He Planted The Tree

If you’ve followed this blog for long, you know that God so often speaks to me when I’m in nature. Sometimes when I’m walking.  Sometimes gardening.  And last week, while on the tractor mowing.

As I was listening to my praise music playlist on Spotify.  My settings allow Spotify to suggest similar songs to those on my playlist; it’s often how I stumble on a new favorite song or am introduced to an artist I’d not heard before.  And sometimes, like last week, God takes the opportunity to speak to me.  To utter a truth so unexpected and profound, that it literally stops me in my tracks.  Or in this case, on my mower.  

It was these words from an artist named Andrew Ripp.  The song, Roses.  “He must’ve known about the heartbreak long before us.  He must’ve known about the mistakes, still He chose us.  Planted the tree where He would die.”

I felt my breath leave my lungs as those words pierced my heart.  I went from joyful praise to tearful recognition in an instant.  My joy-filled heart was heavy with a truth so raw that it could only release the weightiness through a torrent of tears.  So, I mowed.  And I cried.  Wiping my eyes over and over with my t-shirt just so I could see where I was going.  Trying unsuccessfully to stifle the sobs as the true depth and breadth of God’s love for me sank into the deepest parts of my soul. 

It illuminated the crucifixion in a way I had never considered.  I’ve read about the horrors of the crucifixion, the medical analysis of what truly occurred to and in the body of my Savior.  I’ve sobbed in a public theatre for an hour after The Passion of the Christ ended.  I’ve cried with gratitude on Easter Sunday.  But never, before hearing those words, did I truly understand the passionate, fervent commitment God made to me. A commitment He made long before He’d have to send His son to save my sinful soul.  

Genesis 1 tells us the story of creation.  It details step-by-step God’s masterful creation – from creating heaven and earth from a dark void to the creation of man in His image.  ¹¹ And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.¹² And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.¹³ And the evening and the morning were the third day.

On that third day, God planted the seed that would one day produce the tree that would be felled, fashioned into a cross, and carried on the back of His one and only Son.  He. Planted. The. Tree.  If that doesn’t send you to your knees, read it again.  And again.  And again.  He knew one day that He would have to send a savior to bring His children into eternal relationship.  And in that knowing, He planted the tree. 

In Luke’s Genealogy, Jesus is the 76^th great grandchild of Adam.  Experts don’t agree on how many years elapsed between Adam and Jesus death.  But it is thought to be somewhere between 4000 and 6000 years.  Thousands of years before I was conceived, God planted the tree.  The tree He knew would one day hold the hope of the world.  

The tree on which Jesus would willingly lie down to claim my sin.  

The tree into which nails would be driven through my Savior’s wrists and feet so that one day I would walk beside and embrace God.    

The tree upon which His Son would suffer an agonizing death so that I would have eternal life.

The tree that would be forever stained with the blood and sweat of a scarified Savior for an undeserving wretch.

The tree where Jesus would take His last breath so that I might breathe the gift of salvation.

God planted the tree.   For you.