The Jesse Tree
Each day in Advent (the weeks before Christmas), we tell a story about people and events from the beginning of the world until Jesus was born. The stories help us to understand God’s plan for the world and for people. Each day we hang an ornament to remind us of the story on a branch of our Jesse Tree.
The name Jesse tree comes from the book of Isaiah in the Bible. Isaiah said:
“A shoot will spring forth from the stump of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots.”
Jesse was the father of King David, and David was the many times great-grandfather of Mary and Joseph – Jesus is the shoot from the stump and the branch from the roots of Jesse.
Here’s what I wrote for the grandchildren for the 1st Sunday of Advent:
Today, we start planning for Christmas, which seems like a long time away – four whole weeks. Sometime, it’s hard to be patient, and to wait for something wonderful. But it’s also fun to plan, and to help things happen step by step.
God’s plan for Christmas took a lot longer than four weeks. God started planning for Christmas right back at the beginning of the world.
The Jesse Tree helps us to learn about God’s plan. The tree is green, which symbolises life, and things growing from small beginnings. God’s plan for the world started with two people, and grew to be for all people. Often, during the years, God could find only one person who would say “yes” to His plan. God’s plan was like a tree with dead branches, but a growing branch that lives and is strong.
God kept preparing the world until at last there was a person to be Jesus’ mother, and a place for Jesus to be born and to grow to bring us all home to God.
Monday of the 1st week of Advent
God created the whole world. In fact, God created the whole universe – the stars, and moons, and planets, and asteroids. God created the air, the land and the seas. God created the trees and flowers and other plants. God created all the different kinds of animals. And God created people.
Everything that God made was good, and he was very pleased.
God created the whole world. In fact, God created the whole universe – the stars, and moons, and planets, and asteroids. God created the air, the land and the seas. God created the trees and flowers and other plants. God created all the different kinds of animals. And God created people.
Everything that God made was good, and he was very pleased.
And god created AIDS, and Smallpox, and Malaria, and he saw that it was good…
KA
Bacteria and viruses are good – in their place. When they cross from one species to another, or when environmental conditions are such that the host species is particularly succeptible, they can wreak havoc. People have created environmental conditions that make the dangerous ones particularly nasty.
SIV, the precursor to HIV, infects most African monkeys but doesn’t make them sick – and has existed alongside humankind for at least 32,000 years until something changed in the early 20th century that allowed it to leap the species barrier. Influenza causes mild illness in pigs and chickens, but can be lethal when it jumps to people. Smallpox is likewise a mutation – probably of Monkeypox (which, despite the name, is probably primarily a squirrel disease, since monkeys with it get sick and squirrels don’t). It first appeared in humans 10,000 years ago. Measles is related to distemper, and to other animal diseases. It may have come across into the human population in the second century CE – when it killed around a third of the population in Galen’s Plague.
In other words, your statement is inaccurate. God created bacteria and viruses whose descendants millions of generations later would become AIDS, smallpox, malaria and the like.
Dear, the AIDs virus got to humans because of the electric machines used deep in the jungle, like refidgerators and stuff like that. Cutting machines that cut wood. One worker got it, went to town with his pay and rented a wife. Thats how it got going
No, No, No. Your ‘good’, omnipotent, omniscient god created these viruses KNOWING that they would one day affect and kill millions of his creation. How stupid is that?
KA
Which leads to the question of whether a world without bacteria and viruses was feasible – I don’t know, but this particular world wouldn’t function without them. And mutation is a necessary part of this particular world, too.
And, you see, you don’t know how the story turns out. (I don’t, either, but I trust the Author to give us a happy ending.)
No. You really don’t get it do you? Your god didn’t HAVE to create a world with viruses and harmful bacteria. If he was omnipotent and omniscient he would have seem the pain and heartache it would cause and have developed a world where there were no harmful bacteria, where the good bacteria couldn’t evolve into harmful bacteria, where there were no tectonic plates, no tsunamis and so on. The fact that he did createe such a world and that he KNEW that they would cause untold death and suffering just goes to show what a barbaric, evil deity he is.
KA
Dear, are you still bothering with this athiest? Youve got the patience of Job
I understand what you are saying, KA. But I don’t think you understand what I am saying.
Viruses and bacteria are part of what makes this particular world possible. Viruses appear to play a part in evolution by recombining DNA between host cells, and bacteria are involved symbiotically with other life forms of every kind.
When you talk about a world with no harmful bacteria, no viruses, no tectonic plates, etc, you are talking about a world with no change. I don’t know if such a thing is intrinsically possible – though I doubt it. But even if it was, such a world could not provide an environment in which the eternal beings we will be could learn and grow.
The problem is that you keep insisting that, because the middle of the story is full of doom and gloom, there must be either no storyteller or an evil one. But you only think that because you don’t believe in the happy ending.
But what if anything that happens to us in this world is more than outweighed by the benefits to us of the lessons we learn and can apply in eternity?
Elsewhere, I have speculated on what it means for us that God is outside of time, and is able to see all times at once. Does this suggest that those heaven as eternal beings also have that outsiders view of time? If so, perhaps the eternal being you will be has consented at outside of time to your life here in time.
When you talk about a world with no harmful bacteria, no viruses, no tectonic plates, etc, you are talking about a world with no change. I don’t know if such a thing is intrinsically possible – though I doubt it. But even if it was, such a world could not provide an environment in which the eternal beings we will be could learn and grow.
Sorry Judy, but either I’m not explaining myself very well, or your being deliberately obtuse. What I’m saying is that if your god had wanted to make a world where there was no harmful bacteria, tectonic plates and so on, he could have done. The fact that he chose not to shows a degree of evil and downright nastiness that I cannot reconcile to your idea of a good god.
KA
Why is he calling you Judy?
No, i refuse to believe you are Al Haddock. Must be coincidense
Yes, it is a coincidence. Judy Garland has a lot to answer for.
Damn, why can’t we have easy-to-use html tags with WordPress?
Fixed.
KA, the fact is that we have the world the way it is. To me, it is also a fact that God is good. This is both my experience and the evidence of those I trust. I therefore conclude that the outcomes God intends require a world made the way he made it.
You seem to believe that God’s omnipotence means that He can do anything. It is, however, a logical nonsense to say that He can create a square triangle, or a rock so big He can’t lift it. I think a similar logical nonsense is a pain-free harmless world that is also a world of change with the right physical properties to permit life to exist, and intelligent animals with free will.
You are starting from a world of suffering and concluding (with the Gnostics) that the god who created it must be evil.
I am starting with a God who was incarnate in His creation and suffered and died in order that – not just our species but – each of us individually could take the next step in evolution and trancend this world of suffering. And I conclude that He is not just good, but Good itself.
Some of the the issus which are patiently explained about Christianity, and then re-emerge phoenix like and unmodified seem to imply either memory lapses or a prior descision to listen to nothing not asserted in The God Delusion. Rather like taking everything one will accept about British history from “A boys book of Kings and Queens”
But given there are always new readers lurking, it is worth covering the same ground again.
Fair enough.
Seems to me that the question is “is the world worth while or not”? I rather think it is. Better to have it perfect to begin with? Hhhmmm, better if Jesus had arrived on a thunderbolt at age thirty?
Better to have it perfect to begin with?
But by your own ‘evidence’ the world was not perfect to begin with, otherwise why the flood, why Jesus?
And the reason we keep covering the same ground is because I haven’t heard an answer that doesn’t have an element of ‘faith’ needed to believe it.
KA
Yes, hence the question mark.
I vote ‘yes’, too.
But then, I believe in happy endings.
….And the reason we keep covering the same ground is because I haven’t heard an answer that doesn’t have an element of ‘faith’ needed to believe it…….
Solipsist then? 🙂
Solipsist? No, not at all. I rather suspect that there’s a huge slice of cognitive dissonance going on here on the part of the theist community
KA
“All is for the best, in the best of all possible worlds!”
Says Leibniz and Joyful. Toad and Voltaire politely disagree.
We think it encourages fatalism. We think the world would have been better, for example, if Joyful had not had such an unhappy time with her son’s illness.
The world cannot be perfect, pain-free, harmless. Just not quite as imperfect, painful and harmful as it is now, for many people..
that’s the project yes
No, Toad, I say all will be for the best and this is not the best of all possible worlds yet – it’s a work in progress.
Toad kindly wishes that my life had been smoother and less beset by illness and crisis. And, indeed, that everyone had a less fraught life.
Speaking only for myself, while I wouldn’t have chosen the trials we’ve been through, I can’t regret them. It has made me the person I am. It has taught me to take happiness where I find it, and to enjoy the pleasures of each day without being concerned about tomorrow.
To me, a crisis is an incident where people are at risk of dying. A crisis requires quick and decisive action. If no one is at risk of dying, it is not a crisis, it is a kerfuffle – and I can’t get excited about a kerfuffle. This means I keep my head most of the time (and I’m quite good in a crisis, too). It isn’t a crisis if someone’s dead, unless it is summer and no refrigeration is available.
I also like my family, all of whom have been changed, strengthened, and polished by our life experiences.
Our daughters are formidable individually, and unbeatable as a team. Anyone who thinks orthodox young Catholic women are meek, obedient, pushovers without an original thought should try talking to one of my daughters. I’ll sell ringside seats and popcorn. They, themselves, attribute their strength of mind, their compassion, and their willingness to fight injustice to the experience of growing up with a severely disabled brother.
Our son touches many lives, and is well known throughout town. He is surrounded by friends and is happy.
Our foster children have overcome the neglect of their early childhood to be two of the nicest, kindest people you could ever wish to meet.
And my husband and I are more than content. We are joyful.
How much of this we owe to our sufferings, I don’t know. But a lot of it comes down to that. Without the boy’s illness, and the other experiences that have beset an eventful life, we would not be the people we are. And I like the people we are.
So this is where you all are. A very interesting discussion. And it’s nice as always to have KA with us to demonstrate that cognitive dissonance is not limited to the theist community.
KA, you want an answer without the element of ‘faith’ in it, when we are talking about the Divine Person? Perhaps you can suggest any statement about human personhood that doesn’t require ‘faith’ – that such personhood exists, for example. Personhood is not a scientifically provable (or indeed definable) attribute of people, never mind of God. Hence Badger’s suggestion of solipsism. You dismissed it, but you didn’t answer it.
And we are still looking forward to a slightly more detailed explanation of Where God Went Wrong – you know, your outline design of that perfect universe, free from all danger and yet open to free will. You know, those obvious tweaks to the laws of physics and biology to make everything just so. ‘A piece of cake’ I believe was your phrase on another thread. I imagine the devil is in the detail, but I await enlightenment.
Quite so. KA takes the fact that the other people he meets have subjective experiences “inner lives” if you will on faith. He can’t prove it, in fact it can’t be proven on principle, but this article of faith makes sense of his world and allows him to function in it.
It’s a good place to be, Manus. It’s 42 degrees Celsius on my deck, and I’m lurking inside in the cool, but as I take 5 minutes from my work to check the blogs, I can see out over my orchard, where the grapes are swelling and the nectarines, plums, and cherries are ripening. No apricots this year, with frost at the wrong time. Ah well, into every life a little rain must fall, as the poet says. Come to think of it, that’s on topic!
Grump, groan. Just got up to face 6am, darkness and an inch of snow, and all the chaos that entails in a country whose motto, notwithstanding the former glories of the Scout movement, is “Be Unprepared”. Bathe in the glory for us too, JP.
A pome for Joyful and us all. (Toad thinks it is mouldy )
THE RAINY DAY
THE day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains,and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains,and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Hey Toad, we cross-posted. I think I need the poem more than JP right now. Thanks! How about adding some snow and over-excited children into the mix?
I’m one of those perverse people who likes the rain and wind. Give me billowing clouds skirting across craggy hills, a clear blue sky just doesn’t move me as much 🙂
It has been hot today – 44 degrees Celsius in the sun at 2pm (I stayed in the house in the shade and just put the thermometre onto the deck.) We’re now down to a balmy 24 degrees at 8.07pm.
But six months from now we will be having gale force winds (one neighbour last winter lost 30 metres of fence in back, then another 30 in front – 4 inch posts snapped like matchsticks), snow, and torrential rain.
So keep the poem while you need it, and pass it back to me then!
Thanks. Teenagers now up. First hints of light. Consensus – just enough snow to be uncomfortable, not enough to chuck (or to stop school). I’m tempted to trot out my platitude about an attitude of gratitude, but from the evil glares I’m getting perhaps I’ll hold my tongue.
I hate to come across like Pollyanna, but I love it all. Frosty spring mornings so that my breath puffs in white clouds, winter gales that buffet the house while I snuggle warm inside, fine summers days that are too hot to move in, crisp autumn mornings when the air tastes good enough to bottle. I like weather, and I like seasons. Sorry. I’ll be quiet now.
🙂
Well, I love it all really too, especially at the moment the pleasures of having grumpy teenagers. I might have said before it’s a bit like savouring particularly dark chocolate.
I was looking for something on the Jesse Tree and found this old thread. I’m blessed by the insight I received. Thank you.