There are five instances in the New Testament in which “tree” is used for the cross on which Jesus was crucified: three in Acts (5:30, 10:39, 13:29), one in Galatians (3:13) and one in First Peter (2:24). Remarkably, each of these texts is a kerygmatic paradigm—that is to say, each is a unique divine moment filled by the Holy Spirit in which the Spirit-directed and empowered preaching of the Good News revealed the form and contours and scope of the Christian faith.
1) The Witness to the Religious Authorities—the Power of the Gospel: Acts 5:30 shows Peter, standing before the high priest and the chief priests of the temple after his miraculous escape from prison at the hand of an angel of the Lord, fearlessly bearing witness to the Good News:
The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.
2) The Witness to the Gentiles—the Universal Scope of the Gospel: Acts 10:39 shows St. Peter again, this time teaching the pagan centurian Cornelius at Caesarea, after his threefold vision of the great sheet filled with all manner of creatures and after refusing to eat being instructed of God that “what God hath cleansed, that call thou not common”:
And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree.
3) The Witness to the Jewish People—the Gospel as the Fulfillment of Salvation History in Christ: Acts 13:29 shows St. Paul in the synagogue at Antioch on the Sabbath day, preaching to the assembled congregation a magnificent sermon in which he shows through the Law and the prophets that the entire history of salvation is fulfilled in Christ Jesus:
And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre.
4) The Witness to the Early Church—the Gospel as the Transformation of the Covenant in Christ: Galatians 3:13: Here Paul teaches the doctrine of faith in Christ how we cannot be justified by the Law, but only by faith in God and in Christ, who redeemed us by becoming answerable to the Law on our behalf, who died for us and rose again:
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.
5) The Witness to all Christians—the Gospel Command to Follow Christ on the Path of Suffering: This epistle evokes the suffering of Christ on the tree of the cross as an example for all Christians of all times:
Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. (1Peter 2:24).
In each of these primordial moments of the revelation of the Gospel through preaching of the mission and message of the Church of Christ, the image of the tree as the cross was invoked as the very heart of the Gospel. This cannot be mere coincidence.
Liturgy and the Liturgical Ethos
We have seen that Holy Scripture bears witness to the singular importance of trees, not as objects of worship, but as one of the most complete manifestations in the created order of the wisdom, goodness and mercy of God. We have seen that awareness of the interdependence of all life is prominent in the Bible, and that the Bible knows trees to be of central importance to the balance and harmony of all the aspects of the living community of beings on earth. We have seen that Scripture utilizes the figurative value of the nature, growth and function of trees in the biosphere or “soil community” to teach moral lessons and spiritual wisdom. Finally we have seen that the Christian Revelation draws upon the inherent symbolism of the tree and the natural sacramentality of creation to reveal that Christ Himself is the “deep secret at the heart of the universe.” But what are we as Christians and as human beings to do with this knowledge?
Scripture tells us that the proper response to the revelation of God’s truth, goodness, beauty, wisdom, life and mercy is praise and thanksgiving. The Church, as Body of Christ, calls us to the Eucharist: communion in the Kingdom in thanksgiving. Putting the two together means that the truly human task on earth, combining the healing of disorder, the manifestation of the Gospel and the perfecting of praise, is to develop a liturgical ethos, to liturgize the world. What does this mean? And how do trees relate to liturgy and the development of a liturgical ethos?
Liturgy, leitourgia in Greek, means, literally, the “work of the people” [leit-people, ergon-work]. Scripture tells us the work of the people of God is thanksgiving and praise. The Gospel Revelation of Christ—”ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32) and “This is eternal life, that they know thee, the only true God” (John 17:3) first fully manifested at the Baptism of Jesus (Theophany) and accomplished for all creation on Golgotha, culminates in the Descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and the establishment of the Church in which all are called to “give thanks for all things” (1 Thess. 5:18). When we know who Christ is and what He has accomplished, when we experience the freedom inherent in that knowledge, we will be naturally filled with thanksgiving. It flows from the impulse in the heart to give thanks to Him who made us free from bondage to sin and death, an impulse rooted in heart-knowledge.
We have seen that from the beginning of Revelation and the history of our salvation God used trees to teach humanity.
We have seen the amazing emphasis upon trees in the Bible and in the teaching of the early Church. The liturgical ethos—the heart of a Christian response to the creation–is centered around the acts of praise and thanksgiving which are the chief responses of human beings to the presence of God. As the earth, including all living creatures, from microbes to the human microcosm, and the macrocosmic universe as well, are created by God with a symbolic ontology and a sacramental potentiality, they fulfill their existence also in praise. Indeed, the greater degree of transparency in the creature, the greater its symbolism, the more it praises God. The Christian mind and heart must truly reflect a liturgical ethos, which is to give voice to the song of praise for all creation. Of all plants the tree most fully symbolizes the blessings that God has bestowed upon us through creation. The presence of the tree in the natural environment and also in Scripture is a sign of health, hope, goodness, fertility, abundance and order. The destruction of trees in Scripture is a sign of God’s wrath and punishment for all transgressions of the order of nature and of spirit.
Presently trees and the forests of the world are being wantonly destroyed to an unprecedented degree by the hand of man. How long will the four angels holding the full retributive power of nature be stayed by the mercy of God?
Clearly the entire witness of the Christian Revelation calls all Christians to protect the trees. Christians should be at the forefront of any campaign to restore the forests of the world.
Growing trees are a sign of hope, peace and love, as the Elder from Patmos has said. Landscapes wantonly stripped of their forest cover, hillsides ravaged to feed the insatiable greed of the market, can such sins against nature be anything but signs of an inevitable day of judgement? Good deeds may not forestall this day. Nevertheless it is a universal Christian duty to protect the forests.
Love the trees. Love the trees.
~Adapted from Vincent Rossi, Seeing the Forest for the Trees: The Meaning and Message of Forests and Trees in the Christian Tradition, RELIGION and the FORESTS magazine, June, 1999. Vincent Rossi is executive director of the Religious Education and Environment Project (REEP), London, England.
