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Saturday, January 18, 2025 at 3:07 AM

Understanding Christmas

Evergreen

Have you taken down your Christmas tree yet? We haven’t, but that’s no surprise. We usually don’t get our tree taken down in a timely fashion.

Our family record is the middle of March.

Then again, we have an artificial tree. If we had a live tree, things would be different. We would have to take it down after a couple of weeks. No matter how well you water a live tree, once it is cut down, the needles eventually turn brown and fall to the ground.

Jay Leno once joked that the Christmas tree was the perfect houseplant for him because it was already dead.

I can relate. Plants come to our house to die. But if it’s already dead, what harm can we do it?

Ironically, the pine tree originally became a common Christmas decoration precisely because it was alive. Pine trees are evergreens . As long as the roots are alive, the needles don’t wither and fall like the leaves of other trees.

Pine trees became a symbol for Christmas because they are always green - always alive. The ever-green pine tree symbolized the ever-lasting life that the Baby of Bethlehem was born to bring.

Though for many, Christmas is the most important and beloved holiday of the year, Jesus’ birth was only the prologue, the preface, the introduction to his story. The reason he was born and laid in a manger was to be nailed to a dead tree 33 years later.

As Jesus hung on the cross, nailed to two pieces of wood, God the Father punished him for all the horrible deeds we and all mankind have done since the day Adam and Eve ate from their tree thousands of years earlier.

Because Jesus died on that dead tree, God forgives all those who repent and believe in him. Because Jesus died on that dead tree, we get to live forever with him in heaven where there is no more mourning or death or crying or pain.

Like the Christmas tree, we, together with all those who believe in Jesus, will be ever green - always alive with God - even when we die. That’s why it is so ironic to me that we cut Christmas trees down and put them in our homes. After a few weeks, the symbol of our everlasting life dies, and we throw it away.

May we never treat the life Jesus won for us like we treat our Christmas trees. Or maybe, better yet, we should just leave our Christmas trees up all year long.

I know that would make my family happy.

Pastor Andrew Schroer has been a pastor for over 25 years and is currently serving at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Edna, Texas. You can find his latest books, “364 Days of Thanksgiving ” and “364 Days of Devotion ,

Amazon.


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