The Tree of the Cross
Press the play button to watch the video above or press 'more' to read the transcript of the daily devotion below. Please read Acts 5:27-39(use your own Bible or use the link above to access the in-App Bible).
If anyone ever asks you “what is the Bible about?” there is a very simple answer: “it’s all about trees”. In the beginning God placed humans amongst two trees, one of knowledge and one of life. Our first ancestors disobeyed God by eating from the tree, and it was our undoing. Yet as St Peter tells us in today’s passage, God undid our undoing by another tree. The tree of the cross. By this tree we come to know what God is like, and its fruit is life eternal.
In our reading today from Acts, Jesus’ disciples have (again) been brought before court. Faith in Christ’s cross has a cost, and like innumerable Christians after them they are suffering its consequences. For them, as for us, the world could be a scary place. Scarier still our choices matter. When Adam and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge, they brought death and destruction not just upon themselves, but upon all humanity. Likewise our choices affect not only us, but have consequences for others. Often however hard we try we cannot undo the effects of our sin.
Although we cannot undo the past, God is always transforming what was meant for evil, for ultimate good. Just as the cross was meant for ultimate evil, to destroy the one truly innocent and good man, yet God made it to be the greatest thing in all history, the new tree of life. Likewise despite the sins we have committed against others and the way we have marred God’s image, in the end God’s saving purposes cannot be undone. As we heard in our passage ‘if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow’ it.
In Lent we are to come afresh to that tree on which Christ saved us, and let it be the trellis by which our life grows cross-shaped. At the very end of the Bible in the last chapter of Revelation the tree of life reappears. All those who have found life through the tree of the cross will come and live beside it, and its leaves will be ‘for the healing of the nations’.
Let us pray: Lord Jesus Christ, who died upon that tree for our salvation, help us to fashion our lives according to Your most blessed cross and passion until we come to that place where we will know true life forevermore. Amen.