Our Tree of Life :: Genesis 3:1-21, John 19:40-42

I can’t imagine a better place to begin life than under the shade of a tree ... a magnificent, beautiful, fruitful tree ... how about a white oak ... in a green garden ... next to a river that is as bright as crystal. 

The best time to plant a tree, they say, is twenty years ago. The second best time is right now. We need all the trees we can get. Without trees, we would be left without their fruit. There’d be no Fuji apples. No Florida oranges. No plums. No cherries, and no coconut or key lime pies ... or heaven forbid, no fig newtons. 

Fruit aside ... what would we do without trees? 

Well, we’d be lost and hopeless.

But thankfully ... because of a tree ... the most God-awful tree ever created, 

• a tree of wrath, 

• a tree of fear and shame, 

• a tree few people want to look at ... unless it is bare, 

• a tree of despair and death ... we have life, new life. 

Sin was nailed to that tree. And now everyone who looks up, sins his sin and his savior, confesses his sin and believes the promises of redemption wrought on that tree, will receive eternal life. 

Our scripture readings are ripe with trees. Are you ready to see them? 

At the foot of one tree, the one in the midst of the garden, man and woman received the sweetest fruit of all ... the fruit of everlasting life, life without pain, life without sickness, life without sin, life without toil, disease and death ... and life with ... the eternal righteous God, the one who made them in his image, the one who nourishes and feeds the fruit of life. It is, as God said, a very good life.

At the foot of another tree, Adam and Eve worshiped God. There, they showed their love for the Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth by being obedient to His Word. As Moses tells us in Genesis Chapter 2, The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. And the Lord God commanded the man, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.

Next to that tree, of course, was the Tree of Life. Eat of that tree and you will live forever ... in harmony, and bliss. So you see, you are free. Free indeed. You are free to choose between life and death, eternal life and eternal death. Between blessings and curses. Between good and evil. Which fruit will you choose? 

Why on earth did we choose death?

I don’t think in this life we will ever understand why Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Within moments of eating from a tree the devil disguised as good, they began the blame game and gates of hell were opened. Death entered the world that day. God found the man and the woman hiding in the shame of their sin, hiding in darkness, hiding and covering their sin, trying to convince themselves they had done nothing wrong. 

How have you been hiding behind the masks in your life? Where have you been hiding? Where are you, the Lord called?

Of course, the Lord knows the answer to the question. But do you? 

So he asked the man, “Who told you that you were naked? The man didn’t really answer. The man said, the woman YOU gave to be with ME, SHE made ME do it. 

Really, Man? You’re blaming God? Really? You’re blaming her? 

Then the Lord said to the woman, What have you done? 

And she said, the Devil made me do it! Really Eve? 

There’s no doubt that Satan was the Tempting One that day, that he was the Great Deceiver. But your lives are no different. Just like Eve, too often we try to change God’s word to suit ourselves; we try to cherry pick what God has to say about something. Don’t make me feel guilty, we tell ourselves. 

• Didn’t God really say you should forget the sin that surrounds you?

• Didn’t God really say you should love yourself first? How can you take care of your wife if you aren’t taking care of yourself?

• Is God such a killjoy that He won’t let you bend the rules -- even a little -- even when He knows so much is at stake? 

• Look at all those translations of the Bible! Did God really say any of it at all? Isn’t it all just a matter of interpretation .... your interpretation?

Make no mistake. These are all lies of the serpent. The craftiest of all the beasts of the earth knows you don’t like to be wrong. He knows you don’t like to find fault within yourselves. He knows you don’t like sin ... that you don’t like being called sinners. He knows you don’t like admitting it. 

Sin is just plain evil. And we like to believe we want no part of that.

So what is yours? Adultery? The idolatry of me, myself and I? Is it Lust ... for other things, for other people? Is it gluttony? Is it a selfishness that keeps you from giving to the church? Is it disbelief in the Word of God, a disbelief that threatens your faith that Jesus is who he says he is? Did God really say women can’t be pastors?

Whatever it is, know that it is killing you. The wages of sin is death. It is complete separation from God. It is darkness. 

As the ashes of Lent remind us ... Because of sin you are dust and to dust you will return. And there is nothing you can do about it. The original sin of Adam and Eve in the garden has poisoned the entire human race this way. It has separated you from God, as a wall of hostility. Sin must be dealt with. 

God does not ignore sin. He does not embrace sin. And he will not tolerate it ... whatever your sin may be. God judges all sin. 

All the while, the world tries to tell you otherwise.

The fact that man is a sinner forbids him from being part of the solution. Sin-filled man is the problem. Mankind is stumbling blindly and bumbling helplessly through life. He cannot, even by accident, address the problem of sin. And so, life eludes the sinner. God has barred us from the tree of life and ensured it is beyond our reach.

It may be beyond your reach, but it’s not beyond the reach of God! 

For just as man was overcome by a tree, so also by a tree ... the true tree of life ... the Son of Man overcomes. 

God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son. 

Jesus, God’s Son, has come into our flesh and He has crushed the ancient serpent and paid the price for sin, fulfilling the first promise of the forgiveness of sins. Only the blood of the Lamb -- the Lamb who has no blemish or spot, who is a perfect sacrifice, a holy and precious offering -- only the blood of the Lamb can redeem us ... the blood and a tree. 

And Jesus is that lamb. And the cross is that tree. 

The Son of Man was lifted high upon that tree just as the bronze serpent was lifted high by Moses in the wilderness that whoever believes in him should not perish, that whosoever looks up and sees their sin on that tree will be saved and live. The cross -- an instrument of torture, suffering, and death -- is the tree upon which Jesus was lifted up. And wouldn’t you know it, as the Gospel of John reminds us, that tree was in the midst of a Garden.

On that cross, that tree, Jesus suffered and died. 

On that cross, that tree, He shed his holy and precious blood. 

On the cross, on that tree He laid down His life that our lives might be restored and our sins washed clean by his blood. 

Thanks be to God, Jesus has turned an instrument of death into a tree of life. And through it, God ends our exile from him. Jesus has taken the sins of the world to that tree and lifted them up for all to see. He nailed them to that cross and left them there to die with him. 

No longer do we have to wander aimlessly, blindly through life. Now, we gather at the foot of the cross, gather in the shade at the new tree of life and gaze upon the One who became sin for us that we might be saved.

So you see ... going from tree to tree ... God has restored your lives with him. Now all who confess Jesus is Lord and believe will be united with him in the final resurrection and will receive life in the courts of heaven, life that is ours in Christ Jesus. The return from exile is complete by way of a tree.