Jesus, the Branch

November 29, 2015
First Sunday of Advent
First Reading: Jeremiah 33:14-16
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/112915.cfm

St. Augustine said, “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.” In fact, God is an expert in bringing good out of evil. It feels backward or upside-down. It doesn’t always make sense. And yet our God trumps all of our complaints, our worries and our fears with his power to turn the bad into good. This Sunday’s first reading from Jeremiah finds God back at it. After promising judgment and exile against his people for their sins, he also promises a time of restoration after the exile. While the people will be restored to the Holy Land and enjoy its fruits—fulfilling the promises to Abraham, the pinnacle of the restoration will be the king, the descendant of David who will sit on the throne forever.

The Branch

After taking the first part of the chapter to explain how he will “restore the fortunes of Jacob,” the Lord grants Jeremiah a specifically royal prophecy. Weirdly, the prophecy comes as a botanical metaphor. It is all about the “branch”:

In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring forth for David; (Jer 33:15 RSV)

For the ancients, this branch idea would make perfect sense since their monarch-based system of government was really based on a family tree. When a new branch grows out of the tree, that means the dynasty is continuing, the kingship is handed on to a new generation. In Jeremiah’s day, the last Davidic king of Judah, Zedekiah, would see his sons killed then have his eyes poked out and he would be dragged off into exile (2 Kings 25:7). Despite this terrible downfall of the dynasty of David, God promises that it would be restored to an even more glorious future. The other prophets also picture the new David as a branch:

In that day the branch of the LORD shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and glory of the survivors of Israel. (Isa 4:2 RSV)

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. (Isa 11:1 RSV)

Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who sit before you, for they are men of good omen: behold, I will bring my servant the Branch. (Zech 3:8 RSV)

and say to him, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, “Behold, the man whose name is the Branch: for he shall grow up in his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD.”’ (Zech 6:12 RSV)

The “branch” is a nickname for the new Davidic king, the one who will continue David’s dynasty and restore God’s people.

A Promise

Jeremiah relates his prophecy back to an earlier “promise” (Jer 33:14). That promise is the covenant that God made with David: “Your throne shall be established forever” (2 Sam 7:16). God had promised the man after his own heart, King David, that his dynasty would be everlasting. He would always have a descendant on the royal throne of Judah. Yet with the destruction of Jerusalem and the beginning of the exile, it seems impossible for God’s promise to be fulfilled. Yet God has not forgotten. He will bring it to pass. He will make good on his promise to David. In fact, in the verse following our reading, it says “For thus says the LORD: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel” (Jer 33:17 RSV). God not only remembers his promise, he reiterates it.

Justice and Righteousness

When the Branch comes, “he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land” (Jer 33:15 RSV). That might sound like a nice stock phrase for just rule, but it is more than that. This phrase recurs many times to indicate the inauguration of a new king’s rule and it is specifically linked with the Messiah. While Solomon was celebrated for executing justice and righteousness as a good king (1 King 10:9), the prophets will portray the coming Messiah in the same terms:

Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David, and over his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and for evermore.  (Isa 9:7 RSV)

“Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” (Jer 23:5 RSV)

The role of a king is not merely to administer policies. His job is to bring God’s order to society, to vindicate the downtrodden, to help the oppressed, to ensure that justice is served. The divinely appointed Davidic king and Messiah is meant to restore God’s order, to bring justice back to the land, to finally set things right.

Christ, the Davidic Heir

Of course, the Church reads this text and others like it during Advent because we are anticipating the fulfillment of all these passages about the branch, the Messiah, the new David, in the person of Christ. Jesus comes to fulfill all of these predictions from the Old Testament. No, he will not setup a new human kingdom and reign as a petty monarch in Jerusalem. Rather, he brings a much more powerful, yet hidden reign—one that invades our hearts, one that conquers all things. He does not come as a mere political savior, who will rescue his people from human enemies, but as an eternal savior who sets us from the real enemies: sin and death. He inherits David’s royal mantle and reigns forever on his throne in fulfillment of the prophecies, yet he takes David’s kingship to higher levels than David could possibly have imagined. Jesus will reign not just as king of Israel, but as king of the universe. It is fitting then, that the new name for Jerusalem (Jer 33:16) will be identical to the new name for the Messiah (23:6): “The Lord is our righteousness.” Indeed, he is and thank goodness he can bring a glorious reign out of an ignominious downfall. It gives us hope he can do the same with us.

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Mark Giszczak (“geese-check”) was born and raised in Ann Arbor, MI. He studied philosophy and theology at Ave Maria College in Ypsilanti, MI and Sacred Scripture at the Augustine Institute of Denver, CO. He recently received his Ph. D. in Biblical Studies at the Catholic University of America. He currently teaches courses in Scripture at the Augustine Institute, where he has been on faculty since 2010. Dr. Giszczak has participated in many evangelization projects and is the author of the CatholicBibleStudent.com blog. He has written introductions to every book of the Bible that are hosted at CatholicNewsAgency.com. Dr. Giszczak, his wife and their daughter, live in Colorado where they enjoy camping and hiking in the Rocky Mountains.

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