Is
your Christmas tree up yet? At this time of year we make room for Christmas
trees in our homes, gardens, businesses and public squares. As I have walked
around my parish delivering Christmas cards, I’ve seen Christmas trees of all styles
– including stylish minimalist branches, painted white, with a few brightly
coloured baubles – and sizes.
In
the symbolic universe of the Bible – in the imagination of the poets who wrote much
of what has been handed down to us – trees stand for a person or people.
The
poet Isaiah imagines a creative act of God – of the god who first created the
world and everything in it – establishing a whole, diverse ecology of trees in
the wilderness: cedar and acacia and myrtle and olive and cypress and plane and
pine (Isaiah 41:17-20). It is a vision of a new way of being human, rooted in
quietness and rest, in trust in the God who waits to meet with us, who waits
for us to grow weary of the noise, the drivenness, the distraction of the city –
of our physical and virtual, external and internal architecture.
And
it isn’t a monoculture, this new way of being human – this vision of the
Church. There are many different types of tree: some tall and thin; some
spreading out a broad canopy providing shade; each with its own properties –
this one is good for burning, for fuel; this, for building; this one, for food;
this, possessing healing in its bark, or leaves.
This
year, I have witnessed something of a fulfilment of Isaiah’s vision – biblical prophecy,
biblical sense of history, is both cyclical and linear; its poetry speaks to
events down through the ages – this year. Men and women seeking something that
the world cannot give, searching for it in the wilderness of our long-abandoned
churches. God is planting trees, creating something beautiful in its diversity.
And
this Advent, the trees we make space for in our homes might just point us to
this joyful reality.
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