Jesse’s youngest and scrawniest son David was the one God had is eyes on. Of course the one that seemed the most unlikely, God would make King. David reigned over Israel well, with a few personal indiscretions. The heirs to David’s thrown, however, made even more mistakes with each following generation. This led to the exile. You see, each king that came after David, did worse then the one before with only a few exceptions. Therefore, the family tree and their family legacy was cut off. The analogy that Isaiah uses is of a tree. The family tree was cut down. However, a new growth appeared in the stump. A new king, from the line of David would be born. God was still keeping His end of the covenant with Israel.

Christ’s legacy, in terms of being a better King than the kings that came before Him, all rest on the fact that He is the Messiah, Son of God. Being God’s Son means that He was set to fulfill the prophecy to be better than any human king that had come before Him for God’s people. Where the kings before had failed in terms of their righteousness, Jesus was righteous. Where Solomon was full of God’s wisdom, yet lacking in holiness, Jesus was wise and good. Where the other kings failed in proper judgement and chose war and violence, Jesus is the Prince of Peace.

This is where the idea of the Jesse Tree came from. One of the fun things that we will be doing this Advent is learning from the Jesse Tree. Starting with the creation story in Genesis, we will take story each day of December leading up to Christmas to tell the family stories of Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God, Mary and Joseph.

We all hope that our children will be better than we are. I was proud to hear my son and his wife Holly talk about how they were building a life together. They starting using Adult words like “mortgage”, and “car payments”, and “investing” even. It was inspiring to talk to my cousin and my dad about different family members and their personalities and life shaping events. I am proud of the audacity of some of my older family members and amazed at what some of my ancestors have overcome in their lives. And there are stories of some who may not have lived as stellar of lives for us to be proud of them, but those stories shape us nonetheless. Some of us may not come from good families. Some of us may not have a family that we can be proud of. That heartache it is not anything to be ashamed of, for that means that you have overcome a lot in your life. Your story is worth telling. We share those stories with one another and hope that future generations will do better than we and live lives with stories worth telling.

What are your family stories? What do you want your future generations to learn from you? Looking at your life, what stories stand out most to you? What lessons have you learned? Would you be willing to share your family stories, or your own life stories of life lessons learned and blessings you have recieved? I want to invite everyone to take the time and write down a story from your life and sent it to me. With your permission, we will begin to post those stories on the bulletin board outside beside the Jesse Tree.