from the archives...
As Christmas approaches, most of us are no doubt busy
decorating our homes and preparing for the glorious celebration of the
Incarnation of our Lord and Savior. As part of that preparation, we will bring
a tree into our homes and decorate it.
You may have wondered why decorating trees is part of our Christmas
celebration. Perhaps you have even feared that Christmas trees detract from
honoring the true meaning of Christmas.
Sometimes the claim is made that Christmas trees have pagan
origins. Although there were many
ancient pagan rituals which included the use of live trees and evergreens
during the winter solstice, the use of trees in celebration of Christ’s
Incarnation seems to have originated in the mystery plays of the Middle Ages.
From the eleventh century popular religious plays called
mystery plays were performed all throughout Europe.
One of the most common of the mystery plays was the Paradise Play which enacted
the story of the creation of Adam and Eve, their fall and subsequent banishment
from the Garden of Eden, and ended with the promise of Genesis 3:15 and the
expectation of the coming Savior and His Incarnation. Typical of the time, the stage set was
minimal; the only object on stage was the Paradise
tree, a fir tree adorned with apples.
In the fifteenth century, the Church ended the performances
of mystery plays, but Christians continued the tradition of the Paradise tree, putting these trees in their homes on
December 24, the feast day of Adam and Eve. Originally, the trees were
decorated with both apples and homemade wafers.
The apples represented the Fall and the wafers were a reminder of
communion wafers, which represented the Resurrection.
Later, people decorated the trees with candy and sweets and
then with lights, which symbolized that Christ is the light of the world. In Germany Christians added glass balls,
tinsels and placed a star of Bethlehem
atop the tree.
The Christmas tree is
the perfect Christmas symbol because it points us to the whole story of redemption:
first it brings to mind the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the
subsequent Fall of all mankind. But at the same time that we are reminded of
the entrance of sin and death into the world, we also recall the Cross, called a
tree in the New Testament, which defeated both death and sin.
Finally, the tree is a
beautiful visual reminder of the Resurrected Christ who is the tree of life and
who is in a glorified resurrected state. When our Christmas trees are adorned
and glowing, they are glorified trees, which not only remind us of our
resurrected Lord, but of the promise of our own resurrected glorified state to
come.
Make your Christmas
trees beautiful this year and rejoice that the Lord is come. Let your Christmas
tree be a bit of nature that sings joy to the world.
