Χριστῷ συνεσταύρωμαι ζῶ δὲ οὐκέτι ἐγώ ζῇ δὲ ἐν ἐμοὶ

Right, it’s been three days since I’ve slept. So, whoever is reading this is just going to have to deal with my epiphany from last night even though I feel like I am the last one to put any of this together. In the middle of tossing and turning shaking off the DTs of anger and frustration I read the above passage from Ezekiel and thought of the chapter from Matthew we read in my weekly Bible study…  

Now, it is plain to see for most of you (it was not for me) what this, typologically, implies in prophecy which is, of course, the cross is what unites the nations and Christ is the king over them all. Granted, I’m running on fumes here, so everything is hilarious in my loopy state as well as this type of thing seemingly mind-blowing, because it is not simply prophesying the death of Christ, not only prophesying His Resurrection, but all of our resurrections through Christ.

This passage foreshadows the Harrowing of Hades.

Now, I’m reading through the Book of Acts now and in it the apostles spread the Word of the Lord using an interesting phrase, “The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging on a tree” (Acts 5:30). This is an important passage in that it explicitly shows a connection between the God of the New Testament and the God of the Hebrew Bible being the same God, dispelling any Gnosticism with a few words.

But what is the “hung on a tree” business? He was crucified on a cross, right?

Yes, this phrase is being used in a general sense showing that Christ was crucified on a structure made from wood, or two sticks nailed together.

There is more to it, though. Christ was hung on a tree because the cross, a weapon of torture and fear, was overcome by His Resurrection making the cross precious and life-giving.

In the Gospel According to St. Matthew, chapter twenty-six, we have, quite possibly, one of the most important aspects of the Gospel with the institution of the Mystical Supper before Christ prays in Gethsemane.

“While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body.’ Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’” (Matthew 26:26-28).

In the Gospel According to St. John Christ ministers to a crowd, saying, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you […] Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them” (John 6:53/56). Most of Christ’s followers turned away from Him and followed no longer hearing this hard saying.

Now, in the Book of Genesis, chapter two, having formed man God continues in Creation,

“And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:8-9).

This is the only mention of the tree of life in this chapter, and even the in the Bible itself until the book of Revelation. I seriously considered that I made it up… I was thinking about all these things and then reading Ezekiel I had a genuine moment thinking, wait, is the tree of life a Biblical concept or is it strictly Kabbalistic?

Lo and behold it’s in Eden… The tree of life, hidden in Creation almost as if it were an afterthought. But it was not an afterthought it grew in the midst of the garden, it could have been right next to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we do not know. It could have looked just the same, but we do know. We do know that God instructed the man and the woman not to eat of the fruit of the tree, because “for in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (Genesis 2:17).

We all know the story by now:

“But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate” (Genesis 3:4-6).

It was a delight to the eyes?

Really?

I don’t know about this, because in my experience anything off-limits is a “delight to the eyes.” Not everything, but a lot of what is “wrong to do” has a different coat of paint on it then other things; in other words, the things that lead to death have an allure about them that the things that lead to life do not always have. The things that lead to life sometimes go unnoticed; in the midst of Creation, they remain hidden in plain sight. Sometimes the things that lead to life are simply not doing something, such as eating the fruit we’re instructed not to eat or drinking that fourth shot of Jager on Xanax. Life is the kingdom of God, it is Paradise, and it “is not coming with things that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:20-21), in the midst of the garden.

It is quite the intoxicating thought that our “life” is somewhere waiting for us down the road; that our “life” will really start when we have this, or we have that; when we’re making this amount of money; when we have that particular house, when we have the two and half kids and perfect partner… Then, and only then, will we have “life.”

These things are all pleasant to the sight and good for food, but they are not life. 

Perhaps it is the things that lead to life that stand in such contrast to our own judgement. How many of us would have turned away from Christ and not followed Him anymore after hearing His hard saying of His Body and Blood? How many of us would have thought this Man was completely out of His mind?

But that is life, “This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which the ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever” (John 6:58). In Christ’s Body and Blood there is eternal life, a return to Paradise, and a fulfillment of the Ezekiel’s prophecy to the bones that were imbued with the breath of God, this Divine indwelling brought Man from dust, making Man in the Image of God. This Image is cultivated from within by partaking in eternal life through the fruit of the tree of life, which is the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, shed for us by His Love for us, without which we would have no life here or in the age to come.

It is by God’s Love that we experience life and through God’s Love we are made whole, in His Image.

Speaking from personal experience with the very wide path that leads to destruction, life is a stumbling block, as St. Paul would write in his first epistle to the Corinthians:

“For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,

    and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scholar? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of the proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews ask for signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength” (1 Corinthians 1:18-25).

The lesson from the Garden is not about the serpent versus God, good versus evil.

The lesson is one of humility.

Life is a stumbling block and when we lack humility it is easy for us to choose things that are a delight to the eyes, but ultimately lead to our ruin. We are leaning on our own understanding, leaning on our own, worldly, wisdom. When we partake in things that are explicitly outlawed by God, we are assuming dominion over our own lives and by that logic, acting as our own savior.

It is a difficult thing to wrestle with if you’re like me, growing up in a religious community that asserted its own control over you by telling you a bunch of thou-shalt-nots with the express consequence of Hell awaiting anyone who dare go against their rules… But it was their rules, and it was their consequences, because Christ has pillaged Hades. Our Savior “desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).

The knowledge of the truth is life, and life is foolishness to those of us who partake of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which leads to death. It is not Hell that is an impending consequence of our turning away from God, but the consequence is inherent in the act of turning away from God and the results of that choice.  

That being said, we all have to, in some way or another, die to find life. We all fall. That’s a part of being human, it’s in the Bible; God knows we will fall. He knew Adam and Eve would fall… He knew which is why Christ was always going to be crucified on the tree of life.

It’s something that I am wrestling with right now, something I mentioned in my last post for the Rose and the Lotus series: I have spent my life confusing the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil with the fruit that leads to life, or more appropriate, believing this fruit to make me as wise as God, my eyes illuminated, and even to become like God. But all this fruit has done is blind me to reality; it has distracted me with things that are pleasant to the eyes and rapturous to the senses while only taking from me, leading me to feel disposable, worthless.

Such is the result of falling from life.

However, it’s only in falling that we can truly grasp the humility needed to seek out life, the humility required to understand God’s Wisdom. The Wisdom of God is foolishness to men, but with humility we might discern that the Wisdom of God is embodying the kenotic love of Christ within us, cultivating it through life-giving practices such as service, almsgiving, and prayer. The pinnacle of life-giving practice, the pinnacle of the Christian faith is the Eucharist in which we partake of the fruit of the tree of life, taking in Christ where He abides in us and we in Him.

We must die to ourselves to truly recognize this, otherwise we will walk carrying ourselves assured of our own wisdom, blinded to the spiritual realties of the tree of life that grows in our midst and grows from within.

Uniting us to God, never again being divided in two, but one in His Love for us and His desire is for all to be saved.   

Si comprehendis, non est Deus