Meet at the Tree

I have recently been reminded of an interesting Bible symbol: the tree. I’m reading about the life of Abraham, and I have noticed how many times a tree plays a part in the account. One of his first stopping points was at a tree near Mamre. He met the Lord there before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. He later purchased that plot for his wife, Sarah’s, burial plot which later served the same purpose for him and many of his descendants. There are other important points in the lives of the patriarchs that feature trees also.

That got me thinking about all the other times that trees are mentioned in Scripture. The first mention is the trees in the Garden of Eden. There we have the wonderful tree of life that would have allowed us to live forever in the perfection of Eden had Adam and Eve not broken God’s command not to eat of another tree: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (See Related Posts) It was God’s chosen trees that provided the building material for Noah’s ark. The superstructure of the tabernacle and its utensils was composed of lumber from certain trees chosen by God. Throughout the psalms and prophets, trees often appear in symbolic roles. Paul uses the analogy of the olive tree to picture the grafting of Gentiles into God’s family tree.

The most dramatic tree in the Bible is the one erected by the Romans on which to crucify our Lord and Savior. Legends have sprung from the roots of this tree. Some say that the cross was made from olive wood resulting in God’s curse of the tree to forever be small and twisted so that it could never again be used for execution. Another tale says the cross was made of the dogwood tree. Again, God is thought to have stunted its growth but blessed it with flowers that represent a cross with nail marks on each of the four petals. Surely, these are whimsical thoughts; no one knows for sure what type of wood the cross came from.

Still, the cross of Calvary is without doubt the most significant tree in human history. It was on that tree that the damage done by Adam’s sin with the tree in Eden was rectified. The horror that was inflicted on the Son of God on that tree reveals both God’s abhorrence of sin and His immeasurable love for His creation. We do well to consider both of those emotions when we come to the cross. Focusing on either one alone creates a warped view and diminishes the meaning of the cross.

A. W. Tozer comments on one false view: “All unannounced and mostly undetected there has come in modern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles…. From this new cross has sprung a new philosophy of the Christian life…. [it] tries to show that Christianity makes no unpleasant demands; rather, it offers the same thing the world does, only on a higher level. The modern view is that the new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him!” Tozer explains that this kind of thinking completely misses the whole meaning of the cross. “The old cross is a symbol of death…. The man who took up his cross… was not going out to have his life redirected: he was going out to have it ended!”

On the surface, this sounds terrifying, macabre even. Yet the entire thrust of the Bible is that Adam’s descendants must be slain and reborn as Jesus Christ’s new creation. Those who try to reinvent Christianity as an endlessly happy road to heaven must ignore the clear teaching of the Scripture that to be one with Christ we must become one with His death. In the waters of baptism, we symbolize our death to the old life and resurrection to new life. The Apostle Paul says numerous times that the way to real life is through death – death of the old self. “I died,” he says, “nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me.”

Most Christian churches I have been in display the cross prominently inside and out. Few Christian churches today preach the cross with the fervor that Paul felt. “I decided to know nothing among you,” Paul told the Corinthians, “But Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” Ever since Adam ruined perfect human existence with his desire for independence, we have all paid the price. But God told Adam that one day, his offspring would make that perfect existence available again. The unimaginable price God paid to accomplish that, His One and Only Son, was drawn from His infinite, unconditional love for His creation. The only price we are asked to pay is repentance from our reckless independence learned from Adam and faith in God’s gracious provision. We demonstrate that repentance and faith with our death and resurrection pictured in the waters of baptism.

Paul says that we rise from our baptism to live a new way of life. After we put the old self to death, we set a new course on a different road. In his book, In Search of Common Good, Jake Meador remembers the road that C.S. Lewis pictured in the last book of the Narnia Chronicles. The children have reached Narnia after triumphing over evil, and they see a road leading “further up and further in.” Meador comments: “The road will lead to a cross. But only things that die can be resurrected. And so as sure as the road leads us to the cross, it leads us to the eternal city, to the home of the king, to the desire of all nations, to the joy of every longing heart.” It's time to hit the road. Meet me at the cross.

Related Posts: The Knowledge of Good and Evil; Suffering for Righteousness Sake; Why did God do That; For God’s Sake