It's true. To plant a tree is to trust in the future. A tree is a long term investment in life The prophet Isaiah repeatedly speaks about trees as symbols of hope.
Trees are those slow growing signposts that line the road to Zion. Listen to the applause of creation for the Creator as "the trees of the field clap their hands". Trees that in the long years of arboreal life are to be pictured as signs of God's promise that "as the days of a tree" so shall be the long life of his people.
Isaiah finds so many ways to encourage faith, to restore hope, and to find metaphors for the reality of the incomparable God, who when He moves in justice and mercy creation applauds, dances, and bursts into fruitfulness.
In the hopeful imagination of Isaiah, God will grow trees of hope in a new landscape in which the wilderness becomes a forest, the desert an orchard, the barren place an olive grove.
This wonderful poem describes hope as the impossible reforestation of the desert.
I will make trees grow in the desert.
I will plant cedar and acacia trees there.
I will plant myrtle and olive trees there.
I will make juniper trees grow in the dry and empty desert.
I will plant fir and cypress trees there.
Then people will see and know
that my powerful hand has done it.
They will consider and understand
that I have created it.
I am the Holy One of Israel.”
My guess is we don't pay enough attention to trees. Preoccupied by money, anxious about today let alone tomorrow, accustomed to think short term instead of a future oriented hopefulness – no wonder a walk in a wood makes a difference to how we feel inside, and how we look at the world.
This Advent, Christmas trees don't have to be artificial, bauble bedecked stumps cut off too soon. Instead walk the woods with Isaiah, and listen for the applause of creation- consider and understand – God makes all this happen. Immanuel, God with us.
Leave a Reply