The Tree

Pastor’s Epistle—December, A.D. 2014 B

It’s all about the tree, isn’t it? I know it is for me.

I can remember as a child lying under my family’s Christmas tree, staring up from below in wonder through the multicolored lights and the evergreen branches. I remember it being so big and tall, though in retrospect it must only have been six or seven feet. But there it was, this pillar in the middle of the house, like it belonged there, like it held up the roof. Like the whole house was just waiting all year for it to come back.

In Norse mythology, King Volsung’s mighty hall is supported by a massive apple tree reaching up through the roof. When we first moved out to New York Mills, I took one look at our new home, which is basically one big open space with a high pointed roof (I call it “the mead hall”) and immediately proclaimed that we must have a tree that goes all the way up. We found a 13-foot, pre-lit, artificial tree at WalMart, marked from $350 down to $40, and you’d better believe we planted that sucker right smack-dab in the middle of our home. We wait for it all year. It looks like it belongs there, holding up the roof. Now the first thing that comes to my mind is not staring up through the tree as a child, but holding my own children in the night, rocking them back to sleep, gazing at the Christmas tree lighting up an otherwise darkened house.

You’ve probably heard my story about the origins of the Christmas tree. I tell the tale every year at the Hanging of the Greens, and on St. Boniface’s Day, and oftentimes in Advent as well. Ask me sometime, and I’ll be happy to tell it again. Suffice to say for now that the tree is indeed a symbol of Jesus’ birth and everlasting life, remaining verdant and lush throughout the harshest cold, even when the oaks of Thor and ash trees of Odin have fallen. Every year we add new ornaments, which serve as little repositories of family memories and adventures. In fact, we’ve had to bring out a second tree just to hang them all. Every year we string the lights; those pre-lit bulbs died on us after four Christmases, but no matter. The ritual is what brings home the holidays. We all remember warm and happy childhoods spent around the Christmas tree, sucking on candy canes, entranced by the fireplace, dreaming of miracles and Manger-Kings and of an old Turkish bishop sliding down the chimney.

Christmas brings Jesus home. That’s why we love it so, don’t you think? Ideally, of course, we should always welcome Jesus into our homes. But so often we think of Him as meeting us in Church one day a week, rather than living beside us as we do the dishes and change the diapers and prepare our meals. The Christmas tree reminds us that He comes not primarily to priests or kings—though both show up in the Christmas story—but to humble families, to loving parents and children huddled up on a winter’s night. It is not maudlin sentiment, as we are reminded of loss: of those we miss during the holidays, of children slain by Herod, of the bitter prophecy of the myrrh. Even the tree itself whispers to us of the pine that would one day be used to fashion our Savior’s Cross.

But the Christmas tree reminds us that Jesus still comes to us when we are cold, when we are mourning, when we are weary. He still comes to us in the simple and everyday things, the things that would otherwise be tedious without Him. He comes to us in hearth and home, in friends and family, in selfless giving and the warm sharing of our abundance. And so we light the tree, and decorate it, and fill it with gifts from our bounty, and it stands as a pillar in the midst of our home, proclaiming, “Come, Lord Jesus! Come!”