A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
Isaiah 11:1 NIV
A Shoot
The production of natural Christmas trees in Canada developed similarly to that of the United States. Into the 1930s, nearly all Canadian Christmas trees were harvested from native stands within local forests. Demand for Christmas trees continued to rise and the interest in Christmas tree cultivation increased with it. Around 40 million Christmas trees are cut every year in North America; of that number, between 3 and 6 million are cut from Canadian Christmas tree farms and native pine and fir stands annually. The nation’s top three producers of Christmas trees, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Ontario.
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We once cut down a tree on the property of our family camp near Thunder Bay. It was encroaching on the road that led down the hill to the lake. There was nothing special about the tree, and it gave us some good firewood for a few years. It wasn’t a great loss to the property. A couple of years later, I was walking by the stump and noticed, amazingly, there was a small shoot, about a foot long, growing out of that stump, and I thought this was a pretty impressive tree after all. This is exactly what Isaiah describes about Jesus in Isaiah 11:1: “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.” Jesse was King David’s father, and Jesus would come from that lineage. Out of this faithful member of the tribe of Judah, Jesus would come. God chose an ordinary man – Jesse – and out of that ordinary would come Israel’s great king and finally the King of kings, Jesus. Aren’t you glad God chooses to use the ordinary – you and me? Remember Jesse, this Advent season, and be grateful.
These have been words from the heart.
Bob Beasley