A Different Christmas Tree
After 18 years, my wife said she'd had enough. I can't say I blame her.
"This is the last year we're using this Christmas tree." Nancy held the plastic-coated branch to the light and searched for the color-coding. It had worn away long ago. "It's even got rust spots."
I pursed my lips and stepped back to get a better look. Somewhere along the years we'd lost a branch. Most of the others had lost their plastic needles. Without the color-codes we could only guess where each branch went along the tree trunk. Our guesses this year had rendered the poor tree lopsided.
"You're right," I conceded. "Next year we'll get a new one."
But later that evening as we sat on the couch in the soft glow of blinking lights, I wondered if we'd spoken too soon. The tree, encircled by gold ribbon and branches laden with ornaments our children made over the years was as beautiful in my eyes as any freshly-cut spruce trees of my own childhood home.
"Sure is a nice tree." Nancy seemed to sense my thoughts.
I snuggled closer and nodded, awed how mismatched and spotted branches took on so different a hue when bathed in Christmas lights and decorations. What appeared in ordinary light as a lopsided, worn and near-useless relic now released a warmth that filled our living room. And within that warmth, my mind played tricks with me as I contrasted the plastic and wire tree with one angels surely still gather round in awe: the Olive tree that represents the Body of Christ (Romans 11).
Under ordinary light, the Olive tree seems as skewed and stained as our Christmas tree. But unlike our tree with mismatched plastic branches, this Olive tree has grafted into its trunk thieves, liars, drunkards, adulterers, swindlers, sexually immoral -- the list is nearly endless. Each needle is so stained and worn one might wonder why -- or how -- the Tree still stands after two millennia. Even more, how can it yet radiate enough warmth to invade every darkened corner of every jungle cave, inner-city cardboard hut or cul-de-sac villa?
I suppose it's an "eyes-of-the-beholder" thing. The Olive tree radiates with Christ's grace, love, passion and holiness, making it as beautiful as the Tree of Life in the middle of the Garden.
Take Saul, for example. This first-century twisted branch hated Christians. He ravaged their worship, despised their Messiah and tossed as many as he could find into rat-infested dungeons. When mobs gathered to murder disciples, he watched with approval.
And then Saul -- later known as Paul -- met Christ, and the persecutor became the apostle. The one who tried to destroy the Christian faith set out across the Middle East and into Europe proclaiming Jesus as this world's only hope for peace, forgiveness and eternal life. Nearly half of the New Testament came from his pen. Millions of men and women have experienced life transformations because of his letters.
John Newton is another example. The 18th-century slave-trader packed human cargo like cattle into the bowels of his ship bound for the Americas. Many of the slaves, half-starved and surrounded by human waste and disease, died en route. But Newton counted their deaths as merely the cost of doing business.
Then Newton met Christ, and the slave-trader devoted himself to serving humankind instead of enslaving it. Christians around the world -- many are descendants of Newton's slaves -- still sing hymns the former slave-trader wrote to honor his Savior. You might recognize the words to one of those hymns:
"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
was blind, but now I see."
Dr. Bernard Nathanson is one more example of a warped branch grafted into eternity's tree. An infamous champion of abortion rights during the 1960's and early 1970's, Nathanson co-founded the National Abortion Rights Action League. He participated in more than 60,000 of the surgical procedures and, almost single-handedly, shaped the political and social landscape that made the infamous 1973 Roe v. Wade Abortion-On-Demand decision possible.
And then Nathanson met Christ. Today -- though he can never undo the horror he helped create -- the former abortion-master devotes himself to protecting the unborn from the fate he brought to tens of thousands of others.
I shifted position on the couch next to Nancy and wondered, who can ever hope to understand God's love that grafts any of us into Christ? Or why He adorns His holy tree with murderers and slave-traders, drunkards and despots -- and plain old sinners like me.
Scripture explains why in terms so simple, yet so profound, that many people miss it. The Baby in the manger became the Man on the cross because "God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).
Merry Christmas.
Rich
rmaffeo@comcast.net
"This is the last year we're using this Christmas tree." Nancy held the plastic-coated branch to the light and searched for the color-coding. It had worn away long ago. "It's even got rust spots."
I pursed my lips and stepped back to get a better look. Somewhere along the years we'd lost a branch. Most of the others had lost their plastic needles. Without the color-codes we could only guess where each branch went along the tree trunk. Our guesses this year had rendered the poor tree lopsided.
"You're right," I conceded. "Next year we'll get a new one."
But later that evening as we sat on the couch in the soft glow of blinking lights, I wondered if we'd spoken too soon. The tree, encircled by gold ribbon and branches laden with ornaments our children made over the years was as beautiful in my eyes as any freshly-cut spruce trees of my own childhood home.
"Sure is a nice tree." Nancy seemed to sense my thoughts.
I snuggled closer and nodded, awed how mismatched and spotted branches took on so different a hue when bathed in Christmas lights and decorations. What appeared in ordinary light as a lopsided, worn and near-useless relic now released a warmth that filled our living room. And within that warmth, my mind played tricks with me as I contrasted the plastic and wire tree with one angels surely still gather round in awe: the Olive tree that represents the Body of Christ (Romans 11).
Under ordinary light, the Olive tree seems as skewed and stained as our Christmas tree. But unlike our tree with mismatched plastic branches, this Olive tree has grafted into its trunk thieves, liars, drunkards, adulterers, swindlers, sexually immoral -- the list is nearly endless. Each needle is so stained and worn one might wonder why -- or how -- the Tree still stands after two millennia. Even more, how can it yet radiate enough warmth to invade every darkened corner of every jungle cave, inner-city cardboard hut or cul-de-sac villa?
I suppose it's an "eyes-of-the-beholder" thing. The Olive tree radiates with Christ's grace, love, passion and holiness, making it as beautiful as the Tree of Life in the middle of the Garden.
Take Saul, for example. This first-century twisted branch hated Christians. He ravaged their worship, despised their Messiah and tossed as many as he could find into rat-infested dungeons. When mobs gathered to murder disciples, he watched with approval.
And then Saul -- later known as Paul -- met Christ, and the persecutor became the apostle. The one who tried to destroy the Christian faith set out across the Middle East and into Europe proclaiming Jesus as this world's only hope for peace, forgiveness and eternal life. Nearly half of the New Testament came from his pen. Millions of men and women have experienced life transformations because of his letters.
John Newton is another example. The 18th-century slave-trader packed human cargo like cattle into the bowels of his ship bound for the Americas. Many of the slaves, half-starved and surrounded by human waste and disease, died en route. But Newton counted their deaths as merely the cost of doing business.
Then Newton met Christ, and the slave-trader devoted himself to serving humankind instead of enslaving it. Christians around the world -- many are descendants of Newton's slaves -- still sing hymns the former slave-trader wrote to honor his Savior. You might recognize the words to one of those hymns:
"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
was blind, but now I see."
Dr. Bernard Nathanson is one more example of a warped branch grafted into eternity's tree. An infamous champion of abortion rights during the 1960's and early 1970's, Nathanson co-founded the National Abortion Rights Action League. He participated in more than 60,000 of the surgical procedures and, almost single-handedly, shaped the political and social landscape that made the infamous 1973 Roe v. Wade Abortion-On-Demand decision possible.
And then Nathanson met Christ. Today -- though he can never undo the horror he helped create -- the former abortion-master devotes himself to protecting the unborn from the fate he brought to tens of thousands of others.
I shifted position on the couch next to Nancy and wondered, who can ever hope to understand God's love that grafts any of us into Christ? Or why He adorns His holy tree with murderers and slave-traders, drunkards and despots -- and plain old sinners like me.
Scripture explains why in terms so simple, yet so profound, that many people miss it. The Baby in the manger became the Man on the cross because "God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).
Merry Christmas.
Rich
rmaffeo@comcast.net
posted by rich at
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