The reading today was from Isaiah again.
"On that day, a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse,
and from his roots a bud shall blossom." (Isaiah 11:1)Do you celebrate Advent with a Jesse tree? I am told that the history of the Jesse tree involves a rejection of the Christmas tree for reasons relating to its pagan origin. I don't know if it is true, but I like both traditions and refuse to pick.
The Jesse tree is a visual depiction of our Lord's family tree. In many homes, it is a tree hung with ornaments. Each ornament symbolically depicts someone from His lineage. David, for instance, could be represented by a ornament shaped like a sling-shot, or a harp.
I remember one year when I was a kid, we made Jesse tree cookies. We made stained glass cookies, that looked like little Church windows. We made sugar cookie dough and rolled it out. We cut out circles. In the middle of each circle we cut out the symbols. We put the shapes on the greased cookie sheet. Then we crushed up various bright colored hard candies and filled in the holes. When the cookies bake, the candy melts into a window! Since there are not mass produced 'Jesse tree' cookie cutters, we had to cut many of the symbols by hand. That in turn meant that we had to be pretty creative in choosing symbols. Anyone can make a star (David) , or a shepherd's staff (Jesse), but can you make the scales of justice (Solomon) out of cookie?
No comments:
Post a Comment