Sunday, February 28, 2010

Sugar Out Of A Tree?

I just read a critical review of the new movie "Avatar" with statistics on its cost and popularity around the world...already grossing over $2 billion at the box office! As I understand it, the film is filled with Hindu teachings... "Avatar" is a blue-skinned bio-tech version of the god Krishna... and a "Tree of Souls" is the center and power source of that demon-inspired civilization! Well, this leads me to reminisce once again on my growing-up years in Wallace, and the blessing of God's unique creation, a TREE. I recall sledding on the farm slopes of my buddy "Pooch" Owens east of town one late winter/early spring. After sliding down the hill and then huffing and puffing back up the hill a feller becomes thirsty, of course! Sorry, no water in sight and who wants to go back home for a drink? But...notice those buckets hanging on those Maple trees all over the place? You guessed it...we slaked our thirst with good ol' delicious sugar water that was being tapped and later taken to the local sugar camp to be boiled down to Maple syrup! By the way, that's a treat in itself, to visit a sugar camp in operation. Now trees do not have any power in themselves, but all the many varieties have been created by God to help sustain His creation and creatures! In the beginning the Tree of Life was intended for the good of Adam and Eve, but their sin excluded them from its enjoyment. In Exodus 15:23-27, when the Children of Israel on the way to Canaan "could not drink of the (bitter) waters of Marah," God instructed Moses to throw a certain TREE into the water "and they were made sweet" (Maple tree?)! Well, human sin has made the waters of our existence bitter, but God in His love, mercy and grace has solved this problem with another TREE, the Cross of Calvary, where the sinless Savior Jesus Christ "His own Self bare our sins in His own body on the TREE"! (I Peter 2:24). We don't worship the tree, but we are saved eternally by believing on the One who hung there in our place, and we can sing: "I love that old cross where the Dearest and Best for a world of lost sinners was slain"!