The Root of Jesse

A confused pine tree that smells like citrus sprouts from the living room rug, out of place at any time of the year but this; we hardly wonder at indoor trees and needles now. Our tree is not yet a Christmas tree, though it does get decorated each day with a new paper ornament. It serves as our Jesse tree until Christmas Eve, when, anticipating the next morning's fulfillment in a baby's form, we'll deck it out in lights and a tacky array of hodge-podge. We'll also move the shepherds from their hill, take the baby from the box, and a trio of wise men will begin following the star-- a treacherous journey taking them from the upstairs of our house to the nativity scene under the tree.

We've celebrated Advent since Millie was a baby, starting with a pauper's quintet of mismatched candles and, with the extra space provided by last year's move, moving our way to a bonafide advent wreath. This year, we've added a Jesse tree to our celebration of Advent, along with daily scripture reading and ornament-making on top of the nightly scripture and liturgy.

I am so thankful for this. I grew up in a renegade family. We celebrated Christmas but were part of the Meeting in which other brethren viewed it as a pagan holiday. The disparity between sacred and secular was keenly felt by my parents, especially my dad, and Christmas morning always brought with it a solemn scripture reading and prayer after breakfast, to balance out the eventual stocking upending and gift opening. Without a framework in which to properly approach Christmas Day, it was difficult not to be swallowed by the excitement of all the pomp and circumstance and forget the Child for most of the day. Celebrating Advent has unified the two for me. It's hard enough for adults to properly wrap our minds and hearts around the singular happening of the Virgin Birth and what God as Man signified; how can we expect children to properly celebrate it if we distract them for an entire month with nearly everything but that?

We spend the weeks before Christmas refreshing our memories of Jesus's ancestry, the men and women from whom He came, which focuses our attention and points toward one thing only--Christ Himself. Of course, the holiday season is still full of cookies and confections, music and decorations, and there's nothing wrong and everything right with that. The girls shriek to draw our eyes to every decorated house we pass in the night, and we bellow Christmas carols loudly enough for people in China to hear. It's part of the celebration, after all! This is an important distinction, though. It's part of the celebration. These peripheral ways to celebrate Christ's birth sometimes become the only thing we celebrate in practice, though our words speak otherwise.

I am thankful for Advent today. I'm thankful that the excitement building in us is not just about the coming eggnog (!), the tree decorating, and the gift-wrapped mysteries, but about the greatest Mystery this world will ever know. So, yes, let's look forward to fun and family, bright red stockings with oranges stretching out the toes, and eating our once-a-year sugar cereal in fancy, holiday bowls. Yet more, let us look forward to Christmas Day and the birth of Jesus, and greater still, let us look forward to His coming again!

Let it be so.