December 7, 2025: The Resilience of Nature Inspires Hope

Old Testament Reading: Isaiah 11: 1-10
The Gospel: Matthew 3: 1-12

A month after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City, a cleanup worker found a pear tree crushed between two cement blocks. All that remained was a badly charred half-trunk and one living branch. 

“ A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots” (Isaiah 11:1).
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This Callery pear tree, barely living, became a sign of hope that Dr. Jane Goodall shares in her Book of Hope Chapter 2: The Resilience of Nature. She says, “She (the tree) was almost sent to the dump, but the young woman who found her, Rebecca Clough, begged that the tree might be given a chance. And so she went to be cared for in a nursery in the Bronx. Bringing that seriously damaged tree back to health was not an easy task, and it was touch-and-go for a while. But eventually she made it. And once she was strong enough, she was returned to be planted in what is now the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. In the spring her branches are bright with blossoms. People know her story now. I’ve seen them looking at her and wiping away tears. She truly is a symbol of the resilience of nature–and a reminder of all that was lost on that terrible day”(69).

In Nagasaki, Japan two-five hundred year old camphor trees survived the atomic bomb blast. Their trunks are black and they have cracks and fissures but every spring they produce new leaves. Goodall says the Japanese regard these trees as “ a holy monument to peace and survival; and prayers written in tiny kanji characters on parchment, had been hung from the branches in memory of all those who died” Goodall recalls, “I stood there, humbled by the devastation that humans can cause and the unbelievable resilience of nature.” 

At our core, we humans need to see proof of hope. We need to see examples of what is possible with faith and hard work. God created a planet that gives us examples of this everywhere we look and led his prophets to point us to nature to see these examples not only for the environment but for ourselves. 
As Isaiah foretold there would be a shoot that comes from the stump of Jesse - a new branch who would become a spirit of wisdom and understanding, knowledge, counsel and might. And while we see this as foreshadowing Jesus’ birth as a human from the line of Jesse and David, we also see that the root of that tree stump is God; Jesus is just a new, even more resilient branch. Like the resurrected 9/11 pear tree and the camphor trees in Nagasaki now known as Survivor Trees, Jesus brought new hope not just to Jesse’s line, but to all of us. We have seen that, rooted in God, even though Jesus suffered, he was resurrected - creating the greatest example of hope for humanity. 

Even though we have Jesus as a model, we do still need reminders, like the Survivor Trees, when life gets challenging. The beauty is that God put these symbols of hope absolutely everywhere in nature to encourage us.

Goodall points to many of God’s creatures who have unique built in resilience. A skink is “a type of lizard that shakes off its tail to distract predators who pounce on the wildly wagging tail while the skink makes a getaway. Then, right away, the skink starts growing a new tail from the bloody stump. Even the spinal cord grows back. Salamanders grow new tails in the same way, and octopuses and starfish grow new arms. The starfish can even store nutrients in a severed arm, which sustain it while it grows back a new body and mouth!”(71-72).

The need to adapt fuels the animal kindom in fighting extinction. Goodall recounts the way chimps have changed eating habits. The chimps in Gombe make a nest and go to bed at night, like most chimps. But the chimps in Senegal forage at night because of the extreme temperatures that continue to escalate year after year due to climate change, and the chimps in Uganda also now forage at night because of the encroachment of land by humans. These
chimps have learned to forage in the fields of settlers that have disrupted their food supply (credit to Reverend Sally May for this paragraph).


Is it any wonder that Jesus, the disciples and the prophets, often went out into nature to regroup - to find the hope, courage and strength for what they needed to do?

What about you? Do you, like me, sometimes need a walk in the woods listening to the birds and watching the squirrels gather acorns for the winter to relax and let the stresses of the day go? How do you feel when you put your hands in the earth to plant a flower bulb or a tree and later see it erupt with color? Do you, during a long winter, wonder if the land will ever awake from its frozen hibernation, but then smile when you see the purple crocuses and white snowdrops emerging from the still cold ground?

Of course John the Baptist had to go into the wilderness in order to prepare the way for Jesus. He was an early member of the back-to-the-land movement eating locusts and honey and living simply so that he could gain strength from the resilience of nature rather than the complications and chaos of society. Yet he was a voice in that wilderness crying out for change. And people sought him out knowing that he had something they wanted. He baptized people in the River Jordan so they too could be in touch with God’s creation - as the living, cleansing, refreshing water represented a forgiveness of their sins and an acceptance of God and God’s natural, loving restorative gifts.

Goodall has also experienced nature as a spiritual gift. She recalled, “When I was spending hours alone in the forest at Gombe, I felt a part of the natural world, closely connected with a Great Spiritual Power. And that power is with me at all times, a force I can turn to for courage and strength. And sharing that power with others helps me to give people hope” (80).

On this second Sunday of Advent we are reminded that peace is born through hope. Hope that things can change and that we can be change agents: that where there is war, there can be peace; where there is sadness there can be joy; where there is need, there can be help. We need only look to the natural world to be reminded that God created a resilient world and that we are part of that resilience. Jesus was a new shoot, a new branch, and we are called to branch out as well, following his example, with shiny green leaves of hope and peace that help us to continue growing and caring for all of God’s creation as God’s change agents who lead with love for all. Amen

Pastor Michelle Fountain