You're listening to Catholic Sprouts, the daily podcast for Catholic kids that strives to plant seeds of faith.

Hey there, Sprouts. Today is Monday, December 24th. It is also Christmas Eve. First of all, I would just like to wish you all a very merry Christmas. And today on the Catholic Sprouts podcast, we are going to be summing up the work that we have been doing for the last couple weeks,

the Jesse Tree. As you know, we've talked about many, many of the ancestors that came before

Jesus Christ. We talked about lots of characters from the Old Testament. And if you were doing

this with your family, the Jesse Tree devotion, then you know that the Jesse

tree even includes a few characters from the New Testament, including Zachariah, the father of John

the Baptist.

Maybe your devotion included John the Baptist himself, for sure, Mary, Jesus' mother, and Joseph,

Jesus' stepfather. So all of these characters came before Jesus,

and they all foretold, or they helped us look forward for the coming of the Messiah.

And this very thing is what we celebrate on Christmas.

I hope that waiting with the Catholic Sprouts podcast through Advent

and waiting with all of the Old Testament characters from the Jesse Tree

has made you realize what a big deal Christmas really is. The weight is finally over, my friends.

For centuries, for hundreds upon hundreds of years, the Jewish people were waiting for the

coming of their Messiah. Prophets foretold Him. God prepared by foreshadowing and

hinting at him in all of the events from the Old Testament, in the Lamb from the Passover story

with Moses, in the beloved son's story with Joseph and his beautiful coat.

In every single story, Jesus is foretold. He is hinted at. He is made to be more real for us.

And finally, finally, finally on that night in Bethlehem, the Savior of the world, God himself

entered the world. This is what we are celebrating and it is a huge, huge deal.

We spent all of Advent talking about the Jesse Tree and in many ways learning about God himself.

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