“THE TREES: IN THE GARDEN”
Advent Midweek 1: 3 December Anno Domini 2015
Father Jay Watson SSP
Protestants and Pagans alike argue over the origins and meanings of evergreen trees in the family living room during December. Customs from Germany or heathenish Druid Pictland notwithstanding—it doesn’t matter one whit. Have your festive decorations, “the hanging of the greens” or not. Though there were no jack-pines in Bethlehem a tree is a type of Christ…in many and varied ways.
There was a tree, actually, THE Tree in the Garden of Eden.
Yes there were trees—a world full of glorious and perfect trees: “…the fruit tree yielding fruit” [Gen 1. 12] and God saw that it was good. The Lord, The Son, the creating Word, made all the trees on the Third Day. It would be on The Third Day that His sacrifice on The Tree would yield the redemptive fruit for eternity. Fruit—good and sweet.
Fruit is meant to be eaten. The Lord wanted them to eat and be filled with His creative and sustaining family/communion peace: “I have given you…every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.” [1.29] Forget not that The Christ told His “12” that the “seed” of the Sower was the Word of God. Jesus is The Seed of The Trinity and He goes, as He went, bodily into the earth of His loved ones—the same “earth” in which He made His first beloved Adam.
Even as The Lord breathed into the earth—the mud wet with the Spirit too, He provided what the trees needed: “…a mist from the earth…watered the whole face of the ground.” [2.6] The incense of God’s fecundity keeping His own moist and green.
As there are 66 Books of Sacred Scripture in the compendium we call the Bible, but only ONE Christ, ONE GOD, ONE Baptism, so too the garden of Eden while having had many trees, there are but two that we remember, with ONE being even then, paramount.
“Every tree…good for food…The Tree of Life also in the midst of the Garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil” [v.9] writes God. Moses goes on to record: “…God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of god and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” [2.16]
Christ gives you everything. Like Eve you believe the serpent and you also now believe your sinful heart. The serpent lied—He is a liar from the beginning. Eve knew what God had said but she rejected Him, and His Son Who is Truth, and she willingly accepted the lie—her own black heart’s desire. And this too, is why you sin…and why you can’t even admit your sin most of the time.
So the giving God of love brings all, Adam, Eve, and you back to The Tree. Paul is correct: “we preach Christ crucified.” John is correct: “…and if I be lifted up from the earth [I] will draw all men unto Me.” [Jn. 12. 32] The Tree isn’t just a growing vegetable but Christ Crucified Himself. The Tree, the Cross, is the Holy Crucifix—The Throne of The Lamb forever slain.
And what of the tree of knowledge? A fruit tree that God used as His Law trigger; obey as dear children; love Me and your spouse; be what I have made you—capable of not sinning. When Eve ate; when Adam ate; they did not become wise with the wisdom of God—they had already had that in their perfect communion with The Lord—but they became fallen and corrupt…now fully tasting good and evil and capable of only doing evil in the spiritual realm.
The Tree of Life? It was The Lord’s Holy Altar of full communion and worship and table fellowship. It was where The Lord met and fed His dear children all of Himself—all of Life and Light and Immortality before the fall. It was the type of the Crucifix in that Jesus was slain before the foundation of the world—for forgiveness, atonement and re-birth. After the fall the traitors could no longer be permitted that eternal existence of life forever in their damned condition. They needed first to be won back and redeemed by Eve’s Seed which was Trinity’s Seed, Mary’ Seed, The Son of God incarnate as the Redeeming God/Man from Bethlehem and Nazareth. The Cherubim were as faithful under-shepherding pastors guarding the Lord’s holy things from unbelieving, un-confessing, and undiscerning eating and drinking.
That Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden was Christ the Fruit. It points to Him The self-same Tree of Life in the Garden of Augsburg. That altar in the middle of paradise typifies this altar in the middle of His Church here. That fruit, that wisdom, that life, and that immortality points to the Bloody Fruit, that Body, soon to be fed you. The Cherubim, no longer separate and bar access, but rather, carry, usher, and guide you to your honored seat. They sing with you. Happy First Advent. Happy Coming Advent. Come quickly Lord Jesus.
In the Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost
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