The Tree

Last night, we finally decked out our little tree with lights and ornaments. It is now a gloriously unsymmetrical mess of homemade ornaments.

As we decorated the tree and bee-bopped to some Christmas tunes, my mind wandered... Why do we decorate a tree for Jesus' birthday? This morning I asked my trusty friend, Google that very question. The answers were many and varied - many completely inaccurate, I'm sure. But I found a couple explanations that resonated...

The triangle shape of the tree represents the Trinity: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. The top of the tree points Heavenward.

The colour of the tree, green, represents life. Evergreen means eternal life.

The needles of a tree grow upward, like hands raised praising God.

The lights on the tree glitter and glisten like the streets of Heaven.

And the giving of gifts is an act of love and charity; a reflection of the love Christ has for us.

Looking at the tree, beautiful and shiny, brought to mind another tree. A tree that was roughly carved down, limbs and leaves and bark stripped away, ugly and bare, made into a cross.

It's impossible to reflect on the birth of the Christ child without the mind coming to His reason for being born. As we celebrate the Saviour birth, we are reminded of His death. A sacrifice of love for our sins. It seems fitting, doesn't it, that we use a tree to celebrate His birth, and tree to celebrate His death?

(Yes, we can celebrate Christ's death, because we know that it was not the end, but the beginning. God raised Him from the dead, just as His Salvation pulls us up from the darkness of death.)

The Christmas tree...a symbol of the eternal life we have been promised through Christ.