Of Jesse's Lineage

After a couple of weeks of playing "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" during our Advent devotional time, the sweet girl asked if we could do another Advent song as we began our third week. I chose "Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming." I love this beautiful hymn, and it seemed especially appropriate today as we lit the rose colored candle for the third Sunday.

Everything seemed to dovetail beautifully (and unexpectedly, totally unplanned by us!) for our evening devotions tonight. First we had an unexpected hour together beforehand as a family, just the three of us, and spent it watching some old home videos of Christmases past, including the sweet girl's very first Christmas. That video includes some footage that's very special to us, of what turned out to be our last visit with both of my husband's grandparents. They were nearing 90 that Christmas and both of them passed away the following spring, within a few months of each other. It's so lovely to have this recording of them opening their Christmas gifts in their living room, with Great-Grandma Lucille smiling and talking with our dear baby girl. And wonderful now for S. to be able to see that she really did meet her great-grandparents.

Then the little Advent paper chain we've been putting together, which has a different name or title for Jesus each evening, had the title "Son of David." We talked about what it means for Jesus to be called the Son of David. The sweet girl and I have been studying ancient Israel in school this autumn, so we've gone over David's line a few times, especially when we were reading the book of Ruth. She knows that David was the son of Jesse who was the son of Obed who was the son of Boaz who was the husband of Ruth. Talking about our own family trees as well as David's fit in beautifully with the line in "Lo How a Rose" which reminds us that the promised one was "Of Jesse's lineage coming..." We discussed what the word lineage meant and tied it back into our talking/celebrating/remembering of our own family as well.

I love such fruitful heart-shaping moments, especially the ones that feel like sheer gift. You couldn't plan them this well if you tried!

And as usual, I found myself soaking all of this up in my own heart. It dawned on me as we listened to the song and reflected together on Jesus' lineage that I often focus on the amazing blessing of Jesus' royal heritage and the joy and beauty of God's fulfilled promise...but how seldom do I just ponder the power of the simple fact that Jesus had a lineage. Like you and like me, he had a family tree. The one who made real trees! The one who made people and all the families of the earth! The eternal Word who has always existed, who has always been with God and is God, who made everything in heaven and on earth! He had no beginning (there was never a time when he was not) and yet he chose to be born of a woman, to place himself within a human family, to carve his name in a line of human beings. The root of everything, the blossom that grows from a stump, chose to humble himself and be born here on earth, to place himself within the confines of a particular family tree. It's breathtaking. He had a lineage. It makes me want to go back to all those "begats" I usually skim over in Matthew and Luke and read them with a newly thankful heart. In fact, I think I will do just that this week.