Reflection: ‘Wood hath hope’

Personified throughout the Bible, from A to Z, is the tree. There are lessons for us to learn from any aspect of a tree. But the general message is that of hope.

God has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Maybe eternal life is best understood through trees? After all, remember ‘in the beginning’ it was a tree of life that first introduced mankind to the idea. To stand under the canopy of this tree and wonder wasn’t enough. Nor was to ‘help ourselves’ to it. But by the end of God’s epic story, we are well versed in trees. And we are mercifully served up from the Tree of Life by our host — our living Saviour.

I like the way that Jesuit priest John Foley tells this tree tale of hope (folksy and 70s as it is). Let it get under your skin today. Sing it on repeat. And pray it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXuSmMXUgpg

Prayer:

Pray the message of this song for yourself, and pray it for those who haven’t tasted from The Tree of Life.

Wood hath hope.
When it’s cut, it grows green again,
and its boughs sprout clean again.
Wood hath hope.

Root and stock although old and withered up,
and all sunk in earth corrupt, will revive
Leaves return. Water pure brings life to them,
and the tree lives young again.
Wood hath hope.

But for flesh waits death to strip the soul,
and breathe life out, behold: all things end.
Mortal life’s like a dried up river bed,
We lay down our heads, to rise no more.

But ah, strange thought, if we could rise again,
Called home to a loving land, we would have hope.

We would have hope
Like a tree we’d grow green again,
and our boughs sprout clean again;
we would have hope.