ニューイングランドの母校から、今年もアドベントの日々メッセージ その5 DECEMBER 6, 2018

ニューイングランドの母校から、今年もアドベントの日々メッセージ　その5

DECEMBER 6, 2018
“All I Want for Christmas Is . . . a Branch?!”
Jeremiah 33:14-16
The Lord’s Christmas list includes stuff I’d never want, let alone ask for. I mean, would you be excited to find a big red bow with your name tied around a branch?!

Of course, maybe this is because our lists are radically different from the Lord’s. We’re looking for the latest amusements and adornments, which we think the Lord might give us if we can shift ourselves from the “naughty” to the “nice” column of another Christmas list. Unfortunately, the Lord evaluates us differently: as sinful or righteous.

The picture here is of something crooked or straight. My own experience as an archer has helped me visualize this. No matter how accurately I lined up my sights, I kept missing the mark. Then I discovered that all of my arrows were crooked, some just a little and some a lot. You can’t shoot straight with a crooked arrow, and you can’t straighten it out once it is bent. The only solution is to substitute a new straight arrow.

That’s the image behind the promise of a “righteous Branch” in Jeremiah 33:15, a promise fulfilled about 580 years later in the birth of a baby to a pair of David’s distant descendants. Jesus grew up into the Branch, straight and true. To meet the demands of God's perfect justice that we all miss, the righteous Branch allowed himself to be nailed to the tree of the cross. To prove that this Branch was still upright, God raised Jesus from the dead, so that anyone can be straightened out before God, no matter how bent we may be.

David Currie, Ph.D.
Dean of the Doctor of Ministry Program & the Ockenga Institute; Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology