Jesse Tree 3

Third Symbol of the Jesse Tree: Noah’s Ark
(sin spirals out of control, but God never offers an ark of salvation)

Genesis 6:11–22,
7:7-10, 7:17-24, 9:8–13

1 Peter 3:18-21

No one wants to be a stump.  
They aren’t beautiful or graceful like trees. And stumps are painful announcements that the rest is missing. Cut down, blown over, hauled away.

And it's painful to be seen as broken.

But stump-places mean that we have a chance to be new – to grow again. 

And that’s our story: from flood to promise, from stump to tree to cross—it’s Resurrection. Redemption.

The new start of baptism in Christ.

Newly divorced, struggling with my faith and trying to find my place in the church, I had no idea how much I needed to hear that Isaiah 11 passage. Who knew I was white-knuckling hope;  Holding on with all I had, choosing to believe that God is faithful to promises even though I felt left and forsaken? ...Who knew that a stump could transform into a tree once again?

God did.

My Creator knew all along.

—except taken from Sarah Farrish's blogpost: "The Family Stump"