My Dear Friends,

I'm sure you realize that the whole celebration of Christmas can vary from one country to another. What does not vary is the fact that Christmas is the day we celebrate the coming of Jesus Christ into this world. Whether some people celebrate Christmas with a Yule log or a candle or a Christmas tree, the basic understanding is that Christmas is the crib. Christmas is Jesus. Christmas is the coming of the Son of God, Emmanuel into this world. 

There is no doubt that in the United States one of the very meaningful decorations we have for Christmas is the Christmas tree. I would like to share with you how to set up the Christmas tree. I think it can be done in a nice and symbolic way. Sadly parents send the kids outside and decorate the Christmas tree. I think that's too bad, because if there is one thing that the kids would like to do is to put up the Christmas tree. So what I would like to do today is to share the real meaning of the Christmas tree so that you can think about it, and you can plan on how you're going to do it this year. Even if you have not had a Christmas tree, maybe you could get one, a little one. It could be just a small tree, even a branch. I'll tell you what to do with it. 

We have to see that in the Christmas tree there are a lot of meanings. I think that if we put all the meaning in the tree then it's a tree that comes alive. What I think is unfortunate is for people to have pagan celebrations, pagan decorations, or meaningless decorations. It's possible for us to have a real Christian Christmas tree. 

First I'd like to start in the garden of Eden. In the book of Genesis in chapter 2:8, "Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east. And He placed there the man whom He had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made various trees grow. They were delightful to look at and good for food with the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. A river rises in Eden to water the garden, beyond there it divides and becomes four branches. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that winds through the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. The gold of that land is excellent; bdellium and lapis lazuli are also there. The name of the second river is the Gihon; it is the one that winds all through the land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it is the one that flows east of Asshur. The fourth river is the Euphrates. The Lord God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it." God plants a garden and puts man in it and God puts man in charge. "The Lord God gave man this order: 'You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and bad. From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die.'" 

The story of our tree begins in the garden of Eden and I call that the tree of Paradise. What is it? Well it's the tree of fruits, and what I would suggest is this, you could decorate a tree beautifully with fruits such as apples or oranges or bananas. I took some fruits like that, and I tied strings to them. I put them in the tree. When I decorate a tree I usually have families with me. I ask members of all the families to come and each take a fruit, and then we decorate the tree of Paradise. Artificial fruit weighs less so if you use natural fruits, you must have a good base. I take real apples, bananas, oranges and other fruits, and tie them with strings. Using a big needle you can cut right through and tie the fruit with a string. Heavier fruit such as a grapefruit needs to be inside, close to the main branch. When you have finished decorating the tree of Paradise, you have a very beautiful tree; This is the tree of Paradise, the tree of the garden of Eden and that's the first tree. 

As you start your decorations, you could call your family to decorate the tree of Paradise. From that occasion you can speak of God's plan, how God created the world. He wanted man to be in charge as in the book of Genesis, to have dominion over the whole world, to be responsible for the world. Next God commanded that man not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and bad. One thing that is customary is to think that the forbidden fruit was an apple. The mistake probably comes from the latin and the french, which are similar languages. In latin the word fruit is "poma" and in french the word for apple is "pomme". So from poma to pomme it looks very much the same so the people could easily have made the mistake that Adam and Eve ate an apple. There's no such thing as the word apple in the bible; It's a fruit. I think what we could do is take a fruit, it could be an orange or an apple or a pear or any fruit that you want; Take a couple of bites out of it and hang it in the tree. 

With a couple of bites missing it doesn't look the same way any more, and then you can explain how God had told Adam and Eve about this very special prescription not to eat from the fruit of that tree, and how they disobeyed. So this is the tree of Paradise, the first tree and the beauty of the Garden of Eden, the love of God putting Adam and Eve in Paradise. They disobeyed out of pride and how they disobeyed is really the sin of Adam and Eve's pride and disobedience. Why they did this is in chapter 2 and 3, especially 3. The devil came and tricked Eve trying to make her understand that if she disobeyed she and her husband would be so smart, they would be like God. We see this in chapter 3 of Genesis, line 1, "Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees of the garden?" And the woman said, "No, he didn't say that. Only one tree and he said if we eat we're going to die." "Aww, you're not going to die," you see that lie from the devil. This was the second lie. Line 5, third lie, "Oh, no God knows well the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you'll be like God." And when God came and asked Eve what happened she said, "The devil tricked me." With the tree of Paradise Adam and Eve were tricked by the devil. War broke out since then. The devil is trying to get each and everyone of us as we know very well from our own experiences. 

The next tree of interest is the tree of Jesse. It could be really one of the most beautiful teaching aids that you could find. Jesse is the father of David. God chose David in a special way and out of David would be the Promise, the Messiah; That's why we call it the tree of Jesse. Isaiah 11:1 states simply, "A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse." You could take a little stump of a tree an inch thick or more, or you could make a stump, color it and cut it out and put it in the tree. So, you have the tree of Paradise and now you have the tree of Jesse. We could say it is salvation history. These are the main events since the beginning of the life of man and woman on earth until the coming of the Messiah. 

We skip quite a bit, and concentrate on Noah. The story of Noah is found in Genesis 6 and 7. Now you can make yourself a little boat like the ark, Noah's ark, and you can hang that in the tree. Put those things in the tree and somebody may enter your home and say, “You have a nice tree, what does it mean?" Then you have an occasion to teach the people everything about the plan of salvation. In the story of Noah, people disobeyed and turned away from God. There was no one really good around except Noah, his wife, his sons and their wives. God saved them. 

Let us build our tree with the story of Abraham. For Abraham there are different symbols you could make; Make it simple. For Abraham you can take a knife and make a sketch of it and then cut it out, or you can make a sword, or you could make an altar. Remember how God told Abraham, "Abraham, I want to know if you love me more than you love your son. Who is number one in your life, me or that kid?" And God asked Abraham to go to Mount Moriah and to sacrifice his son. Still today in Jerusalem Mount Moriah is right there near where the temple of Solomon was built and there's a beautiful church built on top of it. It is telling us a story of how Abraham loved God so much that he was willing to even sacrifice his son rather than to displease God. That's the third story in the tree of Jesse. 

Now the fourth story is of Abraham's children. Abraham had twelve kids and you find that in Genesis 22. Abraham had one child, Isaac, and then Isaac had Jacob and Jacob had twelve sons and the eleventh one was Joseph and the twelfth one was Benjamin. Remember how the brothers got jealous? Here you could tell the story of the dreams of Joseph. He had a dream; It was like the sun and the moon and the stars, and another dream and in it were shafts of wheat. He was in the middle, and his father and mother and brothers were other shafts. They were all bowing towards him like he was in the middle and that aggravated his brothers. They were really envious and jealous of him. One day the father sends Joseph to see how his brothers were doing. When they saw him coming with that Technicolor coat, (his father had given him a coat with many colors) they said, "There's the brat. Let's bump him off." So they decided to kill him. When Joseph comes in they plot to kill him and one of the brothers said, "Don't kill him." There was an open cistern there for water. They threw him in, and Reuben's idea was when everybody was sleeping he would pull the kid out and send him to his father, but shortly after a caravan of gypsies came from the east. They were going to Egypt and one of the boys said, "Why don't we sell the bum? Let's get rid of him." So everybody agreed and they sold Joseph. Now this is a preview of coming attractions. As Jesus was sold by Judas, Joseph was sold by his brothers. It's the same idea. It is kind of a preview. In your own prayer, meditate on how these events of the Old Testament are all pointing to the coming of Jesus Christ. So, then you could hang a dagger or knife in the tree. So, now in the tree you have an apple with a couple of bites taken off, you have the ark of Noah, you have a dagger, and now you could draw, color and cut a coat of many colors. 

Next in our story we have the tables of the law. It is very easy. Make two loops on a chart. On one loop you put I, II, III, first, second, third commandment, because the first three commandments deal with God. On the other loop you put the other seven, because the last seven deal with man, our relationship with our neighbor. Here you can tell the story of Moses. Exodus 3 and Exodus 20 tells of the birth of Moses, saved from the water. Moses leaves Egypt, and God called him and sent him back to Egypt to free the Jews. 

Other additions to the Jesse tree include David, and how David loved to play music. David is the ancestor of Jesus, the great great great great great grandfather of Jesus. Then coming from David you have two very special people, Joseph and Mary. For Joseph you could make the picture of a hammer and a square, or something like that and for Mary you can draw a lily. From Joseph and Mary came Jesus. So you hang that in the tree and you can tell the story of Joseph and tell the story of Mary as you can find in St. Luke in chapter 2, for example. Finally, for Christ you make a big X, like Merry Xmas, you make a big X and you put a P in the middle. So it looks like PX and you know what that means. These are Greek letters. X means Christ and P is a Greek R. It means Christ the Redeemer. Put that right on top of the tree instead of having just a simple decoration. This is a symbol of Jesus Christ, Christ the Redeemer. That my dear friends is the Jesse tree. So I'm sure you see how much there is, and after you get those symbols in the tree you have the whole story. 

Other ideas may be instruments of work. When Adam and Eve sinned God said, "You're going to work to the sweat of your brow." So, a pick and shovel may be used. How about a casket, because God said, "Because you've sinned, you're going to die." A little casket in the tree reminds me that dying is a punishment for sin and that it is only if we go through death like Jesus did on Calvary that we can come to life. Another thing could be a picture of a pregnant woman, because Jesus said, "Women are going to have children and have pain in giving life," and that too is penalty because of original sin. These three stories can be found in chapter 3 of the Book of Genesis. 

Do you see how your Christmas tree is full of meaning! Think before beginning your tree. If you really want to live your Advent season do one thing a day, in the evening for example. Read, pray and meditate on it and add one more thing. Your tree will become better and more beautiful as the days go by. I don't think it is meaningful for somebody to put a whole tree together quickly with lights and all the decorations. The tree is there but it doesn't say anything; It doesn't speak. You could have a tree that speaks. What a difference that makes. 

Finally we look at a tree of bread. Bethlehem means the House of Bread. Take a couple of dozen little buns and put strings through them. Hang buns all over the trees. It looks good. With the fruits and the Jesse tree symbols and now the buns you have something interesting. Jesus did not come just to feed our bodies as we see in John chapter 6. He came to feed our souls. Cut little round circles like hosts at mass so Jesus is really feeding our bodies and our souls. So you have the little buns, Bethlehem's house of bread. So you have the tree of bread for the body and the tree of bread for the soul, and then you can put on the lights. I usually put the streamers without the bulbs. I just put the streamer, the string, the wire at the beginning and then at this point I put on the lights and I turn it on, “the tree of lights.” Now it has all kinds of meaning. Jesus Christ comes and He is the light of the world. 

There's something else that's very important. It is that the tree of Paradise is like a shadow, a preview of the tree of Calvary. One time on Good Friday, I had a big Christmas tree cut, and I left the bottom three feet. The rest of the branches were cut. I had the top piece cut off and turned side-ways as a cross, so that the tree of Paradise and the tree of the cross go together. So I put in the Christmas tree a cross, just a wooden cross, so that the tree of Paradise and the tree of Calvary go together, then after the tree of the cross, the tree of decorations. Now here you can put the tinsel and the balls and all the other things that you have. 

All the things we have in the tree of Paradise: Jesse, Bread, Cross, lights, Jesus Christ, light of the world, it all has meaning. Now all the decorations should have real meaning, and here instead of just having decorations and balls that are beautiful, you could think of the glory of God. After Jesus Christ died on the cross then you come up with something new and then the tree is decorated with tinsels and streamers or whatever you like. Then put the gifts under the tree, the tree of gifts. Also we could hang little birds in the tree, like the Holy Spirit is a gift and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the tree of gifts, the gifts of God. Can you see that for a tree? Aww it's beautiful. Those trees I'm telling you will be the talk of the town. Try to think how you can make your Advent and your Christmas very meaningful. 

Heavenly Father we just want to thank you for the tree of Paradise, for the tree of the Cross, the tree of Bethlehem and the tree of Christmas.