Root out of a Dry Ground
"He shall grow up before him as a tender plant " The figure , we think , is indicative of high and exquisite valuation . It can be understood by the simplest and lowliest . That poor old lone mother has on the window sill of her little room a "tender plant" . As she watches it grow up before her from week to week ; she waters , keeps . and tends it sensitively as if it could feel . It was the gift of someone who has gone ; it is all her own , and to her mind it breathes a sweeter scent , and burns with a richer blush of beauty , than any other plant she knows .Your "tender plant " perhaps , is some human life - a life now in the nursery , or a life at school or a life tremulous and fragile through age and sorrow - a life for which you would gladly spend and be spent , and for which you pray that the wind may not visit it too roughly . During the unknown , unchronicled years of His life at Nazareth , Jesus was growing up before the Lord as a "tender plant." He estimated that plant of celestial beauty and fragrance at its real value . Though Galilean rustics took no notice , never was grace so pure or fascination so Divine .
The prophet , as he goes on , changes the emblem , and speaks of Him as also "a root out of a dry ground ". He is at one and the same time the Branch and the Root - " the Root and Offspring of David ." A root is not a showy thing ; it is not a thing that you see as you see a plant ; it is not a thing that waves in the wind , and shows its colours to the day . Its place is underground and out of sight ; yet it is crass ignorance that despises a root because it is a root . The root lies at the basis of , and involves the whole plant . Glories are locked up in it . Fabulous prices have been paid for a rare root , because the giver knew that out of it , in due time , would shoot rare blossoms and flowers of many-tinted flowering flames . Jesus is The Root . He is the utmost fulfilment of all that we mean by the word . To Him all Christians owe their existence . Out of the one root grow all the branches and ramifications of that one Tree - the Church . He is the Root of all the million wonders , vitality's , and utilities of grace - Root of beauty , Root of power , Root of holiness , Root of celestial glory .
This mystic Root is , we are told "out of a dry ground ;" that is , Jesus brought everything from above , He got nothing from below A great man has sometimes been called " a product of the age " and this has lately been said of Jesus . But no , there was nothing in the age , there was nothing in the spirit of opinion , there was nothing in surrounding influenced to make Jesus what he was, as there is nothing in the snows of Greenland to produce a tropical flower . Such a desolate and sinful soil as our fallen humanity had in it no store of nourishment for the development of His Divine holiness . It was all "dry ground "to Jesus , yielding Him no help to life ; and no help to life was needed , for "the Son hath life in Himself ." These prophetic emblems , picturing how dear the Son is to the Father , and how high in value , also lend light the most charming to the verse we so often repeat , " God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son , that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish , but have everlasting life" They help to bring the meaning of that "so " - the word in the verse which is the hinge of its significancy .
If anyone with the "Spirit and power " of Isaiah had been on Calvary just when the cross , with Jesus on it , was dashed into the hole in the earth , he might have exclaimed , "O my God ! They are killing thy tender plant . Though so precious to Thee , Thou did so love them as to give them this ; yet now they throw Thy gift away ! Thy beauty is to them no beauty , Thy Treasure is no treasure , and they think that the root of all glory is nothing ." Just at this instant Christ Himself prayed , "Father forgive them , for they know not what they do." He knew that for guilt of such atrocious violence and awful profanity there was no forgiveness till He had interceded for them , and He did intercede . He knew that He was the Father's "tender plant " , and that the Father was grieved and sinned against to a degree without a parallel by this furious rejection of His love ; and therefore He , the perfect man , entreated for these sinners the Father's forgiveness , doing so in words that mean , "My forgiveness has not to be waited for ; I have forgiven them . Father , forgive them !"
The prophet , as he goes on , changes the emblem , and speaks of Him as also "a root out of a dry ground ". He is at one and the same time the Branch and the Root - " the Root and Offspring of David ." A root is not a showy thing ; it is not a thing that you see as you see a plant ; it is not a thing that waves in the wind , and shows its colours to the day . Its place is underground and out of sight ; yet it is crass ignorance that despises a root because it is a root . The root lies at the basis of , and involves the whole plant . Glories are locked up in it . Fabulous prices have been paid for a rare root , because the giver knew that out of it , in due time , would shoot rare blossoms and flowers of many-tinted flowering flames . Jesus is The Root . He is the utmost fulfilment of all that we mean by the word . To Him all Christians owe their existence . Out of the one root grow all the branches and ramifications of that one Tree - the Church . He is the Root of all the million wonders , vitality's , and utilities of grace - Root of beauty , Root of power , Root of holiness , Root of celestial glory .
This mystic Root is , we are told "out of a dry ground ;" that is , Jesus brought everything from above , He got nothing from below A great man has sometimes been called " a product of the age " and this has lately been said of Jesus . But no , there was nothing in the age , there was nothing in the spirit of opinion , there was nothing in surrounding influenced to make Jesus what he was, as there is nothing in the snows of Greenland to produce a tropical flower . Such a desolate and sinful soil as our fallen humanity had in it no store of nourishment for the development of His Divine holiness . It was all "dry ground "to Jesus , yielding Him no help to life ; and no help to life was needed , for "the Son hath life in Himself ." These prophetic emblems , picturing how dear the Son is to the Father , and how high in value , also lend light the most charming to the verse we so often repeat , " God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son , that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish , but have everlasting life" They help to bring the meaning of that "so " - the word in the verse which is the hinge of its significancy .
If anyone with the "Spirit and power " of Isaiah had been on Calvary just when the cross , with Jesus on it , was dashed into the hole in the earth , he might have exclaimed , "O my God ! They are killing thy tender plant . Though so precious to Thee , Thou did so love them as to give them this ; yet now they throw Thy gift away ! Thy beauty is to them no beauty , Thy Treasure is no treasure , and they think that the root of all glory is nothing ." Just at this instant Christ Himself prayed , "Father forgive them , for they know not what they do." He knew that for guilt of such atrocious violence and awful profanity there was no forgiveness till He had interceded for them , and He did intercede . He knew that He was the Father's "tender plant " , and that the Father was grieved and sinned against to a degree without a parallel by this furious rejection of His love ; and therefore He , the perfect man , entreated for these sinners the Father's forgiveness , doing so in words that mean , "My forgiveness has not to be waited for ; I have forgiven them . Father , forgive them !"
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