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| "Almond Blossom, Andalucia" |
Almond Trees
Jesse Tree Symbol: a Ladder
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A Greeting
I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
(Psalm 16:7)
A Reading
Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and
lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set
up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of
God were ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood beside
him and said, ‘I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and
the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to
your offspring... Know that I am with you and will keep you
wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will
not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.’
(Genesis 28:11b-13; 15)
Music
A Meditative Verse
‘Very truly, I tell you,
you will see heaven opened and the angels of God
ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’
(John 1:51)
A Reflection
The point about Jacob's ladder is that it showed that
God was there with him, in that place. Jacob called the
place 'Bethel', that is 'God's house'... The tradition of Jacob's
dream, of the angels going up and down on the ladder,
would then be connected with the belief that when you
worshiped God in his house, God was really present,
with his angels coming and going to link heaven and earth...
[John] verse 51, then, seems to be a tight-packed and
evocative way of saying, "Don't think that all you will see
is one or two remarkable acts of insight...What you'll see
from now on is the reality toward which Jacob's ladder,
and even the Temple itself, was pointing like a signpost.
If you follow me, you'll be watching what it looks
like when heaven and earth are open to each other.
You won't necessarily see the angels themselves, but you'll
see things happening which show that they're there..."
When you're with Jesus, it is as though you're in the
house of God, the Temple itself, with God's angels coming
and going, and God's own presence there beside you.
- from John for Everyone Part 1: Chapters 1 - 10
by N.T. Wright
Verses for the Day
The word of the Lord came to me, saying,
‘Jeremiah, what do you see?’ And I said,
‘I see a branch of an almond tree.’
Then the Lord said to me, ‘You have seen well,
for I am watching over my word to perform it.’
(Jeremiah 1:11-12)
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| Jesse Tree image by Eric Westra |
The next Jesse tree symbol is the ladder, signifying Jacob, son of Isaac, and Jesus' next ancestor in his genealogical 'tree'. Jacob's vision came as he slept in a place called "Luz", one of the words for 'almond tree'. After his dream, he called the place Bethel - literally 'house of God', though some scholars believe that Bethel and Luz were distinct places a short distance apart. It is a biblical tradition that prophets are visited with a startling and profound vision at the start of their days. In this case, a place of almond trees would be a very appropriate backdrop, since almond blossoms have a history of meaning: in Numbers 17, God causes almond blossoms and almond fruit to sprout on the staffs belonging to Aaron and the Levites as a way of showing that they are divinely chosen as priests. The root of the word for 'almond' used in Jeremiah means 'to waken', 'to watch'. Like the 'thickets' in Day 6, the presence or context of almond trees means God is about to be present in abundance, in this case to awaken someone. The almond tree was the first fruit tree of the new year: it awakened the earth to spring from the winter.
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| "Almond trees blooming in Spring" by Seyed Javad Mowla |
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LC† The Trees of Jesse is a project of
Lutherans Connect / Lutheran Campus Ministry Toronto.
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