Before You Put Up Your Christmas Tree, You’ve Got to Read This. No, Really. The DE-STREESSING Tree Tradition We All Need

As I hang ornaments on our own wee Charlie Brown Christmas tree this year, I’m grinning like a fool, thinking how they say “that simply sitting looking at trees reduce blood pressure as well as the stress-related hormones cortisol and adrenaline.”

That research’s actually discovered that “participants walking in a forest experienced less anxiety, hostility, fatigue, confusion, and depressive symptoms, and more vigor… that those who gazed at a winter forest reported significantly better moods, more positive emotions, more vigor, and a greater sense of personal restoration.”

Surprisingly, the data concluded how forests powerfully affect our brains: “People living in proximity to trees had better “amygdala integrity”—meaning, a brain structure better able to handle stressors.”

And here we all are:

Tis the season where the whole spinning planet orbits with people living in closest proximity to trees —all trying not to be stressed right out of our collective tree.

And I’m stringing up the lights and smiling huge because:

What if the very fact that we are living in close proximity to trees right now not only made us all more than a bit more stress-free, but actually healed our cracked hearts in more ways than we ever dreamed?

Because right there on our coffee table that’s made of century old beams hewn from gnarly trees, there’s the open Sacred Word and how did I not notice is more closely before:

“All other trees might make us a bit more stress-free,

but only the Tree of Calvary literally frees us.“

How the Maker of this World opens our human story in the Garden with two trees in a garden, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil — and then tells how it will all end, with only one tree standing:

“On each side of the river is the Tree of Life… The tree’s leaves are for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse.” (Rev. 22:2-3 CEV).

All trees will give way to only one Tree of Life:

The tree where Jesus gave the gift of Himself, infinite Love, to pulverize death, and destroy all the damning curses, and tenderly mend up and heal all our heartbreak and trauma.

All other trees might make us a bit more stress-free — but only the Tree of Calvary literally frees us.

Scripture, in the original Greek, could have referred exclusively to the cross (stauros) throughout the text, but instead, surprisingly, Scripture keeps pointing again and again to the tree (xylos).

The apostles, in the book of Acts, don’t say that Jesus went to the cross but that He sacrificed Himself “on a tree” (5:30; 10:39) — and that He was taken “down from the tree and [they] laid Him in a tomb” (13:29). The holy text says He offered His servant body to bear “our sins in His body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24).

“Everywhere we turn this time of year, Christmas whispers:

Christ’s coming was more than about going to a cross —

but about going to a Tree.“

Everywhere we turn this time of year, Christmas whispers: Christ’s coming was more than about going to a cross — but about going to a Tree.

Why make it a deal that Jesus came down to ultimately go up to a Tree?

The Ancient Jewish Torah reads that “Anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse” (Deut. 21:23 Berean Standard Bible).

Every Christmas tree can testify: Jesus came down to go up to the Tree of Calvary to take every hurt, every curse, and set all the weary captives free.

And here I am, with the weather forecast calling for snow this week, and I’m looking out the window, waiting, while hanging , each one artistically depicting stories from the Bible, all in the family tree of Jesus, which originates from the prophecy:

“Then a shoot will spring up from the stump of Jesse, and a Branch from his roots will bear fruit…In that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a banner to the peoples; Him shall the nations seek…” (Isa. 11:1, 11)

, but are actually said to be, by noted historians, as the “original use of the family tree, as a visual representation of a genealogy.” 

And it’s no small wonder, no small gift, that we, through Jesus’ sacrifice at the Tree of Calvary, can all be part of the family tree of Jesus, can all be named in the genealogy of God!

And, as I put up the tree, I’m struck all over again: If we don’t come to Christmas through Christ’s family tree, and we simply come into the Christmas story just right there at the Christmas tree—it’s bewildering to fully understand the real meaning and hope of Christmas and Christ’s coming!

Because without. knowing the family tree of Jesus, the genealogy of Christ?

“The coming of Christ is right through families of messed-up monarchs & battling brothers, through affairs and adultery & more than a feud or two, through skeletons in closets & cheaters at tables.“

“Without the limbs of His past, the branches of His family, the love story of His heart that has been coming for you since before the beginning—how does Christmas and its tree stand? Its roots would be sheared. Its meaning would be stunted. The arresting pause of the miracle would be lost.

The coming of Christ is right through families of messed-up monarchs and battling brothers, through affairs and adultery and more than a feud or two, through skeletons in closets and cheaters at tables.

And Jesus claims exactly these who are wandering and wondering and wounded and worn out as His.

He grafts you into His line and His story and His heart, and He gives you His name, His lineage, His righteousness. He graces you with plain amazing grace.

Is there a greater Gift you could want or need or have?

Christ comes right to your Christmas tree and looks at your family tree and says, “I am your God, and I am one of you, and I’ll be the Gift, and I’ll take you. Take Me?” ~excerpt from The Greatest Gift

“Christ comes right to your Christmas tree & looks at your family tree & says, “I am your God, & I am one of you, & I’ll be the Gift, & I’ll take you. Take Me.“

And I take up , like a vow of my own committed yes, astonished and awed all over again, that I too am being grafted into the family tree of God.

And I now set out a wee tree by the kitchen sink, and two starry ones to anchor the hearth, and a forest of flocked ones on the buffet, standing sentinel over a nativity, and then two dwarf trees flanking the dining room table, because this what I know, that I know that I know:

Time began with two great trees — and time will end, and forever will begin, with only one tree… because of the Triune God gave Himself as the Greatest Gift at Calvary’s Tree.

In Christ, we are now never in soul-crisis.

Because Christ stretched out His arms in unending Love over us

on the Cross-Tree,

all our soul-crises are already over.

And all of us and a whole world of hurt, exhales relief when , because, right here, we are all in proximity to the most healing, calming truth in the whole of the universe:

Because Christ went to the Tree, there are now no real soul-crisis. All our brokenness and sadness and sinfulness and darkness and hopelessness is nailed to the Tree and we’re covered in a perfect grace the sets us completely free.

In Christ, we are never in soul-crisis.

Because Christ stretched out His arms in unending Love over us on the Cross-Tree, all our soul-crises are already over.

Because Christ went to the Tree, we get the greatest gift of being forever soul-safe in Him.

And all the lights of all the trees flicker, even the sad Charlie Brown ones, igniting hearts with the wonder of a Tree doing more than just making us only a bit more stress-free — but ultimately making us completely free.

****

Trace Your Real Family Tree, from Creation to Creche, with all 3 of our Advent Books: The Greatest Gift

(adult edition)
Best Devotional of the Year, ECPA, 2014,
NYTimes Best Seller

Unwrapping the Greatest Gift

(family edition)
Best Inspirational Book
of the Year, CBA, 2016,
NYTimes Best Seller

The Wonder of the Greatest Gift:

Best Devotional &
Gift Book of the Year, Christian Book Association, 2019
(pop-up edition 14 in. tree, 25 days of readings & advent flap calendar, hiding all 25 Biblically inspired ornaments! For any age!) 

Find all three Christmas books here, to give you & yours the gift of knowing your real family tree & real hope around all the Christmas Tree s Want to Hush all the Hurry &
Destress Your Soul This Holiday? We’ll send A Free Peaceful Advent Video to you Every Day

Tap play on the video below & come join us on the farm, as we light a candle & take a moment to hush the hurry, and intimately encounter the very real & enfolding presence of Jesus with us here, right here:

Every day, beginning today and right up to Christmas Day, we’re inviting you to the farm to light a candle with us through a small and simple video like this one. Delivered right to your inbox, so that you don’t have to try catch it in the middle of all the noise of the internet, we’ll send it right to your quiet everyday.

To get this visual experience and join us on the farm every day, simply be sure you are subscribed to our email family, so you don’t miss out on any of the daily videos, along with all the beautiful and completely FREE gifts we’ve created for you this Christmas.

JOIN OUR EMAIL FAMILY & WE WILL SEND YOU AN ADVENT VIDEO OF BEAUTY & STILLNESS, RIGHT TO YOUR INBOX EVERY MORNING

And get all 25 of our “Holiday Sticky Notes for Your Soul” as a free printable, available for you to download as part of our bundle of free gifts, with our deepest thanks for being a part of our email family.

With a 2-sided option this year, you can hang these sticky notes up as your own adult Advent calendar, quietly counting the days to Christmas, and giving you the greatest Gift of all:

Spaciousness,
Non-anxiousness,
&
More of His presence,
the Prince of Peace Himself!

JOIN THE LIST HERE & ALL THIS HOLY HUSH OF BEAUTY IS SLIPPED IMMEDIATELY INTO YOUR INBOX