Between Two Trees: An Easter Meditation

The trees have a lot to tell us. For most of us, we read right through the Bible and we miss them. But in his perfect wisdom, God inspired his Word in a particular way, one that includes all sorts of pictures to communicate precisely what we need to know.

The opening chapters of Genesis introduce us to the trees in general and to a couple in particular. We’re introduced to the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:9). It was the latter of these two from which our first parents were prohibited to eat. Their disobedience of that command resulted in the fall of all humanity and the curse upon the entire creation. Indeed, Adam and Eve’s sin brings about far-reaching and devastating consequences. After cursing the serpent, consider the pronouncement of curses that God issues over humanity:

“He said to the woman:

I will intensify your labor pains;

you will bear children with painful effort.

Your desire will be for your husband,

yet he will rule over you.

And he said to the man, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’:

The ground is cursed because of you.

You will eat from it by means of painful labor

all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you,

and you will eat the plants of the field.

You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow

until you return to the ground,

since you were taken from it.

For you are dust,

and you will return to dust.” (Genesis 3:16-19, CSB)

Adam and Eve find themselves under divine judgment, cast out of the garden. And in dramatic fashion, we are told that the Creator positions an angelic guard, a cherubim, to stand watch over the way to the tree of life. Sin has cut off access to the center of the garden marked by this tree.

Driven east of Eden, our first parents spent the rest of their lives toiling under this curse, and then one day, true to promise, they breathed their last and returned to dust. And so it has been for every generation since. The tree of life has been beyond our reach. Left to ourselves, humanity stands cut off from God’s covenantal love and fellowship.

Other than some general references to trees of life in Proverbs, we find no other mention of the tree of life until the final book of the Bible. 

There, the Apostle John reintroduces us to this other tree and he does so in the second chapter, embedded in Jesus’ message to the church at Ephesus: “To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God” (Rev. 2:7).

That promise then comes into an even fuller picture in chapter 22. There, in the final chapter of the Bible’s final book, John uses apocalyptic imagery to give us a dramatic picture. And at the center of it is the tree of life, that ancient tree long lost.

There in the middle of the city of God, on the banks of the river of God, we see it clearly: “the tree of life, with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations” (Rev 22:2). 

And then, as if to raise the stakes even more, John gives to us the charge of the Risen Christ himself: “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates” (Rev 22:14).

Two ancient trees. One brought death and destruction, the other brings eternal life. One tree haunts humanity, explaining why our world is so broken, why our own hearts are so warped, why death and suffering seem so inescapable. The other seems beyond our grasp, almost a mist of a dream too good to be true.

But between these two trees lies another one. And that tree is at the very heart of Easter. That tree was no ancient one with deep roots sunk into ancient soil. That tree was laid on the back of a Galilean carpenter who was, in fact, the Son of God and the King of Kings. That tree was hoisted up by soldiers at the demand of religious leaders. That tree was soaked in blood, drawn from the veins of the crucified Christ. And at the appointed hour, that cursed tree held the lifeless body of the Messiah, when his last breath had left him and his atoning sacrifice was complete.

His body was placed in a borrowed tomb. The forgotten tree of life seemed more distant than ever. But on the third day, everything would change. Deflated lungs now burst with fresh oxygen. Cardiac muscles that had been inert for days suddenly pumped again with force, propelling new blood through arteries. Brain synapses lit up like fireworks where for days there had only been darkness. Eyes opened, muscles moved, and the King of the Universe walked out of that tomb, victor over sin and death.

There’s no going back to Eden. 

But the risen Christ assures us that there is a promised future for all those who have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev 7:14). That horrible cursed tree at Calvary is made the instrument that opens up eternal life for sinners like you and me. The cross is now made not a mere instrument of death, but an eternal reminder that the Lamb is also a Lion, the Lord’s anointed king. The cross of Christ brings the tree of life back into the very center of God’s habitation among his people.

Christians live between these two trees. One that haunts us, a reminder of that primal sin millennia ago and its very real and destructive consequences. We see its effects all around us and, if we have come to know ourselves truly by God’s grace, we are aware of its effects in our own hearts. The other tree, the tree of life, seems to summon us forward. But it can seem so elusive, particularly as we sojourn through this world. So with eyes set toward Resurrection Sunday, we find our hope in the tree of Calvary. There at the Place of the Skull, we have full assurance that there is indeed healing, renewal, and redemption. His curse has become our blessing. His affliction, our redemption. His suffering, our healing. His sacrifice, our atonement.