Tree of Life

Lenten Vespers, Week One

Genesis

And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil … The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

Then the Lord God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.

Ezekiel

In the mountain of the height of Israel will I plant it: and it shall bring forth boughs, and bear fruit, and be a goodly cedar: and under it shall dwell all fowl of every wing; in the shadow of the branches thereof shall they dwell. And all the trees of field shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree to flourish: I the Lord have spoken and have done it.

Homily:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  AMEN.

They say that multiple attestation is a sure sign of veracity. The more diverse the sources that confirm a story, the more likely that story is to be true. I find this criterion particularly interesting when applied to religion and mythology. Certain things always crop up. Every mythology has an underworld, for example. Every mythology has a great serpent and a great flood. And every mythology speaks of the Tree of Life.

The Tree of Life produces fruit that lets a human being live forever. In fact, eating the fruit gives a person so much life and wisdom and beauty that they become a god. In Greek mythology the tree can be found in the Garden of Hesperides, where its golden apples of immortality are guarded by a monstrous many-headed serpent. The Vikings also spoke of apples of immortality, which were tended by the goddess Idunn, and which kept the gods of Asgard young and healthy in perpetuity. So did the Irish, who sang of three brothers who turned themselves into eagles to steal apples of immortality from the Garden of Hisberna.

On and on the stories go—the rishis in ancient India, Gilgamesh in ancient Sumeria, Osiris in ancient Egypt—always the same tale, the same quest. If a man can eat the fruit of the Tree of Life, he will never die. If a man can eat the fruit of the Tree of Life, he will become like unto a god!

There is, of course, a Tree of Life in the Bible. In Genesis, God plants the Garden of Eden and brings Adam there to tend it. Adam is unique amongst Creation, in that he is both worldly and heavenly—formed from earth in order to steward the earth, but endowed with the very breath and life of God. In Eden there are two special trees: the Tree of Life, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam and Eve, his better half, are free to enjoy all the delights of the Garden, but are warned to stay away from the Tree of Knowledge, for on the day that they eat of the fruit of that tree they shall surely die.

The story, of course, is common knowledge. With a little encouragement from the devil in the form of a serpent, our first parents taste the forbidden fruit in order to “be like God,” that is, to know good and evil for themselves. Because of this transgression, Adam and Eve are banished from Eden, cut off from the Tree of Life. But even as they leave, they are not abandoned. God goes with them, out east of Eden, out into the wilderness of this broken world.

There are several things I find interesting about those trees. First up, as Thomas Aquinas points out, it appears that humanity is not by nature immortal. Adam and Eve had such prodigious lifespans because they ate the fruit of the Tree of Life. As the story continues, each generation after Eden dies at a progressively younger age. But it’s that Tree of Knowledge that’s the real kicker, isn’t it? It really makes you wonder why God would put, in effect, a poisoned tree in His Garden to begin with. Was it a test? Was it a trap? Did God set Adam and Eve up for failure? It might appear so at first glance. But the God we know is neither a trickster nor a sadist. Rather, the God we know is Love.

And love is precisely what the Tree of Knowledge represents. You see, any cage, no matter how gilded, is still a cage so long as the door remains locked. In order for Adam and Eve to be in a loving relationship with God, in order for them to be His sub-creators rather than just His puppets, they have to have access to an exit. True love cannot be forced. It must be freely chosen and freely reciprocated. In eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, Adam and Eve chose to judge good and evil for themselves—in effect, to be their own gods, rather than trusting the one true God. Our Lord did not want us to eat that fruit, thus breaking the once-perfect harmony shared between God, Man, and the world. But we had to have the option. We had to be allowed to choose. For such, indeed, is the nature of love.

And this choice cut us off from the Tree of Life because God Himself is our life. To reject Him as our God is like unto a flower rejecting the Sun. When we refuse true love, we refuse true life as well. Thus have we wandered ever since, toiling across this broken world, striving to find the Tree of Life, striving to return to the Garden. And God has been striving right along with us—for the same love that cannot force can neither give us up. The entire Bible is the story of God inviting, leading, coaxing, pleading, seducing us to come back home, back to Him, back to life. And the story climaxes in Jesus.

You see, Jesus is God’s ultimate act of love. Jesus is God in the flesh, God come down to earth, down here with us in the mud and the blood. In Jesus, God gives to us everything He has and everything He is—even going so far as to pour out His very life for us on the Cross, for the very people who murdered Him. Jesus is Immanuel, God-With-Us, who comes to us even when we cannot turn ourselves back to Him. And so it is in Jesus that we have regained the Tree of Life.

The Cross was designed by Man as an instrument of humiliation, torture, and death. But God has embraced it—has perished upon it—and thus has transformed it, claiming it as His own. The Cross, brothers and sisters, is for us the Tree of Life! And hanging from that tree is the strangest of fruits: the Crucified Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. When we eat of that fruit—when we taste for ourselves Jesus’ own Body and Blood, given for us—we are filled with life and wisdom and beauty. We are freed from death, to live forever in Christ! And we are truly made one with God, to be glorified by His Spirit, as His saints, throughout all eternity.

The Cross is the Tree of Life. Christ is the fruit of that tree. Our ancient quest has ended. Christ has brought us home. And at long last, we are immortal once again.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

Idunn and Hel