Jeremiah prophesies that the Lord will raise up a righteous shoot for David.
The context makes it obvious that this is a prophecy of the Messiah.
He shall reign as king and kings are anointed, so that makes him an anointed one, which is what Messiah means.
He will be a wise and righteous king.
It's so clear that the ancient Aramaic translation of Isaiah, made by Jews, simply says, Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will establish a Messiah of righteousness for David.
It translates shoot as Messiah because this is a messianic title that Jeremiah also uses in another passage, and that the prophet Zechariah uses twice.
The Hebrew verb from which this word comes means to sprout or spring up.
It's something that rises up.
In the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation, also made by Jews, renders it with a word that means dawn or sunrise, something else that rises up.
Another Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, seems to allude to that way of understanding the word.
In the canticle of praise that he's inspired to sing when his son is born, he says, The sunrise shall visit us from on high, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.
In addition to this title, that is understood in a couple of different ways, Jeremiah also gives a name for the Messiah.
Isaiah gives the name Emmanuel, God is with us.
Jeremiah gives the name, the Lord is our righteousness, which the Septuagint understands as the name Josedech.
Josedech actually was used as a name by a priest around the time of the Babylonian exile.
But the meaning of the expression is more important, for it is a symbolic name for Jesus.
The Lord is our righteousness because it is only by the grace of Jesus the Lord that we can become righteous.
The self-righteous are not righteous at all.
Only those made righteous by the Lord are truly so.
In Hebrew, righteous shoot and shoot of righteousness are written the same way, and a shoot is something that rises up from the earth, like the dawn.
He is righteousness that has sprung up, or the dawn of righteousness.
There's a similar expression in Psalm 72:7, which we repeated in response to the psalm.
We said, justice shall flourish in his time.
The same clause could be translated, righteousness shall sprout in his time.
Righteousness shall sprout in his time because he shall sprout, or spring up.
He is the shoot or dawn of righteousness, the Lord our righteousness.
Because he makes his righteousness ours by grace, we become righteous.
And righteousness flourishes in his time.
It springs up all over, everywhere that Christians are justified.
St. Paul says that Jesus Christ has been made our wisdom from God, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
Jeremiah goes on to talk about a new exodus so great that people will refer to it instead of the old one, when they want to name the Lord's greatest benefit.
He speaks of this in terms of return from the Babylonian exile, but that return never fulfilled all of the prophecies made about it.
The real fulfillment of these prophecies is the one brought about by the Messiah, who accomplishes an exodus from slavery to sin, and a return from exile to our homeland of heaven.
This is the great deed of the Lord, who is our righteousness.
The deed that we speak of is his greatest work, instead of referring to the exodus from Egypt as the ancient Jews did.
In his days, says Jeremiah, Judah shall be saved, Israel shall dwell in security.
In his days we are saved, and we dwell secure from our infernal enemy, so long as we do not go far from Jesus.
Today's Gospel tells us how the birth of Jesus Christ came about so far as his virginal father was concerned.
He was a righteous man, surely one made so by the foreseen merits of Christ.
He had a garden, a garden enclosed, a virgin bride.
One day he noticed that a shoot was springing up in Mary's garden, where he had never put any seed, and he was troubled.
Shoots grow from seed, and there was no seed of his.
Whose seed could it be?
But how could any seed enter a garden enclosed?
It is impossible for a woman to become pregnant without a man, and it is impossible for a woman as virtuous as Mary to cheat on her husband.
Something impossible had happened, but what and how?
What was this mystery that was beyond him?
He planned to divorce Mary quietly.
Then finally the angel of the Lord revealed the mystery to him.
The shoot in his garden was the righteous shoot, righteous in its origin and the source of righteousness for all.
Therefore the angel said, you are to name him Jesus, because you will save his people from their sins.
Jesus is a Hebrew name which is also translated Joshua.
In his original form the name means the Lord is salvation.
If the child is to be named the Lord is salvation because he, the child, will save his people from their sins, then the child is the Lord, and that means that God is with us, Emmanuel.
That means that the Lord is our righteousness, Josedech, because he will save his people from their sins.
The mystery is revealed.
The garden is enclosed and inviolate, remains enclosed and inviolate, no seed was ever planted in it.
The shoot is from on high, the dawn from on high has visited us.
The verse for the Alleluia is a shortened form of today's O antiphon.
This one begins, O Adonai, Adonai is the Hebrew word for Lord.
So they use this word when they say the Lord is our righteousness.
Then the antiphon calls Christ leader of the house of Israel.
The Lord led Israel out of Egypt, prefiguring our salvation, but before he did that he did the thing that the antiphon mentions next, he appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush.
St. Ephraim and St. Gregory of Nyssa recognized the burning bush as a type of Mary, prefiguring Mary.
The bush was on fire, but was not consumed.
Mary bore in her womb our God, who is a consuming fire, yet she was not consumed.
Neither was her virginity consumed by becoming a mother.
The antiphon also recalls that the Lord gave the law on Sinai.
The law taught what the righteous must do and avoid, but it did not offer the means of grace, the sacraments necessary to do what is right and avoid what is wrong.
It is the grace of Christ that makes that possible.
The Lord is our righteousness.
Lastly, the antiphon prays, come to redeem us with outstretched arm.
The Old Testament recalls more than once how God brought Israel out of Egypt with mighty hand and outstretched arm.
We pray for a new exodus, an exodus from slavery to sin.
The Lord redeems us with outstretched arm, for Christ stretched out his arms on the cross.
O Adonai and leader of the house of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush and gave him the law on Sinai, come to redeem us with outstretched arm.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.