Quick Summary:

Toward the end of Return of the King, the final episode in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, as the dark minions of Mordor mass for battle and the end of all that is good seems inevitable, the story takes us to the white city of Gondor, Minas Tirith. At the pinnacle of the alabaster city’s mountain bulkhead, in the plaza high above the plain where the decisive battle will be joined, stands the white tree of Gondor, a symbol of the nation’s kingly heritage. But the once great tree has lost all its leaves, and the bare limbs that remain seem to portend that the noble tree, like the nation itself, is destined for oblivion.

YET, as the siege of Minas Tirith begins, and casualties mount, we watch, inexplicably, as a single white blossom on the tree—unheralded and unnoticed—opens(!); a sign that, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, all is not lost, and a future with hope is still a possibility. It’s the same kind of context that forms the backdrop for the two short verses of Jeremiah which greet us this first Sunday of Advent.