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Our Jesse tree

We are 4 days into our first year doing the Jesse tree as a family for the advent season.  For those of you unfamiliar with the Jesse tree it is a devotional plan that teaches of God's plan of salvation beginning with Creation.  It takes it name from Isaiah 11:1.

 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

For each day the family looks at a passage of scripture and there is an ornament that corresponds to the passage that is put on the Jesse tree.  There are usually between 25 and 30 passages depending on whose version you use.

Last night we read about Noah and the ark.  As we read the scripture passages about the sinfulness of the people of the earth and God's reaction to their sin, my 10 year old daughter asked the question that became the title of this post.

"What does this have to do with Jesus?"


See, she knows what Christmas is about and she knows that the point of our devotions is to point to and lead up to His birth.  What she didn't understand is how this Old Testament story related to Him.  So we talked about sin and God's abhorrence towards it.  We talked about how God hates sin so much that he decided to destroy the people of the earth in response to their sin and that He was perfectly just in doing so.  We talked about how God cannot just overlook and ignore our sin and that because of that we desperately needed Jesus to come and die on the cross to pay the price for our sin.

Noah's Ark - felt style

I admit that as a father I was thrilled to hear that question come out of my daughter's mouth.  We need to be constantly asking "What does this have to do with Jesus?" as we read the scriptures.  Jesus condemned the pharisees in large part because they failed to do this and in so doing missed the entire point of the Old Testament (John 5:39-40).  The roughly 33 years of Jesus life were the focal point of the entire history of our universe.  All of history either anticipates those years finds it meaning by looking back at them.

As we read our bibles, as we listen to sermons and songs, as we interact with the world around us we should constantly be asking one question.

"What does this have to do with Jesus?"