When the wood is green

Luke 23:27-43

Grace be unto you and peace…

            We’ve all had the experience of trying to break off a branch (of a bush or a tree) that just won’t break off.  You bend it over because you think it’ll just snap, but it doesn’t.  So, you twist it thinking, “alright, this will do the trick” and all that happens is you get some of the bark to peel and a whole lot of gunk on your hands.  That’s because the wood is green.  It’s got too much life in it.  

            Wood that is green won’t break easily and it won’t burn well.  Most people don’t want to deal with it because it’s just too much work. Every spring, if you’re paying attention, you’ll see twisted and half-broken branches on trees and bushes in public areas where people have tried to break one off, but ended up giving up. It’s all pretty familiar to us.  There’s a right time of the year to do your “pruning” and your purging of “unwanted growth” from your lawn…and there’s a time when that same pruning and purging would be a lot more difficult. It’s best to wait until there’s not so much life in it.  By the same token, if you’re really desperate to get rid of it, and you’ve got the right tools, you can get rid of it at pretty much any time of the year…it’s just easier when things aren’t so full of life.  

 

I. That’s what Jesus was talking about when He spoke to the Daughters of Jerusalem. 

Weep for yourselves and for your children…if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when the wood is dry?”.  In other words, if they’re so desperate to get rid of this new growth now, even at a time when Jerusalem has been bubbling (all over) with signs of new life, what will they do when the life is gone? What will happen when the Lord of Life has been driven outside the walls and crucified?; when the Christians have fled and when there’s not even five people left in the city who are righteous in the eyes of God?  In other words, “what will happen when the wood is dry”. 

In short, it’ll become a veritable inferno.  In those days, as we heard last week, these “Daughters of Jerusalem” and their children will wish they’d never been born.  On that day, they’ll wish the mountains would lift up and fall on them.  In those days, the walls will offer no protection, and in those days, the destruction of the inferno that was coming upon them would be so complete, that not even one stone of their massive temple will be left upon another.

There’s a time for everything, and as we gather together today on the last Sunday of the church year, God wants to emphasize that (at the right time), the kind of destruction that came upon Jerusalem, will one day come upon the whole world.  It’ll come at a time when,in their desperation to snuff out every sign of life, those that are clamoring for power and riches and glory in this life – as if that were the source and meaning of life itself - will seek to round up every green and living thing and purge them from their midst.  They will throw you in prison.  They will persecute you…and some they will even kill.  

The wood will be dry.  The Word of Life will be rejected, and in His place, the world will be full of those who, in the words of Malachi “consider themselves blessed in their arrogance” and if it weren’t for the fact that the Lord has shortened those days, the bible tells us that no one would survive.

II.  But it’s important to see, that even when the wood is totally dry, there is still hope of life.

There’s hope because Christ is the true source of all life.  You have to wonder if Rome had only known how much life they were trying to break off, would they have even tried? If they had any inkling that before them was not simply “just another branch” that was “a little out of the pre-determined order” (as if we were manicuring their yard to some “master plan”),  but rather, He was actually the greatest of all trees at its very root…you have to wonder if they would have even bothered to try?  Maybe Jesus, in His humility, looked like a little branch.  Maybe he looked like, in the words of Isaiah, “a tender shoot”.  Maybe they thought He’d snap easily or that they’d be able to twist Him around…bend Him back and forth enough to cut Him off.  They were wrong on both counts.  He was just too full of life.

            This reminds us that you can’t always trust what your eyes see.  In the same way that a little branch will surprise you as you’re walking along, mindlessly reaching out to snap a twig as you go on about your way…people can surprise you and God has come in a way that is the surprising of all.

III. God has come in weakness and seeming defeat, that you might see a power that is way beyond any power known or possessed by man.

            Here in this seemingly “tender shoot” or this “little branch” is more life than any of the authorities could have ever conceived.  Even as they were pounding the nails in His hands, He says, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do”.  Even as He appears to be dying, He says to a contrite and broken soul, “Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise”.

            There’re times when the wood is just too green.  And as we finish out this last Sunday in the Church’s calendar year, we’re reminded how it all ends.  Even when it seems as if all is lost; when it looks like evil has won; when the little branch seems to have been finally broken off. God is still in control.

GOD IS STILL IN CONTROL AND THE LORD OF LIFE IS MUCH GREATER THAN HE THAT IS IN THE WORLD.

IV.  This text calls each of us to examine ourselves and our source of life.

            There is wood that is green.  There is also wood that is dry.  There is also wood, that has been dry, but which comes to life again.  There is wood that, even as it stands in a justly consuming fire – like the thief who was hanging there on a cross for his sins --  even then…if it looks to Christ and realizes that in the face of Jesus he is actually seeing “LIFE ITSELF” face to face…and even then…if he places all his hope in Him who alone can save him from this hour; who alone can make the barren bare a child; who alone can make the dry bones take up flesh and sinew; and by whose power alone can make even Aaron’s staff bud with green again.  If He simply says to the source of all life, “Remember me”…“I see now, You are my only hope”…then suddenly even in that hour, Abraham’s faith is alive. Suddenly this broken shoot will live again and as Jesus says, “Truly, today you will be with me in paradise”.

            Then there is wood that appears very much alive.  It appears as if it’s thriving. But like the Jews of old, it’s become a wild vine, and in its wildness, it’s pushed the Lord outside the walls that it’s built for itself.  Like the Jews of old, it thought that by choking out the Tender Shoot, it would have “cleared the way”.  Such wood does not seek Him, nor does it hope in Him…nor does it want the life-giving food that He offers…nor does it desire the sprinkling of the baptismal rain.

Such wood is growing throughout the earth and such wood is dry. 

 

Conclusion: You should be simply like the thief.  Recognize that in God’s great love, this man who did nothing wrong is your God.  In Him, God Himself was taking the due reward and suffering the just punishment for all your sins.  You should see in His suffering, your redemption; and in His laying down His life, your path to life.  In Him the dry is made green; the dead alive; and the lost found.  In Him you too can look in hope, even when the world seems to have gone dry, and pray “remember me” – and that in day, you too will be with Him in paradise.  In Him, your salvation is under control.  In Jesus’ Name + 

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