By Doug Redford
As Christmas draws near, many websites and newspapers will list various places in your area where you can go and cut down your own Christmas tree. Some people will remember what it was like in their childhood to cut down the family Christmas tree and take it home to decorate. Some may still do that as an annual family tradition. It can be a chore at times to find the perfect tree—just the right size and shape—so you can bring it home and decorate it with all kinds of ornaments. Others prefer artificial trees, which save time and effort and make decorating go a little more quickly.
Some parents have taken pictures of each of their children at their first Christmas and then made ornaments from the pictures to hang every year on their Christmas tree. Years later, they create ornaments with pictures of their grandchildren, as well. Personal ornaments like those are a special way to remember those we love at Christmas.
Some evening when you are looking at your beautiful Christmas tree, think about another kind of tree mentioned in Scripture in a passage where Paul described the impact of Jesus’ death: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’” (Galatians 3:13, New American Standard Bible). Paul was telling how Jesus, by his death on the cross, took sin’s curse upon himself—a curse that we as sinners deserved.
The tree Paul had in mind certainly isn’t a pretty sight; it was decorated with nothing but Jesus’ body and blood. But consider this: on that tree could appear every one of our pictures because all of us were on God’s mind when he gave his Son to die for us . . . every one of us. That’s a lot of pictures, but God has a lot of love.
Here at Communion, we remember this blood-stained tree. It may never be featured on a greeting card as the perfect tree, but the perfection is found in the Gift that was given there—just what we all needed. As you take these emblems, imagine the cross (that tree) with your picture on it, for our Savior offered up that Gift with you in mind.
Doug Redford has served in the preaching ministry, as an editor of adult Sunday school curriculum, and as a Bible college professor. Currently he is the minister at Highview Christian Church in Cincinnati.
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