Jesse Tree

Jesse Tree Activity

The Student Leadership Team will be hosting a Jesse Tree activity this Advent season. Join us at our Virtual Redlin Room on Thursdays from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. to color the Jesse Tree ornament, read the Bible passage associated with each day, and discuss Jesus's lineage. Feel free to do this activity on your own as well!

We will start on Thursday, December 2!

Join Zoom meeting
(Meeting ID: 932 9813 3735, Pswrd: 759634)

What is the Jesse Tree?

Jesse was the father of King David. Isaiah, recalling God's promise that David's line would never end, and prophesied that the Messiah would be of the house of David: "A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. (Isaiah 11:1). From this arose the tradition of thinking of and depicting Jesse as the first person in the genealogy of Jesus, showing that Jesus is of David's royal house.

The earliest Jesse Tree images in the Christian West are from about 1000 AD, including the great Jesse Tree window at the Cathedral of Chartres. (See below)

Some Jesse Tree images, drawing on the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew's gospel, trace the lineage all the way back to Creation, showing Jesse as the "trunk" and Adam as the "root" or "stump."

In more recent history, the Jesse Tree has been combined with the Christmas tree tradition as a way of giving the latter an explicit Christian interpretation.

The top portion of the Jesse Tree window of the Cathedral of Chartres (ca. 1150), showing (from the top) Jesus, Mary, and a Davidic king. Surrounding Jesus are seven doves, representing the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. These recall Isaiah's description of the Messiah: "The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the lord, and his delight shall be the fear of the Lord." (Isaiah 11:2–3a)