The cross didn’t quite fit into the back of my car.  Luckily I drive a hatch-back, so I was able to leave the hatch open, and the cross sat snugly with part of it sticking out as I drove.  I needed the cross for a service I was leading at my church which was loosely based on the Catholic Veneration of the Cross liturgy.  It was a beautiful, gnarled old spruce cross that my friend Trevor had made out of two pieces of the same tree.

Trevor had recently used the cross in another ceremony, one in which he had invited the participants to write their unconfessed sin on little blood-red squares of paper, and then to nail the paper to the cross. The “sins” were still there, and as I drove, I saw, to my dismay, that some of them were being torn loose by the wind.  People’s darkest secrets were being ripped from the cross and were now bearing their crimson confessions to all the corners of Edmonton.

Oops, I thought to myself.

Other than that, the service went off without a hitch, and was well received as I discussed the symbology of trees as it pertained to the Gospel.

The tree is one of the most important religious symbols in many of the world’s religions, especially those of northern, temperate climates where forests were ubiquitous.  The druids and Celts considered trees to be a source of magic, gateways to the spiritual realms.  The Norse believed in Yggdrasil, the World Tree on which hung the nine worlds of their cosmology.  And Native North Americans had a myriad of sacred symbols attached to trees, as evidenced by the use of totem poles in Pacific cultures.

The tree is a central symbol for the Christian faith, as well, though we seem reluctant to claim it as such, perhaps in a desire to distance ourselves from some of the pagan overtones accrued from the druids and the like. But the Scriptures are steeped with images of trees, and indeed the Bible begins and ends with a reference to a tree.

In fact, one could say the message of the Gospel can be told as the Story of the Three Trees.

The First Tree

Life began in the Garden of Eden, and it was Paradise.  God placed Adam and Eve there to thrive and be happy.  In that Garden were many trees, the fruit of which God gave Adam and Eve to eat.  He only stipulated that they stay away from one of them- the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Don’t eat the fruit of that tree, God told them, or you’ll die.  Adam and Eve were content to leave this tree alone, for they had no desire to die.

But then the trickster, the tempter, the Serpent approached Eve and lied to her.   Perhaps because Eve had never heard a lie before, she believed the Serpent when he told her that she would not die if she ate from the Tree.  You won’t die, said the Serpent, you will become like God Himself, knowing good and evil.

And so Adam and Eve both partook in the Dark Exchange. [See note below] They ate the fruit from the First Tree and exchanged life for death.  They drank the nectar of the fruit and exchanged paradise for pain.  Sin and death entered the world, and Eden could exist no longer.  The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil became the Tree of Lost Innocence for the entire human race.

The Second Tree

The First Tree brought a curse, and to break it a Second Tree with a Second Curse was needed.  The Second Tree is the Cross of Christ, and though it stood on the hill of the Skull, it had its roots in another Garden, Gethsemane.  Unlike Eden, Gethsemane was a garden of misery, and Christ went there to suffer.  He did not want to eat the fruit of this Tree, for it also brought death, swift, terrible and sure. He asked God that he might be relieved of the need to eat of it, but Jesus knew he had to, because the First Adam ate the fruit of the First Tree, and so he obeyed, saying not my will but Yours be done.

And then the betrayer came, and kissed him.  He was taken away and made to stand before lesser men, who sentenced him to death on the cross.  Hanging on the cross, Jesus exchanged his holiness for our sin, his death for our life.  By his death the First Curse was abolished. Sin and death were defeated upon the Second Tree, the Tree of Death, and so it became the Tree of Hope for all the world.

The Third Tree

The Tree of Life was present in the Garden of Eden, but after the curse, it was removed from human interference until it could once more be commended to us.  Now that the Christ has partaken of the fruit of the Tree of Death we may partake of the fruit of the Tree of Life, which is for the healing of the nations, and this fruit allows us to once more enter Paradise- not Eden, but the very Kingdom of God itself.  The wounds of Christ bring about our healing.  Unlike the fruit of the First Tree, which we were forbidden to eat, and the fruit of the Second Tree, which only Christ was able to eat, the fruit of the Third Tree is available to all, and indeed we have been invited to eat of it from God Himself.  The fruit, of course, is faith in Christ, and it brings Eternal Life.

After the pseudo-Veneration of the Cross service at my church, one of our brothers went and built a similar cross.  Now that I think about it, it’s been a while since we have made use of it in any of our services.  Maybe it’s time to pull it out again.  I wonder if this one will fit in my car.