One of our Christmas traditions is reading an Advent devotional—often Ann Voskamp’s The Greatest Gift  or a Jesse Tree guide—and hanging the corresponding ornaments on the tree. The Jesse Tree traces the story of Scripture, showing how, from the very beginning, God was making a way for us. A way for His Son to come. A way for the Savior to arrive. “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse” (Is. 11:1). Before Isaiah speaks of a shoot, he shows us a forest leveled by judgment:...