You had [him] killed by
hanging him on a tree.
—Acts 5:30
A large window in my mother’s kitchen framed a beautiful oak tree. She had breakfast every morning watching the sun do its magic on her tree. Mother loved that tree.
It started me thinking about some other trees.
There was the fig tree Jesus told about that was bearing no fruit. “Cut it down!” ordered its owner (Lk 13:7). “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire,” Jesus said (Mt 7:19).
Most of all, I thought about a transplanted tree: the cross on which Jesus died was hewn from a tree. I wonder where it grew, and who cut it down and shaped it into a cross. It holds a unique—awful and wonderful—place in history.
The cross was the tree of death
for Jesus; the tree of life for us.