The Planting of the Tree of Life
In sinful mistrust and rebellion, our first parents ate from the forbidden tree and planted seeds of death and destruction in creation.
The only way to save us and creation from death was to plant a Seed that could give forth the fruits of life again – that which bring forth a Tree of Life in God’s creation again. It was a seed we could not provide or plant, one not infected with our deadly disease of sin, but One only God could give. And this Easter season celebrates that He did just that!
But look at what God planted – such a strange tree – and alien seed outside of sin’s touch and curse – The Seed from a virgin womb of Mary. That was critical. Everyone born of man has been tainted/infected with the disease of original sin, and thus had no clean life to offer as a substitute and payment for our guilt and sin (that God’s justice demands). The condition of death was passed on from father to child from Adam until the end of time. No seed of man could be used, for it would only plant a tree of death, and had no life within it.
Thus God would use the Seed of the woman, Mary, as He promised long ago – totally outside of the will and sin of man. A pure and holy Seed of life, that sin and death had not touched. This was the Seed of the Promise that was Life Himself – the tree of Life, the One that would bring life back to a fallen and cursed and dying creation.
But in order to bring forth new life, a seed must first be planted – must be planted and die in order to bring forth new life. This happened at the cross and tomb of Jesus on Good Friday. There on the cross, God the Son, who knew no sin of His own, who had known no curse of death, would take our place in death, our place in suffering under the wrath and fury of a Holy God vented against our guilt and sin. On the Cross, Jesus would feel the hell and eternal death that we each would have faced, the fruits of our seeds/trees of death. With the indescribable agony of all our guilt and death upon Him, in triumph and love, Jesus the Seed of Life, the Lord of Life, the source of Life gave up His Spirit and died.
Then this Seed from the virgin womb, would be planted into a virgin tomb. How appropriate for this Seed of Life which had never known death to be planted in a tomb that had known no death yet as well.
But in that planting and death in our place, the price and atonement for all our bloody deeds and sin has been paid in full, and Jesus’ resurrection and Easter victory has proven it! Death no longer has a claim on us! The judgment and wrath of God has been satisfied in His own Son’s death. Our accuser satan, the one who led our first parents, and thus all of us into sin and death by a tree, was by the tree of the cross overcome himself – defeated and crushed, with nothing left to accuse us of, for the blood of the Lamb, the juices of the Bloody tree of Life have been poured out over us.
On that Tree, Jesus undergoes a bloody bath, for the Father lays upon Him His wrath against sin, and His Son atones for that sin, as water and Blood – His very infinite life flows from His side and over us. By His death and resurrection our fonts are now consecrated as the place where the cleansing Blood of Christ flows from Him and over us – the place where we first begin to eat of the Tree of life as God had first intended for His children.
The Planted Seed that had died, has now burst forth from His tomb in victory over death. The Tree of Life has sprung forth from the ground! For this Seed had Life within Him, and had fulfilled all of the justice of God, and has proven that Life wins over death by rising from the tomb. That is our Easter celebration every Sunday.
Now in Christ, we continue to come here to the Garden of God’s presence and get to eat of the tree of life Jesus Christ, to eat from the table of the Lamb, looking forward to that day when the last thorns of sin and heat of oppression and trial of this fallen and cursed world will be gone forever, and we get to eat of the Tree of Life in the Garden of God’s presence and glory for eternity in the new heaven and earth.
All this from the Bloody Tree of Life, The Seed, planted and Risen again, bringing forth true life to a dying creation.
Pastor
