Archives For tree

Sword, Tree, Naked

samuel kee —  October 2, 2012 — 2 Comments

“Adam and Eve Tree Painting” by Ida Hes

Because we refused to live under God’s rule, God drove humanity out of the garden of Eden.  Though we lost Paradise, we’ve never lost the memory of Paradise.  Every human longs to get back to the garden of Eden, whether they realize it or not.  Our desires, intentions, and longings betray us.  We want the world to be perfect; we ache for happiness; we weep for justice.  We’ve lost it, but the secret mission of our lives is to find it.

Here’s the problem, “He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden, he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life” (Genesis 3:24).  Once we refused to live under God’s rule, God drove us out of Paradise, blocking any hope of a return.  I want to point out three parts of this story.  First, the way back into the garden is blocked by a sword, moving back and forth.  Second, we are kept from a tree.  Third, when Adam and Eve were in the garden, they were naked.

With just these three simple facts, we’re able to discover the solution we’ve been waiting our whole lives to find.  In order to return to Paradise, we’ve got to get through the cutting sword.  Though this is impossible for us, it was not impossible for him.  God sent his Son Jesus into our “east of Eden” and Jesus threw himself onto the sword, being cut down for us.  Here’s what’s recorded in John’s gospel, “But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water” (John 19:34).  It’s not just a grand historical coincidence that Jesus was cut by a sword.

Again, when Jesus was pierced by the spear, he was hanging on a tree, a euphemism for the Roman cross.  “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.  By his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Peter 2:24).  The cross is our tree of life, our source of healing.

Again, when Jesus was pierced by a sword on a tree, he was naked.  Matthew’s gospel records, “And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him” (Matthew 27:28).  In order to maximize the humiliation of the criminal, the Romans would crucify them naked.  All of our pictures of Jesus on the cross wearing a white linen are most likely wrong, though well intended.  Jesus was most likely naked on the cross, having been stripped by the soldiers.

Sword.  Tree.  Naked.  God’s solution for us to get through the sword, so that we can return to the tree of life, and the innocence of Eden (for that’s what nakedness symbolizes), is Jesus.

Jesus is our solution.

© Samuel Kee, 2012

In Finding Hope, God's Existence, Knowing God , , , ,
permalink

Our Tree

samuel kee —  January 8, 2012 — 2 Comments

The tree is the portal through which we find God.

The summer after my second grade year, I fell from a tree.  No one knows how far up I was, it’s estimated that I was thirty to forty feet above the ground.  At least that’s what they tell me.  I can’t remember any of it.

Evidently, an ambulance came and picked me up, taking me to Children’s Hospital in Akron, Ohio; again, I’m sorry I “missed” that.  It would have been cool to see an ambulance drive through our yard.  Then I was unconscious at the hospital for a week or two, I’m not sure how long exactly.  Again, I can’t remember any of it.  I’ve seen some pictures of me in the hospital, but that’s about it.  The fall knocked the memory of this event clear out of my head.

I’m usually a very careful climber, so I’m not sure what went wrong that summer afternoon (or was it morning?).  My brother and I were playing in the woods together, as we usually did.  My guess is that a branch broke, in my zeal to get to the top.

While I don’t have a memory of “the tree,” my guess is that you do.  You remember the tree, though not the one in Northeastern, Ohio.  The tree that we all remember was in the Garden of Eden.  It’s the tree we’re aching for and, therefore, searching for.  It’s the Tree of Life, which God banned our first parents, Adam and Eve, from discovering.

The Tree of Life is in the collective memory of humankind.  It’s “home.”  It’s the place of longing, the place of dreams, the place we’re searching for, beneath and behind everything we do.  Love.  Life.  Joy.  Meaning.  Significance.  Relationship.  Eternity.  Beauty.

Unlike my tree, none of us can shake the memory of our Tree.  Though we’ve fallen from it, we desperately want to find it.  But is it still there?  In other words, can any human have the deepest desires of the heart met?

It’s curious to note that the cross of Jesus was also known as “the tree” (Galatians 3:13, 1 Peter 2:24, Acts 5:30).  Jesus died on the tree.  Jesus was broken by the curse on the tree.  The tree meant death for Jesus—but life for us.  At the same moment, it was both a place of cursing and blessing, of death and life.  The tree of the cross is the new Tree of Life, the portal through which we return to the Garden of Eden, the very Paradise of God—home.

Through the cross, we find God.  We find life.  Our longings and dreams meet their object at last.

© Samuel Kee, 2011

In Knowing God , , , , , , , , , , , ,
permalink

The Giving Tree

samuel kee —  September 21, 2010 — Leave a comment

If only you would have tapped into it.

My friend Louise told us the story of a sugar maple that stood outside of her window.  She would sit in the same chair each morning to read her Bible, from where she could look out the window and see her beautiful tree.

One morning she noticed that the tree did not look as healthy as it once had looked.  So she called a tree specialist to get his advice.  The specialist told her to water it and keep her eye on it, which is what she did.  Each day she watered it and each day she watched it. 

She did this routine day after day, month after month, until the tree finally died.  Though she did not like doing so, she had to call a tree removal service to cut down the tree and take it out of her yard. 

This second tree specialist, however, was a bit keener than the first.  “Do you know why your sugar maple died?” he asked Louise.  Of course, she had no idea, for she did all the right things. 

“It was too full of sap,” he responded.  Evidently, all of the water turned into more sap than the tree could handle.  It was so full of sap that it rotted from the inside.  “If only you would have tapped into it and regularly taken the sap out of the tree, it would have lived.”

Things rot when they are too full of themselves.  Things die when they are not tapped into.  This is a powerful lesson for the church.

The church must be watered, there’s no doubt about that.  It must be fed by the word of God and the multiple gospel-centered ministries.  However, the church needs to be tapped into, if it is going to survive. 

The church needs to be a “giving tree” to quote the late children’s poet Shel Silverstein.  Pardon my own childish poetry, but, “if the church is gonna’ live, the church has gotta’ give.”  Otherwise, we’ll rot from the inside—drown in our own sap.

“Oh, the tree was happy.”

“Oh, the tree was glad.”[1]

[1] Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree.

© 2010 by Samuel Kee
In Cultural Issues, Knowing God , , , ,
permalink