From Seed to Tree to Cross

There are two partially fallen trees outside my home office window.  They are wedged in the V of two branches of another tree that withstood the storm bringing down its neighbors.  Half-dead, scrubby, leafless, they aren’t much to look at, except for one detail that draws my eye.  These three trees combined in this position create the tip of an arrow pointing up.

I totally understand the effects of gravity on falling trees, the paths of least resistance, and the notion that some people have that this is a cool coincidence, but I am pretty sure God wants me to see and understand more.

Our family, like many around us, recently celebrated Thanksgiving gathered in our home.  My husband offered a prayer of gratitude for bringing us together, humbly thanked the Lord for His offering of salvation, and asked for God’s blessing on all who would later go about their separate lives.  We enjoyed a communal meal, played games, reminisced, and laughed with the littles as they discovered how to share their toys.  We watched them develop into friends from cousins.  It was a fabulous day.

One day later I asked Jeff if I could PLEASE begin decorating for Christmas.  He flashed me his charming grin and acquiesced.  Unlike some lucky decorators who can fill their homes with Christmas trees and still enjoy Thanksgiving, Jeff is a firm believer that Thanksgiving and Christmas should not overlap because each deserves its separate station.  This is one of the few points on which his NO, really means NOT YET, and we both know it.

We stood in the basement last night sifting through memories under the guise of searching for the Christmas boxes.  Brad’s Kindergarten report card, Santa’s Christmas Key for homes without a fireplace, Polaroid pictures of Jeff and the kids when we were building our home, our raggedy, old artificial tree and the newer, prettier version that we will soon bring upstairs…so many memories in boxes and bags and trunks.  When I looked at the picture of the old tree on the outside of the box, I thought how ugly it was compared to our new one, but the memories attached are beautiful and more valuable.  It can stay in the basement for a while longer.  

Pastor Shawn recently mentioned the cross which Jesus carried to his crucifixion.  What type of wood was it made of?  Who grew the tree or trees from which it was carved?  How did that person feel?  Was he repulsed in anger, was he proud, was he confused?  

I turned to Google looking for some answers to my search phrase: what type of wood was Jesus’s cross.  Down the rabbit hole I went.  There are lots of opinions, research studies, analyses of ancient literature, and experiments on alleged slivers from the cross.  This excerpt of a Latin verse that I encountered interests me in its assertion that there was a combination of wood types: “The foot of the Cross is Cedar, The Palm holds back the hands, Th’ tall Cypress holds the body, The Olive in joy is inscribed.”  I kept reading and floating from one website to another finally concluding that I was missing the forest for the trees.

God knew the seed that would grow into the tree to become the cross on which His son, our Lord and Savior, would die for our sins in a sacrifice that only He could make.  God looked at that seed and must have felt both sorrow and love.  He knew that it was good and perfect, just as Jesus Christ is good and perfect.  Paul writes in I Corinthians 1:18, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”  

While I am surrounded by trees–the arrow outside my window, the Christmas tree waiting to be decorated, even the Olive wood cross I carry in my purse–I pray that God will continue to soften my heart and open my eyes to the most sincere gift of the holiday season: eternal salvation through Christ Jesus. Thank you, Father! Can I have an Amen?