People and Trees: Matthew 26-28

Introduction

We are going to discuss one thread that is woven through the quilt pieces of the Bible that ties all the pieces together and comes together in Jesus.

Idea of quilt pieces.

What frame of mind must we have?

Luke 24:18–27 ESV

18 Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” 19 And he said to them, “What things?” And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. 22 Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, 23 and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” 25 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

Jesus saw the entire OT as a story that points to Him.

What we mean by that is not just that there are explicit point by point prophecies that he fulfills, but that (read properly) the entire story is looking forward to a promised seed who would rescue humanity from their sin and death by his righteousness.

Every aspect of those stories (especially the first chapters of Genesis) set up threads and storylines that are fleshed out more throughout the OT. All of those threads come together at one point in Jesus.t

We are following a bit (just a bit) of the thread about trees that is established in the Garden and goes forward through the Bible, finding its fullest expression in Jesus death, being lifted up on a tree.

What are the main trees that you remember from the last chapters of Matthew?

How does that relate to the theme of the tree throughout the Bible?

My three points are

Trees in Eden introduce us to a biblical theme: there are two types of trees (trees of life and of testing) and that people and kingdoms can both be like those trees.

The fig tree in in Jerusalem shows us that Israel is a cursed tree which Jesus is de-creating and recreating in himself with the church.

This thread culminates in the Cross where Jesus is lifted up as a tree of testing for Israel and becomes the tree of Life for us. We eat the fruit of his tree and pass that fruit of the new kind of life out to our families and neighbors.

Eden

Genesis 1-11 is the thematic introduction for the entire Hebrew Bible. It sets up the themes that will follow, but only in vague detail.

When we look at the whole of Genesis, those themes are worked out in more detail an author compiled the work with an understanding of the whole story. So themes can be introduced with sparse detail and fleshed out in multiple iterations to give you the full theological picture.

Two Trees in the Garden

Genesis 2:5–9 ESV

5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Water is in the scene before Adam is made

Both people and trees spring up from the ground.

Both people and trees require the water (spring) God has given.

Adam is placed in the Garden with the trees (not made there)

The Garden is made for the purpose of testing Adam and offering him eternal life

What are trees?

Place to meet God

Genesis 18:1–2 ESV

1 And the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. 2 He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth

Connection of Heaven and Earth - Trees represent a place where the boundaries between the heavens and earth realms are thinner.

The two trees in the Garden are the Highest point of the highest point, center of the center.

Eden is pictured as a high mountain, trees are higher on top of this.

Eden is what temples are patterned after (mean the same) - trees are holy of holies

Sustainment and life

What are the two trees about?

Tree of life.

Offer of immortality - life 2.0 - eternal life. (eternal life is not just about duration its about quality) (Abraham seed like stars, haggaioi)

Entering into the state of the perfected body. And joining God’s council as image bearers on earth. Adam and Eve needed something gifted to them for life 2.0, they did not possess immortality and eternal life in themselves, they needed to partake, to eat, and participate in something.

It is the offer of participation in God’s own life in the fruit in a mysterious way.

Tree of knowing good and bad. (what way you’re going to walk in)

Discernment between the good and the bad

Essential for ruling

Wisdom can be learned through obedience or experience.

Discern the good from the bad by following Good in God’s eyes

Discern good from the bad by defining it in your own eyes, but in reality choosing what is bad.

Not magical fruit, - choices with implications.

People are like Trees

Both spring up from the ground, are water by the spring/mist, and are formed by God. Both are placed in eden.

It is the initial hint at future thematic material

How are people like trees in the rest of the OT?

Psalm 1 ESV

1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. 4 The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. 5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; 6 for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

The psalmist can look back at the Eden narrative and pull out Images that convey eternal truths. Adam was like one of those trees planted by the stream in Eden. The trees are nourished by God’s waters, Adam is nourished and was called to bear his own kind of fruit, bringing new life that expanded God’s dominion over the globe.

How can we be fruitful and full of life like Adam in the garden? By being sustained by the words to us that show us God’s type of life (how to live God’s way). When we live God’s way we are beginning to live that Life 2.0 that Adam was offered in the Garden.

The wicked man is one who is not sustained by God’s life, does not live life 2.0, and dries up to produce no fruit.

Lets take a moment here to reflect on this. How does it strike you that the Bible uses themes and images like this?

Kingdoms are like trees

Not only are people like trees, nations and kingdoms are like trees.

Often, the imagery for people (especially representative figures like kings, and the nations they represent are interchangeable. (ie, the servant and israel in Isaiah)

Ezekiel 31:2–12 ESV

2 “Son of man, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his multitude: “Whom are you like in your greatness? 3 Behold, Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon, with beautiful branches and forest shade, and of towering height, its top among the clouds. 4 The waters nourished it; the deep made it grow tall, making its rivers flow around the place of its planting, sending forth its streams to all the trees of the field. 5 So it towered high above all the trees of the field; its boughs grew large and its branches long from abundant water in its shoots. 6 All the birds of the heavens made their nests in its boughs; under its branches all the beasts of the field gave birth to their young, and under its shadow lived all great nations. 7 It was beautiful in its greatness, in the length of its branches; for its roots went down to abundant waters. 8 The cedars in the garden of God could not rival it, nor the fir trees equal its boughs; neither were the plane trees like its branches; no tree in the garden of God was its equal in beauty. 9 I made it beautiful in the mass of its branches, and all the trees of Eden envied it, that were in the garden of God. 10 “Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because it towered high and set its top among the clouds, and its heart was proud of its height, 11 I will give it into the hand of a mighty one of the nations. He shall surely deal with it as its wickedness deserves. I have cast it out. 12 Foreigners, the most ruthless of nations, have cut it down and left it. On the mountains and in all the valleys its branches have fallen, and its boughs have been broken in all the ravines of the land, and all the peoples of the earth have gone away from its shadow and left it.

What is a cosmic tree?

The image we see here is of a cosmic tree. This borrows some imagery from neighboring nations and religions in a way that argues against their point.

The tree symbolizes something great and powerful that joins and connects together the heavenly realm, the earthly realm, and the realm below.

In the mind of the nations they are empowered by the gods, they rule on earth, and they are connected to their ancestors in the grave.

Kingdoms have a physical and spiritual component in that way.

God gives this tree over to destruction.

Notice the link back to the trees in Eden. The author sees the origin of the nations being something or somethings that were around in eden? The trees hinting back to the original rebel and its pride in its beauty.

Lets take a moment to reflect on the way God dealt with great and powerful nations.

Notice how God does not care about this empire. It is great in its own eyes, it combines the heavens and earth, and it expands over the whole earth, but God will de-create it because of its pride.

Fig Tree

Matthew 21:18–19 ESV

18 In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry. 19 And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once.

This is a verse that I’ve struggled with for years actually. It always seemed so unfair that Jesus would curse the tree - it was not the season for figs.

Did anyone else get stuck here?

But I’m realizing that Israel’s opportunity for fruitfulness and repentance has passed. God’s judgement is not to wither a tree that was healthy. God’s judgement is always a turning over to and an acceleration of the path we have already chosen.

Jesus accelerates the withering of a dying tree.

He comes to a dying Jerusalem and instigates and accelerates her judgement so that a remnant can be saved

Israel as a Cursed Tree

Israel is a tree like the other kingdoms, but not a huge cosmic tree, a dried up fig tree, why?

PS 2, not planted by the waters - their roots go to strange and foreign streams.

By being in the shade of the great foreign cosmic powers, they became dried up. They looked to the nations for their refuge instead of God.

Israel is meant to be a tree that brings YHWH’s life to the nations.

Adam’s dominion mission - Kingdom is always meant to be expansionary

Israel is meant to take the “Tree of Life” “Life 2.0” Life of God to the nations to heal them.

But they were a tree that produced no fruit. They brought no life only death (letter of the law kills but spirit of the law gives life).

What does God intend to do? Accelerate destruction, harden hearts, fulfill the scriptures.

Jesus Replaces the Cursed Tree

Does God plan to leave humanity with no representative?

Who is the new representative for God? - that which was birthed out of Israel, God saves a righteous remenant through the judgement.

God’s pattern throughout the bible, creation - test - failure - judgement and decreation (earthly and cosmic) - selection of a remnant- recreation.

We can be sure that God’s rejection of Israel and the temple isn’t the end of his plan to work with humanity.

What sort tree do we guess Jesus is like?

Jesus is like a tree - the new Tree of Life.

What was Adam’s offer - to participate in God’s eternal life, and his job, to spread it to the world.

What was Israel’s offer - to live out a new kind of life on earth, following God’s way, its job, to spread it to the nations.

Jesus is the unification of those. Each story in the OT is an aspect of him that when put together show the whole.

Jesus brings a new kind of life (following the way) that is the downpayment through the spirit of eternal life.

We participate in eternal life to the extent that we partake of him.

Jesus is the branch that grows to a cosmic tree connecting heaven and earth and healing the nations

Isaiah 11:1–10 ESV

1 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. 2 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. 3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, 4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. 5 Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins. 6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. 7 The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. 9 They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. 10 In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.

Quoted in Rom 15 to show how Christ new gathering of “holy ones” is expanding the new type of life to all nations and ethnic groups.

Jesus chops down, destroys and replaces the cosmic trees not just of Israel, but of empires of the world. The spiritual physical conglomerate of governmental power and spiritual influence (legitimacy of spiritual authority). Gets challenged and destroyed by the faithful operations of the church.

Jesus followers (he as the head the church as the body) grow into an enormous tree that draws in the nations. - we’ve seen this in history.

What is the fruit of the tree? If Jesus is the new Tree of Life - the fruit of the tree is eternal life.

The Church as partaking of and becoming a new Tree

What does this mean for us- the church?

John 15:5 ESV

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

The church brings that life 2.0 with a downpayment of the type of life that goes on forever to the nations, transforming them and destroying all the other “trees” along the way.

We are the physical portion of the tree, the bridge between heaven and earth. The holy spirit is breath and water that brings us life, but we have a significant role to play in the spiritual transformation of the nations.

I should be a walking tree of life to those around me.

Do I bring cool refreshing life and joy to my kids. Do they come to me to be filled up with God’s life?

Do I bring that life to my wife? To my work? To my community? To the poor, the naked, the hungry, the sick?

How does this relate to communion?

Matthew 26:26–28 ESV

26 Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” 27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, 28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

2 Peter 1:3–4 ESV

3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

Through Christ and partly in communion I partake of the divine nature, and am transformed to be the carrier of life to those around me.

The Cross

Jesus is the stumbling block for Israel. Throughout the OT there are tests of faith for many of God’s people. Moments where the thing that seems good to do in our eyes contradicts what God has commanded. If they obeyed the were blessed.

The first is the tree of knowing G+B (defining good in your own eyes or submitting to God’s definition)

The Test for Israel

Jesus Christ vs Jesus Barrabas

Matthew 27:15–21 ESV

15 Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted. 16 And they had then a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. 17 So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release for you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” 18 For he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up. 19 Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much because of him today in a dream.” 20 Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. 21 The governor again said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” And they said, “Barabbas.”

This point depends on a textual variant, but the point stand regardless.

Some manuscripts note Barrabas’ first name as Jesus.

Jesus means “god saves”

We had two competing visions of God’s salvation here for the people to choose to participate in.

We have the violent, forceful, human, rebellion way. (pulls in images of cain and ham and nimrod and Saul). A king like the other nations.

And The way God intends to save, through a peaceful transformation of the hearts of the lowest.

Who are Christ and Barrabas in the scene.

Two brothers, or two trees. Either way there is a choice for the crowds.

The choice is the test in the Garden and Saul vs David replayed. Which way will Israel choose, the way of salvation that seems right in their eyes (political and religious power working together for national victory against an oppressive empire). Or the way of God.

Who are the People?

The crowds stand for all Israel. Imagine them to be Adam in the Garden or Cain at the door of the Garden. In both cases there is a choice between two ways of living.

The people fall to a deciever.

Who are the Priests? The priests play the role of the snake.

They Try to twist words with Jesus

They plot and scheme decietfully

The Take Jesus at night

They Bring Accusations (false accusations)

They Play the deceiver for the people.

The Test for the brothers/disciples/us

Participation in the suffering

Or manipulation to make Jesus right in our own eyes

All the disciples fell away.

Judas tried to force Jesus to fit his political narrative and was remorseful at the end.

In the end the primary ones condemned were the rulers, but all the people went along with them.

The Lifting up

With that in mind lets open it up for discussion on how Jesus being lifted up on a tree fulfills this tree theme of the OT.

Let us look to our savior as he is lifted up. In the earthly realm he is cursed. In the heavenly realm he is life.

As we joyfully enter in to suffering, into pain, into poverty, and into the cosmic chaos of life, We look to Christ as our refuge.

All we need to do is look to him. He is our refuge if we turn to him for it.

He is our life if we partake of him and pass through the waters of death with him.

Application and Meaning

The POINT. The tree of life in the Garden is a picture of Jesus and his offer of life to humanity.

Lets reflect on that discussion. How does this strike you?

What new aspects of Jesus death did this bring up?

How do we see the modern day church when we look at it through this picture?

What sorts of tests could the church face?

What sorts of tests do we face individually?

How could the church become aligned with the purposes of the snake?

How can we be the embodiment of the tree of life to our neighbors and the nations?