Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons - 8 December 2013

Second Sunday in Advent year A

The Jesse tree was a much loved image in the religious art of the medieval world, we had some great examples in Britain and a few survived the destructive forces of reformation iconoclasm. The design always starts with the recumbent Jesse, out of whose body ‘a shoot springs’ and the tree grows through prophet and king until it blossoms in the Virgin Mary holding her child, the scion thrusting from his roots, just as Isaiah describes it. But Isaiah goes on to portray a world surrounding this tree, one in which wolf lives with lamb, enemies reconcile and become friends, where everybody is free from harm. This is the new Eden where the lord is known to us and where the virtues of integrity, equity, justice and faithfulness become our way of life.

This is a wonderful picture full of Isaiah’s brilliant descriptive imagery, but it is not fanciful because it points out what Christ brings in his restoration of our broken relationship with the Creator God. We might fancifully call it both an environmental charter and a vision of redeemed life, for here is a picture of a world renewed now, not just in the future heavenly one.

Matthew draws another picture for us, that of the unkempt rough-clothed John the Baptist, somebody who in his life style is at home in the landscape of the Judean wilderness. John, unafraid of the wild things, eats natural honey and insects, a hint perhaps of that reconciliation of opposites Isaiah so poetically links together. The Baptist preaches near the Jordan, where he baptizes those accept his offer of new life in God through forgiveness of sins. To those who are hypocrites, living a lie through double standards, especially the so called religious groups, he warns about another who will come after him and who will not judge people by outer appearance but by their fruits.

These are not just poetic images from the past, the tree of Jesse still shoots in our lives, equity, faithfulness and truth are needed more than ever. There is great hope in our world, around us still are the known and unknown Isaiahs and John the Baptists . The Spirit raises people like Nelson Mandela to give testimony to the words of Isaiah, proclaiming the God who in equity gives a verdict for the poor and downtrodden.T he tree of Jesse grows still!

Fr Robin Gibbons is an Eastern Rite Chaplain for the Melkite Greek Catholics in Britain.