When I was a little kid, all the hurt of loss and trauma was rather large under our roof. So getting up even a sad little Charlie Brown Christmas tree for our family was, honestly, just painfully hard.

The most wonderful time of year can be mostly a painful time of year for a whole lot of weary folks.

And then, somewhere down all the decked halls, some of us can somehow make an unexpected turn, and, for a fleeting moment, catch a glimpse of all that we wished our story looked like, instead of the way it does.

“The most wonderful time of year

can be a mostly painful time of year

for a whole lot of weary folks.“

And, right there in the midst of all the twinkling lights, the gulf of loss between where you are, and where you always imagined your story might have turned out to be, can’t seem to be bridged by cutting down a tree of any height, so you try to brush back the unexpected heartache with the back of your hand and breathe and do the next hard and holy thing.

As I hang ornaments on our own tree this year, trying not to slip and fall into any chasms of sadness, I’m struck by how they say the reality is “that simply sitting looking at trees reduce blood pressure as well as the stress-related hormones cortisol and adrenaline.”

That research’s actually discovered that “participants walking in a forest experienced less anxiety, hostility, fatigue, confusion, and depressive symptoms, and more vigor… that those who gazed at a winter forest reported significantly better moods, more positive emotions, more vigor, and a greater sense of personal restoration.”

Surprisingly, the data concluded how forests powerfully affect our brains: “People living in proximity to trees had better “amygdala integrity”—meaning, a brain structure better able to handle stressors.”

And, here we are: Tis the season where the whole spinning planet orbits with people living in closest proximity to trees —all trying not to be stressed right out of our collective tree.

But what if the very fact that we are living in close proximity to trees right now not only made us all more than a bit more stress-free, but healed our cracked hearts in more ways than we ever dreamed?

Even though the Ancient Sacred Book lays open right there on our coffee table that’s made of century old beams hewn from gnarly trees, I’m not sure how closely I’d ever noticed it before?

“All other trees might make us a bit more stress-free,

but only the Tree of Calvary literally frees us.“

How the Living-Spirit Book, it opens our human story with two trees in a garden, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil — and then tells how it will all end, with only one tree standing, “On each side of the river is the Tree of Life… The tree’s leaves are for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse.” (Rev. 22:2-3 CEV).

All trees will give way to only one Tree of Life: The tree where the God-Man gave the gift of Himself, infinite Love, to pulverize death and destroy all the damning curses and tenderly mend up and heal all our bustedness and trauma.

All other trees might make us a bit more stress-free, but only the Tree of Calvary literally frees us.

The Living-Spirit Book, in the original Greek, could have referred exclusively to the cross (stauros) throughout the text, but instead, surprisingly, it points to the tree (xylos).

The apostles, in the book of Acts, don’t say that Jesus went to the cross but that He sacrificed Himself “on a tree” (5:30; 10:39) — and that He was taken “down from the tree and [they] laid Him in a tomb” (13:29). The holy text says He offered His servant body to bear “our sins in His body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24).

“Everywhere we turn this time of year, Christmas whispers:

Christ’s coming was more than about going to a cross —

but about going to a Tree.“

Everywhere we turn this time of year, Christmas whispers: Christ’s coming was more than about going to a cross — but about going to a Tree.

Why make it a deal that Jesus came down to ultimately go up to a Tree?

The Ancient Jewish Torah reads that “Anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse” (Deut. 21:23 Berean Standard Bible).

Every Christmas tree can testify: Jesus came down to go up to the Tree of Calvary to take every hurt, every curse, and set all the weary captives free.

And the ornaments that I’m hanging on our Christmas tree are “Jesse Tree” ornaments, each one artistically depicting story after story, in the family tree of Jesus, which originates from the prophecy, “Then a shoot will spring up from the stump of Jesse, and a Branch from his roots will bear fruit…In that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a banner to the peoples; Him shall the nations seek…” (Isa. 11:1, 11) These Jesse Tree ornaments, like a visual family tree of Jesus, are noted as the “original use of the family tree, as a visual representation of a genealogy.” 

If you don’t come to Christmas through Christ’s family tree, and you simply come into the Christmas story just right there at the Christmas tree—it’s bewildering to fully understand the meaning of His coming.

Because without the genealogy of Christ?

“The coming of Christ is right through families of messed-up monarchs & battling brothers, through affairs and adultery & more than a feud or two, through skeletons in closets & cheaters at tables.“

“Without the limbs of His past, the branches of His family, the love story of His heart that has been coming for you since before the beginning—how does Christmas and its tree stand? Its roots would be sheared. Its meaning would be stunted. The arresting pause of the miracle would be lost.

The coming of Christ is right through families of messed-up monarchs and battling brothers, through affairs and adultery and more than a feud or two, through skeletons in closets and cheaters at tables.

It was in that time of prophets and kings, the time of Mary and Joseph, that men were in genealogies and women were invisible. But for Jesus, women had names and stories and lives that mattered.

And Jesus claims exactly these who are wandering and wondering and wounded and worn out as His.

He grafts you into His line and His story and His heart, and He gives you His name, His lineage, His righteousness. He graces you with plain amazing grace.

Is there a greater Gift you could want or need or have?

“And Jesus claims exactly these who are wandering and wondering and wounded and worn out as His.“

Christ comes right to your Christmas tree and looks at your family tree and says, “I am your God, and I am one of you, and I’ll be the Gift, and I’ll take you. Take Me?” ~excerpt from The Greatest Gift

And I take up another ornament of His Story, like a vow of my own committed yes, like I too am being grafted into His family tree.

And that little kid whose family was hurting too deeply to prop up even a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree — she now sets out a wee tree by the kitchen sink, and two starry ones to anchor the hearth, and a forest of flocked ones on the buffet, standing sentinel over a nativity, and then two dwarf trees flanking the dining room table, because the heart knows it:

Time began with two great trees — and time will end, and forever will begin, with only one tree… because of the Triune God gave Himself as the Greatest Gift at Calvary’s Tree.

In Christ, we are never in crisis.

Because Christ stretched out His arms in unending Love over us

on the Cross-Tree,

all our true crises are already over.

And a whole world of hurt, and me, exhales of relief when we hang up the ornaments on our Christmas trees, because, right here, we’re in proximity to the most healing, calming truth in the whole of the universe:

Because Christ went to the Tree, there is no true crisis. All our brokenness and sadness and sinfulness and darkness and hopelessness is nailed to the Tree and we’re covered in a perfect grace the sets us completely free.

In Christ, we are never in crisis.

Because Christ stretched out His arms in unending Love over us on the Cross-Tree, all our true crises are already over.

Because Christ went to the Tree, in Him, we get the greatest gift of being forever soul-safe.

In Christ,
we are never in crisis,
because our souls are already forever safe in Him.

And all the lights of all the trees flicker, even the sad Charlie Brown ones, igniting hearts with the wonder of a Tree doing more than just making us only a bit more stress-free — but ultimately making us completely free.

****

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