O Antiphons: O Root of Jesse
We are in a series of articles meditating
on our Lord’s coming again this Christmas by using the lovely Advent tradition
of calling upon the Lord Jesus Christ with one of his messianic titles. This
week we call upon him as “O Root of Jesse,” also translated, “O Flower of
Jesse’s stem.”
This “O Antiphon” (as they are called) for Vespers is rendered in today’s English as:
The lectionary for Mass for the Gospel
Alleluia modifies it to read: “O Root of Jesse’s stem, sign of God’s love for
all his people: come to save us without delay!”
The prophet Isaiah proclaimed: “There
shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out
of his roots” (Is 11:1).
Jesse was the father of King David (1 Sam
16:10-13), and God had promised everlasting kingship to the house of David (2
Sam 7:12-16). However, at this time the people undoubtedly had much despair.
Probably at Isaiah’s writing, Assyria had now conquered the Northern Kingdom of
Israel (722 BC), exiled most of her peoples among the nations never to return,
and had brought in Gentiles from five other nations to live in Israel (the
Northern Kingdom).
Isaiah described the desolation and
devastation of Israel – the peoples, their government, their worship, their way
of life, their culture, their families, and their numerous dead – as like a
terebinth or oak tree that is burned but “whose stump remains standing when it
is felled” (Is 6:13). This is not just a description of a world grown cold;
it’s a description of devastation so deep that hope is hard to come by and
despair wants to weasel its way in everywhere.
Don’t we feel this way sometimes also? As
we see what’s happening in certain sectors of our nation and world? Our
culture? In our families – the loved ones who have left the Faith, often not
just for atheistic secularism but even for the New Age pagan occult. In our own
struggle against sin, weakness, addiction, pornography – don’t we sometimes
plead, How long, O Lord, until you come to my rescue?
Isaiah says: No! Do not despair! God is
faithful, his promises sure. A burned, felled tree is still capable of new
life! Job tells us: “For there is hope for a tree, if it be cut down, that it
will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease. Though its root grow old
in the earth, and its stump die in the ground, yet at the scent of water it
will bud and put forth branches like a young plant.” (Job 14:7-9.)
“At the scent of water,” Job says beautifully, reminding us that so many times in Scripture, and in Jesus’ own words, water is an image for the Holy Spirit (Jn 4:14).
So Isaiah gives the assurance: “ThereSHALL come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch SHALL grow out of his roots” (Is 11:1). The next verse prophecies the coming of the Holy Spirit with the Messiah: “And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.” Isaiah says, “In that day the root of Jesse shall stand as an ensign to the peoples” – an “ensign” is a signal banner one raises on a hilltop for all to see (cf. Is 13:2; Jn 12:32, the Cross as an ensign) – “him shall the nations seek” (Is 11:10), or as the Greek Septuagint (LXX) has it, “The Gentiles shall hope in him.”
St. Paul quotes this verse in the context of the Gentiles' welcome in the Church under the reign of the Messiah, the root of Jesse (Ro 15:12), and his argument in Romans 9-11 is that the consequences of the sins of Israel (think Assyria, and more) has meant salvation for the Gentiles and reconciliation of the world in Christ (Ro 11:11-12, 15), we who have been grafted onto this root (Ro 11:17-24).
So like Isaiah, we want to ask again this coming Advent: O Root of Jesse’s stem, our Messiah, Jesus Christ, by your Cross and by the gift of the Holy Spirit, the ensign of God’s love for all his people: come to save us from all devastation and despair without delay!