Between a Rock and a Holy Place

There's a man in Chicago that sells Christmas trees every year in December. People call him Slats, I think. And one cold December day Slats met some people who were searching all over for just the right tree. The man was skinny and small, just kind of average looking. And she was kind of pretty, he said. But both wearing worn-out clothes. Clothes that looked like they'd come from the Salvation Army store. And it was plain to see that they weren’t well off—that they had next to nothing, really. Slats walked with them as they looked at all the trees. But most of them were just way too expensive. Finally, they settled on a Scotch pine that was okay on one side, but pretty bare on the other. And then, a little further down, they picked out another tree that was hardly any better. Full on one side, but Charlie-Brown-scraggly on the other. Well... a few days later, Slats was out walking on the street and just happened to glance up through a large window into a ground-floor apartment. And there he saw an absolutely spectacular tree. It was beautiful. Full and thick and lovely... And then he was shocked. The people who lived there came to the window. It was that same couple—the man and woman who bought those two awful, scraggly trees from him. And... he couldn't help himself. He went over. He knocked on the door. He just had to know where they'd gotten such a beautiful tree. So they told him how they'd come home with the two scraggly trees they bought from him. And how they worked them together, where the branches were thin. It was hard to do... weaving the branches together. They had to use wire to bind the two trunks together. But with a lot of patience and effort, they found a way to overlap the branches. And they were so thick and full and perfect now... you couldn't even see the wires! “So that's the secret,” Slats said. “You take two trees that aren’t perfect, even homely—the kind that nobody else would even want. And if you put them together just right, you can make something really beautiful.” So, God took the tree of Jesse—an ordinary, sometimes sinful, less than perfect tree. David’s family tree and Rahab’s. Tamar’s tree and Judah’s tree, Joseph the humble carpenter’s and yours and mine... the tree of Adam and Eve and all of us who fall so short... all who doubt and fear and stumble and fall. Your tree and my tree... And wove it into his so that our tree could be saved. So our tree... so you and I and every one of us who are so bare and weak and empty could be whole and holy in his sight. And so you are. This holy child. The one whose name means God-is-with-you, whose very name means God saves you, has made you holy. And now you are set apart... To be living trees... Signs and symbols of his love to others.