The tree(s) of life
Written by Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford
August 11, 2024 - Revelation 22: 1-5 & 16-17
“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.... “It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.” The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let everyone who hears say, “Come.” And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.”
The tree of life stands at the very beginning of the Bible, and at the very end of the Bible.
In the second chapter of Genesis, which is the first book of the Bible, God sets the tree of life in the midst of the Garden of Eden, after creating the Earth and all its creatures including the first humans, Adam and Eve.
At the end of Revelation, which is the last book of the Bible, the tree of life appears in a vision given by an angel. This vision of the end times places the tree of life on either side of the river that flows from the throne of God, the river of the water of life that flows through a vision of the holy realm where God and Christ and their people will live in peace and in the eternal light of God.
But before we do more talking about trees in the Bible, I’d like to ask a question: Do you have a favorite tree?
Is there a particular tree that you like because of its beauty, its height, its shape, its color, or its placement in the landscape? Or is there a tree that has special meaning for you? Perhaps a tree where something special has happened for you or your family? Maybe you have a favorite stand of trees, or a favorite grove, or a favorite forest?
Here’s a picture of one of my family’s favorite trees, to inspire you as we explore the meaning of trees for our faith and for our lives in the world today. This is a picture my husband Joel’s sister Julie took of a tree that stands alone in a farm field near where she lives in State College, Pa. for enough years for this tree to grow large and tall, those who have farmed here have left the tree standing, while tending crops all around it. Julie found a prayer written by their father, Wilbur Brumbaugh, to print along with the picture. She made copies for each of their siblings, and Joel made the frames, so that they each have one hanging somewhere in their homes. Now that our son Chris has moved to State College, and also lives near this beautiful tree, it has yet more significance for us.
Every time we visit State College and drive by this field, I look for this tree—hoping that it is still there. I hope that whoever farms this field hasn’t decided to cut the tree down because it’s in the way. I hope that the farm itself survives the rampant “development” that is going on all around the area. I hope that conditions continue to be right for this tree to be healthy and thrive and stay green and alive.
This tree, like all trees, is vulnerable and at risk in our throw-away culture, our profit-motivated world where God’s Creation most often comes second or third—or even last—in humanity’s list of priorities. This picture of a very special tree is a continuing source of joy, but also a continuing reminder of the fragility of life.
When we review the Bible’s references to trees—and there are almost 300 references—we get a sense that the people of biblical times understood this fragility and vulnerability very well. We also get a sense of the deep significance of trees.
A tree was a symbol of eternal life—the great tree of life that stands at the beginning and at the end of time. A tree was also a symbol of resurrection, able to grow new life out of what seems to have died—as in Isaiah 11:1 where it says, “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” But also, in the Bible, trees are indicators of the general ability to maintain life, and the cutting down or destruction of trees is an indicator of the evils that destroy life.
When trees thrive, humanity lives and thrives.
Many of the Bible’s references to trees have to do with their ability to produce fruit and food. Some of the places where the word “tree” is used in a translation like the recently updated New Revised Standard Version, actually refer to olive trees or grapevines whose products of olives and olive oil, grapes and wine, were crucial foodstuffs and also were crucial for the economy. It would have been the wealthy landowners of the time who had large olive groves or large vineyards, as we see in some of the parables that Jesus told about the interactions of workers with their bosses, in what we today might call “an important industry sector.”
When the prophet Micah looked for a way to talk about the wellbeing that God gives to God’s people, he chose to talk about trees. Here’s that well-known verse from Micah 4:4: “But they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.”
But when trees are destroyed, something is going terribly wrong.
Unfortunately, too often in the Bible the thing going terribly wrong was warfare, and those suffering the wrong were one’s enemy. Destruction of trees was a part of warfare in ancient times—and today, if you look at media reports from current wars and pictures of the destroyed landscapes in Gaza, Ukraine, and elsewhere. War doesn’t value trees.
There are too many verses, especially in the Old Testament, where this type of warfare was made into a command—what we might think of as a plan for complete conquest of the people and their land and everything growing on it. In 2 Kings 3:19, for example, we read this: “You shall conquer every fortified city and every choice city; every good tree you shall fell, all springs of water you shall stop up, and every good piece of land you shall ruin with stones.”
It's in the context of this kind of warfare that the ancient Hebrew prophets sometimes imagined the wrath of God as a mass destruction of trees. A prophet might use this imagery to point out, in the strongest terms, when things were going terribly wrong among the people of God, or among neighboring nations. The people’s sins were pushing God to the limit, and it is the trees—the indicators of wellbeing in the world—that are cut down and destroyed. We read in Isaiah 10:33-34, for example, “Look, the Sovereign, the Lord of hosts, will lop the boughs with terrifying power; the tallest trees will be cut down, and the lofty will be brought low. He will hack down the thickets of the forest with an ax, and Lebanon with its majestic trees will fall.” The anger of a righteous God was imagined as a conquering army, using the same tactics to overcome evil and wrongdoing.
Receiving similar condemnation were the “green trees” that were places of worship for the pagan or indigenous religions that surrounded the ancient Israelites. These religions identified special places in nature, including trees, as places of sacred significance where they worshiped idols, made sacrifices, and more. Those who wrote the biblical texts saw this as a sinful use of trees, and it became another indicator that things were going wrong in general. The condemnation of King Ahaz in 2 Kings 16 is an example. We read that King Ahaz had been sacrificing and making offerings “under every green tree,” and it is an indicator that he was not doing “what was right in the sight of the Lord his God, as his ancestor David had done.”
But where trees thrive, and are properly respected by humanity, joy and hope and praise and blessing are also there.
The people of the Bible used trees and their fruit and branches to praise God during their religious festivals. We find an echo of this ancient practice when branches of trees were used to welcome Jesus into Jerusalem, an event we commemorate every year on Palm Sunday.
In poetic texts in the Bible, trees are symbols for steadfastness of belief, standing strong and ever faithful. The hymnwriter in Psalm 52:8 compares himself to a tree: “But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever.” Psalm 92:12 says, “The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.” In Proverbs 11:30, righteous people are like trees of life for others: “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and the wise capture souls,” it says.
These poets and psalmists went even further in extending their understanding of the life of trees. They imagined trees as having an ability to praise God that was comparable to that of humans. We read of trees praising their Creator, shouting with joy, clapping their hands. Here’s the text from Isaiah 55:12 that provides the words for the hymn we’ll sing to close our service: “For you shall go out in joy and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.”
In the biblical understanding, when trees thrive, that means life. When trees are cut down or destroyed or misused, something is terribly wrong.
Let’s turn a corner. Let’s shift away from trees in the Bible to the meaning and significance of trees for us today.
Today, we know so much more than the people of the biblical times did about the science of trees. We know so much more about how their biology works, how trees use chemicals to communicate, how under a forest floor lies a network of fungus—called the “mycorrhizal network”—that is supported by trees, how their lives interact with so many other organisms, how important is the role of trees in an ecosystem, how trees really are life for insects, birds, animals, and even us humans—in short, how trees undergird life on this planet. And despite all of the scientific advances in understanding trees we find, I think, that much of the biblical understanding is still valid, isn’t it?
We know now how interconnected all life on our planet is, and how crucial is the place of trees in that network, and how important it is that trees continue to thrive.
Just one example is how the largest of our forests—the rainforest in the Amazon, in South America; the rainforest in the Congo, in central Africa; the rainforest in New Guinea, in the Pacific islands; the Appalachian rainforest in the southeast United States (did you know we have a rainforest here in our country?) —these and others of our world’s largest forests actually “breathe” for us all. They also ensure a massive amount of biodiversity, serve as home to thousands of unique species, and do things like clean water and regulate our climate.
Using the word “breathe” very loosely, the trees of these great forests breathe in the carbon dioxide that we humans produce, and they breathe out the oxygen that we humans cannot live without.
In doing so, they store lots and lots of carbon, taking it out of the atmosphere. And just as the people of biblical times understood, when these forests are cut down or destroyed or mistreated, it means that things are going terribly wrong. Mass logging, clear cutting, out-of-control “development,” drought, wildfires—all these things that destroy forests today are releasing their stores of carbon back into the atmosphere and thus increasing the pace and scope of the climate crisis.
We have to remember that every tree—whether it stands in a forest or alone in a field or in our own backyard—is doing an incredible thing: it is helping to keep us all alive. Every tree is a necessary piece of the puzzle that is our human habitat, every tree is a precious piece of the solution to climate change.
In our world today, where trees are so fragile and vulnerable—from the tree in the farmer’s field near State College, to the trees of the Amazon rainforest, to the trees in the wooded lots that are up for sale along Randall Road here in Elgin—it is time to embrace the expansive understanding of trees that is the heritage of our faith. It is time for us to join in spirit with poets and psalmists of the Bible who knew so well that trees mean life. It’s time for us to adopt their poetic imagination and join with the trees as equal partners in praise to God. It is time for us to join with the trees in singing and shouting our praise together, clapping our hands alongside their leaves and branches. It is time for us to acknowledge and act on the deep significance and meaning that trees have for our lives, to honor trees as equally valuable parts of God’s Creation alongside humanity, to see the wellbeing of trees as a prime indicator for our own wellbeing.
This spiritual change can lead us to practical change. We can help protect trees—and plant new ones—on our own properties, and in our own neighborhoods, and in our own cities. We can advocate for legislation, local and state and national, that protects trees, especially old growth forests and native species. We can join organizations that are working for the preservation and protection of trees and forests around the world. We can even do things like use recycled toilet paper—it is a travesty how many trees are cut down to make toilet paper (my family buys recycled toilet paper at Jewel—really, it works fine!)
But right now, at this moment, let’s return to the question I posed earlier. Have you thought of a favorite tree? Or a favorite stand of trees or a favorite grove or forest? Can you bring that tree, or those trees to mind now? As we do, I invite us into a moment of silence, in which we may give thanks to God for these trees, and in our imagination, we join them in praising God together. Amen.
