Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Our reading titled Jesus the Branch was written by Lisa M. Samra.

Rising among the Red Mountains of Sedona, Arizona is the beautiful chapel of the Holy Cross.

Entering the small chapel, I was immediately drawn to an unusual sculpture of Jesus on the cross.

Instead of a traditional cross, Jesus has shown crucified on the branches of a tree with two trunks.

Horizontally, a severed, dead trunk represents the tribes of Israel in the Old Testament that rejected God. The other trunk grows upward

and branches out to symbolize the flourishing tribe of Judah and the family line of King David.

The symbolically significant art points to an important prophecy in the Old Testament about Jesus.

Although the tribe of Judah was living in captivity, the prophet Jeremiah gave a hopeful message

from God, saying, I will fulfill the good promise I made

to provide a rescuer who would do what is just and right in the land. One way the people would know

the identity of the rescuer was he would sprout from David's line, meaning the rescuer would be a physical descendant of King David.

The sculpture skillfully captures an important truth

that in the details of Jesus' family lineage,

God was faithful to do all that he promised.

Even more, it's a reminder that his faithfulness in the past

gives us reassurance that he'll be faithful to fulfill his promises to us in the future.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Jeremiah chapter 33, verses 14 through 16.

The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the good promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah.

In those days, and at that time,

I will make a righteous branch sprout from David's line. He will do what is just and right in the land. In those days, Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will live in safety.

This is the name by which it will be called,

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