Fruity tree huggers

O Tannenbaum, wie grün sind dei-ne Blätter
Or: Merry Christmas, fruity tree-huggers
Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper & Schleswig Leader, Thursday, December 21, 2006 Page 3

Our Pastor, Richard Merrill gave me the idea for this column with a couple of his sermons during Advent. He was explaining the history and symbolism of the Christmas tree. No doubt, all of the readers in Schleswig, Ute, and Charter Oak who are of Germanic decent will take great pride in the fact that Christmas trees are basically a German invention.

It all really began almost 1,000 years ago when Saint Boniface. He was sort of to Germany, what St. Patrick was to Ireland, the first Christian missionary to Germany.

He came across a group of druids worshiping an oak tree. Druids were a pagan tribe that believed that trees were lived in by gods and spirits. Boniface, angrily ordered the oak tree cut down. Miraculously, a young fir tree sprung up from the roots of the oak tree. St. Boniface took this as a sign, confirming the Christian faith. As St. Patrick used the three-leafed shamrock to symbolize the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Boniface did the same with the triangle shape of the fir tree.

Don’t feel left out if you’re German, but not Catholic, Legend has it that Martin Luther was the first to bring a Christmas tree inside his house and to put lights on it. One crisp Christmas Eve, around 1500 A.D., he was walking through snowy woods and was struck by the beauty of a group evergreens. Their branches, dusted with snow, shimmering in the moonlight. When he got home, he set up a little fir tree inside so that he could share this story with his children. He decorated it with candles, which of course drove the fire marshal crazy, so as soon as they could, Americans started working on electric light and smoke detectors.

The tree is used through the Bible. First Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil and were banished from the Garden of Eden so that they wouldn’t also eat from the Tree of Life and thereby live in sin and separation from God.

Apocryphal legends suggest that the wood the Romans used to make the cross on which Jesus was crucified was from the tree of knowledge. One story claims that it was a dogwood tree and that is why dogwoods never grow very large- so that no one can ever be hung on one again, and it is also why dogwoods bloom so beautifully around Easter time.

Abraham pitched his tents under the trees of Mamre at Hebron where God visited him with angels to promise that he and his wife Sarah would have a baby, Isaac.

Psalm 1 says that the person who meditates day and night on God’s Word “is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.”
Jesus warned that you can always tell a tree by it’s fruit in Matthew 7:15-17,
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.”

This Christmas, and as New Year’s resolutions, perhaps we should all remember how in John 15, He told us that He is the vine and we are the branches, if we stay connected and rooted to Him, we will produce good fruit. I take that to mean that if we bother to spend time with Him in prayer, spend time reading His Word, and place our selves in a community of believers such as attending Church or Bible study, then our lives and our character will show it.

Christmas is His birthday after all, why not offer Him the first fruits of our harvest? Oh sure, you may think that means more money, but I suspect that what He really wants is a different kind of fruit.

Galatians 5:22-23 describes the fruit produced by trees planed by streams of living water: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”

Who wouldn’t want more of that in their life? Who wouldn’t want more of that in this world? Who knows, maybe if there was more of this fruit, there would also be a lot more peace on Earth.
So this Christmas, and afterward, when you pack up that dried out tree and put the ornaments away, remember to BE a tree and to ask God to help you to be more fruitful. That’s what the world needs now, more fruitcakes. Even if you think you’re “half-baked” and a little nutty, that’s okay, as long as you’re fruity!