Advent is a season where our minds quickly race ahead. Each year we are caught thinking about the Christmas season earlier and earlier. Each year we try and stay ahead of the event planning and gift buying. We might even find ourselves wishing for Christmas Day to come quickly to either satisfy our anticipation of this season, or for it to hurry away so that we can move onto the next thing. Advent has become a hurried season of looking ahead.

Yet, Advent is supposed to be about waiting, perhaps even slowing down. The Advent season is reflective and retrospective. This year, Living Hope CRC wants to invite you to take a different look this Advent season. Instead of looking ahead and racing towards Christmas day and beyond, we want you to slow down (if even for just a moment) and look back, way, way back.

The Jesse Tree is an old practice of the Christian church. It is a way to mark the Advent season to orient the story of Christmas, of Jesus’ birth, into the story of the Bible. To see how Jesus is a part of the entire story of the Bible, we need to spend time in the entirety of scripture.

I always communicate to our youth that Jesus wasn’t “Salvation – Plan B”. It can be tempting to think that way. We imagine that God brought the people of Israel out of Egypt, gave them the law, set them up in Canaan as a nation and let them work it out. We might be tempted to see the law as God’s first try at salvation, that it could have worked. The law and the covenant at Sinai was “Salvation – Plan A”. When it became clear that Israel was never going to pull it together, they were never going to be that holy nation, a city on the hill, God sent them into exile and initiated “Salvation – Plan B”. It is a well-worn path in scripture for our youth, to go back to Genesis 3:15 “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” Immediately after the Fall, the moment when humanity willingly stepped into rebellion against God, God put “Salvation – The Only Plan” into motion.

Right in the Garden, God planned to send Jesus as the means of salvation. The Old Testament is shaped by God’s revelation of his character and the means of salvation to his people. We see God’s plan for salvation in the stories of the Red Sea, David and Goliath, Daniel in the Lion’s Den. All the stories of scripture serve a multitude of purposes, but they all share one in common, pointing to Christ.

This Advent season, we want to invite you to slow down and look back (instead of hurrying forward). The Jesse Tree is structured to do just that. It follows a four-step liturgy each day (see below). There are ornaments with symbols to mark each day. You can hang them on your tree, or somewhere special in your home. These symbols connect with the scripture reading and help with remembering the story. As the Advent season moves forward, you can quiz yourself on the stories by looking at your Jesse Tree ornaments.

As a final note, do as many days as you can. There are 25 days for the Jesse Tree. You can do as many as you have time for. Some days will be easier than others to create time for devotions. The best thing about the story of scripture is that you can read it whenever you want. Sure, it would be awesome to have 25 straight days of the Jesse Tree, finishing on Christmas morning. But, if you don’t get through all 25, or you finish by Spring Break, that is okay too. The goal of the Jesse Tree is not to check-off 25 scripture readings; it is about taking time to slow down and look back with thankfulness for God’s one plan of salvation.