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| Nativity With The Torch, Nain Brothers |
There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. 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. (Isaiah 11:1-2)
In Isaiah’s time the Davidic kingdom had been destroyed, and the people of Israel were living in exile. Nonetheless, it was clear to the Jewish people that the Prophet was speaking not only of their return to their earthly homeland and the rebirth a truncated political entity: he was delivering God’s promise that, when things looked most hopeless in this world, He would send a Savior, his Messiah, to usher in a Kingdom greater that any conceived by mere men. In this song the “shoot” (the Messiah Jesus, descended through his human mother Mary from King David, Jesse’s son) is depicted as a lovely Rose, a small but vibrant manifestation of God’s presence where all seemed dead:
It came, a flow'ret bright,
Amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night.
In the Season of Advent the Church reminds us that God has also promised to send his Messiah again in glory at the end of time. This past year has given Catholic Christians plenty of reasons to feel that our world is collapsing, and that we are living in a sort of internal exile (we need not go into specific details here). Our Hope will not be realized in this world, but only in the New Jerusalem in the world to come.
For this reason, we look to the Blessed Mother as our model, who staked her life on trusting in the promise of an angel. And so the song invites us to join her in gazing on the Rose springing from the stump of Jesse:
The virgin mother kind;
To show God's love aright,
She bore to men a Savior,
When half spent was the night.
May the remainder of your Advent be a blessed one, as we waith in hope for the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ!
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