Slats Grobnik sold Christmas trees in a rundown section of Chicago. Just before Christmas, when all the trees had been picked over, a ragged couple came into the lot. The man was appallingly skinny, and his mousy wife clung to him for dear life. Both wore clothes from the bottom of the bin at the Salvation Army thrift shop.

As they turned the price tag over on each tree, it was obvious that they didn’t have enough money to buy one. Then she spied a discarded Scotch pine consigned to the outer darkness of the lot. It was okay on one side, but terribly scrawny on the other.

Not far away stood another pitiful tree, the needles on one side eaten away. She whispered in her husband’s ear, and he asked if $3 would be enough for both trees. Slats figured that he couldn’t sell them anyway, so he agreed. He sadly watched the couple drag the two scraggly trees away, leaving dead pine needles in their wake.

A few evenings later, Slats was walking home. In the window of a rundown apartment building, he spied a magnificent Christmas tree. The decorations weren’t much, but it didn’t matter because the tree was so thick and well rounded. Then Slats saw the skinny man and his mousy wife on the porch out front.

“That’s a beautiful tree up in that window,” exclaimed Slats.

“Yep,” replied the man with pride. “That’s our tree. Actually, it’s the two trees that we bought from you.”

“How can that be?” asked Slats. “I sold you my two worst trees.”

“I know,” he responded. “But my missus is clever. She had me work the trees together, where the branches are bare. We formed one tree out of those two and wired them together. The branches are so thick; you can’t even see the wire.”

Slats Grobnik later told Mike Royko, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, that he had discovered a secret that night:

“You take two trees that aren’t perfect, that have flaws, that might even be homely, that maybe nobody else would even want. If you put them together just right, you can come up with something really beautiful.”

Slats concluded, “I guess that even works with people.” Slats was right. A skinny guy with a mousy wife and only $3 between them can create a Christmas tree that brings joy to the neighborhood.

If a raggedy couple could take two scraggly trees from the leftovers of Slats Grobnik’s lot and create a beautiful Christmas tree, imagine what the creative genius of God can do. Here’s a Christmas truth that begins in the first verses of the Bible and ends in its last book:

It takes four deadly trees to make a living tree.

The gospel is all about trees—five to be exact. Martin Luther felt that nothing portrayed the gospel more than a Christmas tree. The reformer was the first Christian leader to promote the use of trees at Christmas. Until then, Christmas trees were considered pagan.

King Tut never saw a Christmas tree, but the ancient Egyptians brought palm trees into their houses, decorated them with glittering objects, and fashioned wreaths of date palms to hang on their doors in honor of their gods. The Canaanites decorated evergreen trees and danced around them in worship of the Baal goddess.

Romans celebrated the winter solstice on December 25. They decorated trees, filled their houses with greens and candles, and exchanged gifts. In Northern Europe, Druid priests decorated their temples with evergreen boughs in December. They also adorned their houses with mistletoe and burned Yule logs.

At first, missionaries forbade their converts to participate in these celebrations. Then they stole solstice from the pagans—along with decorated trees, wreaths, holly, and mistletoe—and invested these symbols with Christian

meaning. They changed winter solstice into Christ’s Mass or Christmas.

After the Reformation, most Protestants rejected Christmas as pagan. The English Puritan Oliver Cromwell preached against “the heathen traditions” of Christmas carols, decorated trees, and any festivities that desecrated “the sacred birth of Christ.” The Pilgrim’s Governor, William Bradford, tried to stamp out “pagan mockery” by penalizing any frivolity at Christmas time. In 1659, the General Court of Massachusetts enacted a law that made any observance of Christmas a penal offense. The hanging of any Christmas decorations was punishable by jail. As late as 1894, a Boston pastor was fired for putting a Christmas tree in his church. In the year 1900, public schools were open on Christmas Day. Only one out of five American homes even put up a Christmas tree in 1900.

The first Christmas tree didn’t appear in America until 1843. It was displayed in the home of a German immigrant. He was almost run out of town by his irate Pennsylvania neighbors. It’s no wonder that it was a German Lutheran who introduced the Christmas tree to Americans. Some 300 years earlier, Martin Luther was walking through a forest on a snowy evening. The stars shone brightly in the crisp winter night, causing the snow on the boughs to glisten like diamonds. Luther reflected on the beauty before him and suddenly realized how trees are at the heart of the gospel story.

He cut a tree down, dragged it home, and his family decorated it for their Christmas celebration. That December eve, the great reformer sparked a German love affair with Christmas trees. If you enjoy your Christmas tree, you can thank a German immigrant for putting one up in Pennsylvania during December of 1843.

Mostly, you can thank Martin Luther for seeing the gospel in a single beautiful tree. This reminds me of the couple who took two of Slats Grobnik’s scraggliest trees and fashioned a single tree that brought joy to everyone. Luther saw how

God took four of the deadliest trees in this sin-sick world and fashioned a living Christmas tree of radiant glory.

1. The Dying Tree

Trees were an inescapable feature of Paradise. In the Genesis creation story, we read that God put Adam and Eve in a garden. Eden was literally a forest of fruit trees. Luscious fruit that hung from their branches like Christmas ornaments offered sensual pleasures for eyes

and stomach. But, most of all, those trees sustained our first parents with life!

God gave them free run of the forest. But there was that one tree. God called it the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That single tree was off limits. God said to Adam in Genesis 2:17, “…in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.” Out of all the trees of life in Eden, this one was the tree of death. I call it the dying tree.

God entered into a covenant with the first Adam. Like all covenants, it has blessings and curses. God promised eternal life for humans—if only they kept the one commandment. But there was also a curse: “…in the day you eat of it you will surely die.” That’s why St. Paul later wrote, “The wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23).

Our first parents didn’t keel over dead the day that they ate the forbidden fruit. Adam lived another 932 years. But they did die spiritually. The connection they had with God was broken, their souls began to wither and die, and they started the long walk to the grave.

In the Texas prison system, when the condemned man walks the corridors from death row to his place of execution, the guards call out, “Dead man walking.” He is still alive, but he is as good as dead. Adam and Eve became “dead men walking.”

There’s one other thing about God’s covenants: they always involve our children. When Adam and Eve ate that forbidden fruit, they pronounced a death sentence on their descendants. David said in Psalm 51:5, “I was born in iniquity,

and conceived in sin.” Spiritually dead parents give birth to spiritually dead babies. St. Paul writes in Romans 5:12, “By one man sin entered the world, and death by sin, so that death came to all men.”

But there was more to the curse than death. Fear and shame came into the world. Both Adam and Eve looked at their nakedness and were desperate to cover themselves. When they heard God’s voice, they hid among the trees of the garden. Sin gives pleasure for a season, but ends in fear, shame, sickness, poverty, and death. The tree decorated with the seductive ornaments of sin is like the one the raggedy couple found in the outer darkness of Slats Grobnik’s lot. It looks good until it is turned around. The backside you didn’t see at first is scraggly with dead and falling pine needles.

2. The Hanging Tree

Fast-forward several millennia to another tree. It too is a tree of death. The scene is tragic. Prince Absalom has rebelled against his father, King David, and plunged Israel into civil war. The decisive battle is fought. David’s forces rout Absalom’s army. The rebel prince flees for his life. As his mule runs pell-mell under a thorn tree, his long hair gets tangled in the brambles, and he is yanked off.

David’s general, Joab, has been in hot pursuit. He is a cruel and brutal warlord. As his horse prances before the hanging prince, the old general laughs and begins to take out three javelins. The rebel shakes in fear. He is naked, exposed, and on the edge of a shameful end.

His luxuriously long hair has always been his source of pride. But his pride has become his noose. Joab thrusts his spears into the rebel’s side—piercing his heart. The Jewish proverb comes true for Absalom: “Cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree.” (Galatians 3:13)

In Absalom’s tree, you see Adam’s tragedy played out again. Adam is the first-created son of the King of heaven. Absalom is the first-born son of the king of Israel. Absalom rebels against his father just as Adam rebels against his

heavenly Father. Absalom is hung by pride, just like Adam. He is naked and exposed, like Adam. The voice of the King comes, and Adam runs in fear; the emissary of Israel’s king comes, and Absalom is undone by fear. Death comes to both Adam and Absalom.

News of Absalom’s death is carried back to his father. The old king is overwhelmed with grief. His sobbing words are among the most heart-wrenching in literature: “O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you—O Absalom, my son, my son!” (2 Samuel 18:33)

If only the father could step off his throne and take the place of his son. If only the king could hang on the tree in the place of his beloved rebel. If only David could be cursed instead of his son. Love will go to any lengths to save the object of its affection.

Jesus said, “Greater love has no man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) But this father cannot die for his son. This king is helpless to hang on the tree in the place of this rebel. If that is to be done, it must be a different father on another tree.

3. The Crushing Tree

There is a King who can come off his throne and hang on a tree in the place of rebel sons and daughters. He is the King of Heaven. This is the message of Christmas: He lays aside his glory and comes down to earth. He becomes a baby and is born among people like the skinny guy and his mousy wife in Slats’ Christmas tree lot. He dwells among the poor and rejected of this world because they are most affected by the curses of Adam’s fall. This is the Second Adam who comes to do what the first Adam couldn’t do: live a perfect life, keeping all of his heavenly Father’s commandments.

Thirty-three years later, on the eve of his crucifixion, he enters the Garden of Gethsemane. Like the first Adam, in a garden he will face the great test of his earthly life. This garden too is filled with fruit trees. They are twisted and gnarled by age, but they are laden with olives. Gethsemane is a Hebrew word that literally means “the place of the

press.” In this garden, olives are put in a press and crushed, bringing forth oil that brings life and light to Israel.

And in this garden called Gethsemane, Jesus will be crushed. As he wrestles with his tortured soul in the midst of the fruit trees, he sees the horror of the cross: the sins of Adam, and his sons and daughters, will be laid on him. He will literally become sin itself. The wrath of his heavenly Father will be poured out on him. He will descend into hell and the eternal punishment of all God’s children will be distilled into six unspeakably horrible hours. He will be totally cut off from his Father, for this is the ultimate meaning of death.

His soul is crushed like an olive. He cries out three times for his heavenly Father to let this cup of agony to pass. He does not want to go to the cross. He says to his disciples, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow, even to the point of death.” (Matthew 26:38) The Greek word for overwhelmed could literally mean, “my soul is crushed until nothing is left.” His sorrow is so intense that he wants to die this night rather than face the cross tomorrow. This is suicidal despair in its rawest form.

But he does what the first Adam cannot do: he obeys his heavenly Father. He will not play the rebel like either Adam or Absalom—or any of the rest of us, for that matter! The King has come off the throne, and he will not stop until he has hung on the tree in the place of all of his rebellious children.

4. The Killing Tree

A garbage dump sits outside the city walls of ancient Jerusalem. There those who are most cursed in life poke through the refuse to find something to eat. A mound of rock crowns this place of human wreckage. It looks hideously like a human skull. Atop it is a grove of twisted and dead olive trees. In a land where wood is scarce, the Romans find these trees useful as uprights for the crosses where they crucify criminals.

The condemned carry their crossbeams on their shoulders from the place of judgment to this place of execution. You can almost hear the Roman executioners walking in front of them crying out, “Dead men walking.” It is fitting that the refuse of society should be crucified in a garbage dump. It is equally fitting that the rejects of society should be killed outside the city walls.

There’s an irony in the killing tree that’s grounded in theological perfection. The first Adam died by eating the forbidden fruit of the dying tree. He plunged the whole world into sin, turning the garden into a desert. Now the second Adam will hang as sin itself [as the very essence of the forbidden fruit] on this killing tree, and then die to turn a desert back into a garden.

The first Adam covered his nakedness and hid behind the tree. The second Adam hangs naked on the front of the tree for everyone to see. The first Adam covered his shame; the second is covered with shame. The first Adam disobeyed his heavenly Father and brought death, the second Adam obeyed his heavenly Father even unto death.

The first Adam blamed others for his fall; the second Adam took the blame and the fall. The first Adam plunged the whole world into eternal death; the second Adam brings eternal life to people from every tongue, tribe, and nation.

The King has indeed hung on a tree in the place of rebellious sons and daughters. Like Absalom, the javelin has pierced his heart. So he is able to say with his last breath, “It is finished.” (John 19:30) The Greek word is tetelestai, a banking term which means “paid in full.” All accounts have been settled. Christ has paid off the wages of sin.

Because he went to hell, we can go to heaven. Because he died, we can live. Because he rose from the dead, we can no longer die. What Adam and his family couldn’t do for our heavenly Father, our heavenly Father has done for Adam’s family.

All we have to do is to accept his salvation as a free gift and put our trust in his finished work on the cross. No

wonder St. Paul wrote to the Early Church, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:2) So it should be for all of us who have gladly taken up our Lord’s cross!

5. The Healing Tree

The Bible begins with a paradise lost. It ends with a paradise found. In the last chapter of the Bible, we read about the new heaven and earth—the paradise that will never be plunged into sin. Again we see a forest of trees.

The gospel that begins with a dying tree—that passes through a hanging tree, crushing tree, and killing tree—ends with a healing tree. We read about a river of life in the eternal paradise. Revelation 22:2 says,

“On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.”

When we read “for the healing of the nations” it is St. John’s way of saying that, unlike the fruit that brought death, sickness, poverty, and every other curse to the old world, the fruit that hangs from the tree of life will bring healing to the redeemed world.

Don’t see this just as a tree for the future. An Old Testament prophet looked forward to the killing tree on which our Savior was crucified and said, “By his stripes we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5). There is healing now for our spiritual sickness, emotional ills, physical ailments, dysfunctional families, financial dilemmas, and even this planet that groans in every kind of turmoil.

A skinny guy and his mousy wife took two ugly trees and wove them together into a single beautiful Christmas tree that brought joy to the whole neighborhood. God takes four deadly trees and weaves them together to make a healing tree that brings life and joy to the whole world.

When Martin Luther looked at the tree he saw the Cross of Jesus. When you go home and look at your Christmas tree, I hope you see the same thing. In its green life, may you see

the life that comes from Christ. In its ornaments, may you see Christ hanging on his tree for you. I hope that you see in those ornaments the fruit that he gives you by his Spirit so that you might be strong and Christ-like.

As you smell the sweet fragrance of pine needles, incense candles, mixed with the smells of a Christmas dinner cooking in the oven, may you breathe deeply the sensual pleasure of one redeemed by a heavenly Father who loved you enough to take your place on a tree you couldn’t bear, so that you might have a life that is so much more than you could ever deserve or hope for!