Today we tromp through powdery snow, searching the Christmas tree farm for the perfect evergreen to put in our house. We find one that’s not too tall, or too plump, or too scruffy looking. We settle on a beautiful balsam fir with sturdy branches that will hold our heavier glass ornaments
My husband lays on the ground, saw in hand, ready to begin cutting.
“You’re sure, now? This is the tree you want? Because once I start cutting we’re committed.”
“Yes, we’re sure.” The conviction in our voices frees my husband to put the blade to the tree trunk and begin.
It doesn’t take long for him to saw through the trunk. The tree topples over, sending up a spray of soft snow. We grab the branches and begin dragging it to our car. It will look beautiful sitting in the corner of our living room, decked out with bright lights, and shining glass ornaments, and topped with an angel. For a time.
I’ll prop this Christmas tree up in a stand and keep it watered. But no matter how well I care for it, the tree will slowly die. The needles will dry up and fall off, one by one. By spring it will be brown, rather than green. Now that it’s forever severed from its life-giving trunk, the tree will die. And there’s no way to reunite tree and trunk, no way the tree can be revitalized.
We are born severed from God, fallen Christmas trees cut off from our life-giving trunk. It’s the sinful nature in us that keeps us from being nurtured. Unlike the Christmas tree, however, we don’t have to remain cut off from our Trunk; our Creator and Savior. We can be reunited, restored and revitalized.
That was the whole point of one tiny baby’s birth, a birth still remembered and celebrated 2000 years later. Christ humbled Himself and came to earth as a baby. He walked the earth as a child, died as a young man, and rose as a Savior – all so we could have an opportunity to find true life in His sacrifice for our sins.
When we humble ourselves and seek God’s forgiveness for our rebellion against His Word, His will, and His purposes, He heals the severing wound. As we seek Him earnestly, like the three Wise Men following the star, He nourishes us. As long as we abide in the vine, we will never dry up, never be unfruitful, and never be separated from our life source again.
“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” – John 15:5
