Sunday, December 22nd: God with Us: Our Living Branch Jesus as a shoot, a living branch, a surprise growing thing? That’s one of the ways that Jesus, our Messiah, was described by the Old Testament Prophet Isaiah. Many landowners have cut down a tree that’s in the way. And many landowners have come back, and found that the “dead” stump has produced a new shoot – a living branch, the start of a new tree. The root doesn’t die so easily. The power of life remains. And it insists on growing, insists on producing a tree, insists on producing fruit. And Jesus gives us, his disciples, the same power to restart life, over and over again!