One more devotion on a carol before Christmas ends on Saturday. The rose is sometime used as a symbol for Jesus. It’s in the song “Lo, How a Rose E’re Blooming.” The first “rose carol” I learned, however, was “Maria Walked Amid the Thorn.” Based on a medieval German legend, the song was often sung by the Trapp Family Singers.

1. Maria walks amid the thorn,
Kyrie eleison.
Maria walks amid the thorn,
Which seven years no leaf has born.
Jesus and Maria.

2. What ‘neath her heart doth Mary bear?
Kyrie eleison.
A little child doth Mary bear,
Beneath her heart He nestles there.
Jesus and Maria.

3. And as the two are passing near,
Kyrie eleison,
Lo! roses on the thorns appear,
Lo! roses on the thorns appear.
Jesus and Maria.

Mary carries Jesus through a landscape of briars symbolizing the bareness of a God-less world. As the two pass the thorny branches suddenly blossom–a representation of the new life that came with Christ.

It is, of course, only a legend, but stories like this can be helpful in turning theological truths into vivid images. We live in a cruel world that tears at people like thorns. That is the barren life without God. But for our sake and our salvation the blessed Son became flesh to bring beautiful, abundant life. You can see it spring into bloom wherever one of his followers loves someone as he loved us. I pray that the blossoming will continue even after this joyous season ends.

Read Isaiah 11:1-10 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne (originally posted in January 2018)