The tree of Life:::Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

 Year A

The Exaltation of the Holy Cross 

Numbers 21:4b-9

Psalm 78:1-2.34-35.36-37.38 (R. cf. 7b)

Philippians 2:6-11

John 3:13-17

The tree of Life 

I have always viewed the Cross as the tree of life because, if Jesus is Life and Life was hanged on the tree (cf. Acts 5:30), and that tree is the Cross, then the Cross is the tree of Life. A meditation I had about Jesus Christ telling the thief that he will be with him in paradise also gave me deep insight about the Cross as the tree of Life on which Jesus calls us back to the Paradise we lost.

Luke 23:43

He answered him, 'In truth I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise. 

I have been wondering why Jesus will have invite the 'good thief' to Paradise.  The answer is found in the statements of the thief before Jesus invited him to Paradise.  This thief on the Cross near Jesus rebuked wrong doing and sought for eternal life. 

To his other colleague who was teasing Jesus he said to him; 'Have you no fear of God at all? 'You got the same sentence as he did, but in our case we deserved it: we are paying for what we did. But this man has done nothing wrong.' And then said to Jesus  that; 'Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.'

What does he mean by asking Jesus to remember him when he[Jesus] comes into his Kingdom?  This shows the faith he has in the resurrection. When Jesus answered that he will be with him in Paradise, he draws our attention to the Garden of Eden. In the Garden of Eden; all trees were given to be eaten except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So the tree of life was also given for food, but obviously Adam and Eve never ate that fruit. 

If God fashioned man's body from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, which became the spirit of man, and when the spirit of man and the body of man reacted the soul was formed and hence man became a living soul (cf. Genesis 2:7), then the tree of life was created for the highest part of man, which is man's spirit as the breath of life. Thus the tree of life was to feed the breath of life or the spirit of man.

Let's look at something important from the first reading and compare it with the Cross of Jesus. In the first reading, we have a fiery serpent statue raised up on a staff and whomever is bitten by the fiery serpents when they look at it will be saved.  The first time we see this two things combined as one is in Exodus 4:3, where God told Moses to throw his staff down and the staff turned into a serpent. Now from this we can say the power of good and evil was given to Moses, as the staff  represent good and the serpent evil. Thus in the event of the raising the serpent, God was transforming the evil to good.

Interestingly, on the Cross to, God was transforming death to life, so that death becomes no longer an enemy but a friend through who our old nature is cast off and we clothes ourselves with the new man who became a life giving spirit.

1 Corinthians 15:45

So also it is written, The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

It was through the Cross that the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit. I repeat, the tree of life is the Cross of Christ Jesus, and he invites us to take for food to feed our spirit and our spirit once again will be lord of our souls and body. Jesus calls us to share in his suffering, because to eat from the tree of life is to become part of his body.  

Are you willing to be broken for others whenever the body of Christ is broken for you, are you willing to be poured out for others whenever the blood of Christ is poured out for you, are you willing to Love, then God is with you, for Jesus is mostly God when he is suffering and dying on the Cross, LOVE.

Not that God can suffer or die, but through the human nature of Jesus Christ, God gets to know sin and suffering as a cancer patient knows cancer rather than how a cancer doctor knows cancer.

By Sylvester Amakye-Quayson