One of the traditional parts of current Christmas celebration is the Christmas tree. Already four hundred and fifty years before the first Christmas we read of the Christmas tree. It was presented by the prophet Jeremiah in two places: Jeremiah 23:5 and 6, and chapter 33:15 and 16. The prophet’s Christmas tree is the Branch of Righteousness who is Jesus Christ. That Branch’s root is righteousness and its fruit is righteousness.
The Occasion
It is important to sec the occasion for this prophecy. At this time Jeremiah is in prison; the city of Jerusalem is surrounded by the greatest military might of that day. Nebuchadnezzar and his army has conquered all the Jewish territory except Jerusalem, the last stronghold of Judah. The army of Babylon has already been around the city for a year and a half.
Jeremiah is in prison because he predicted the ruin of Judah and urged surrender to the enemy. While Jeremiah is in prison he is told by God to purchase a little field in the land of Benjamin which has already been conquered by the enemy. Jeremiah obeys and afterward asks, “Why did I have to purchase that piece of land?” The Lord answers, “The purchase of that field is a symbol of the fact that just as you own a field in the conquered land of Benjamin, so also the people of Judah shall return from captivity to possess the land of Canaan.” “But,” says Jeremiah, “how can this be done? How can a people so wicked, so decadent, so rebellious be restored?” For forty years Jeremiah has preached the Word in thunder and in weeping with no response but rebellions and disobedience. The people only sink deeper into the depths of darkness and degradation. How can they be restored?
God answers by telling Jeremiah that these people are the covenant people whose relationship with the Lord has been ruptured. It can only be restored in righteousness, by the Branch of Righteousness, Jesus Christ, the prophet’s Christmas tree.
A Breaking Down
Now this restoration of which God speaks involves first a breaking down. This is not hard to understand. In refinishing wood, one must remove the old varnish before applying the new. This is hard labor. A child or an adult who has learned to play the piano “by ear” and then desires to take lessons from a qualified musician, usually finds that he must “unlearn” many bad habits. He must “start from scratch” so to speak. This is hard work. In order for Judah to be restored to God’s favor, there had to be the process of swift judgment and destruction. They had to be “crippled to be crowned,” “broken to be built.”
The second step in restoration is moral cleansing. God says he will come to them and pardon their iniquities.
A Restoration
The third step in restoration is that the city will be a name of ;oy, for praise and glory, a restored people. “All nations shall see this and shall see all the good that I do unto them and shall fear and tremble for all the good and all the peace that I procure unto it” (Jeremiah 33:9). Then shall come the material prosperity. Shepherds again shall lead their flocks.
This is the prescribed path of righteousness. But there are many who want the material prosperity without the breaking down and the moral cleansing. God never works that way. God’s method is always the method of righteousness, that is 1) breaking down, 2) moral cleansing, 3) restoration. The secular government fails to recognize this. It does not follow the order of righteousness. How then can there be peace and happiness until the evil is removed? Men want peace on earth but peace only comes by one method, righteousness. Jesus said, “Blessed (happy) are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness.”
Vice-President Spiro T. Agnew said something like this in a very significant speech in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Thursday, October 30, 1969. I quote: “It is time to stop dignifying the immature actions of arrogant, reckless, inexperienced elements in our society. The reason is compelling. It is simply that their tantrums are insidiously destroying the fabric of American democracy.”
Solomon said, “Righteousness exalts a nation, sin is a reproach to any people” (Prov. 14:34). The righteousness that exalts a nation is the righteousness of which Jeremiah speaks, one that is a beautiful wedding of truth and love.
Righteousness Is Truth
Righteousness is truth. All unrighteousness is a lie. All iniquity is crookedness. Agnew said of the self-proclaimed “saviors” of the American soul: “Relentless in their criticism of intolerance in America, they themselves are intolerant of those who differ with their views. In the name of academic freedom they destroy academic freedom. Denouncing violence, they seize and vandalize buildings of great universities. Fiercely expressing their respect for truth, they disavow the logic and discipline necessary to pursue truth.” Righteousness is truth in a man. It reveals the rottenness underneath. When a man confesses to God, “have sinned grievously and I am sorry” righteousness is operating because truth is being declared. God is the God of righteousness. A man may masquerade before others as something other than he is, but God the righteous Judge measures him for what he is. He breaks down in truth in order to build in love. When God does his work with you and me, and with a church or nation, he does a complete work. There is no superficial reconstruction with God, which leaves the foundation rotten. There is no whitewashing of the exterior leaving the walls cracked and peeling underneath. God first destroys the rotten foundation. Everything evil he sweeps away. This means that no matter how good a life we lead, whatever we are, whatever we’ve done, when we stand before God’s righteousness, his truth will measure us as falling far short of the glory of God. “There is none righteous, no not one” (Rom. 3:10). God’s standard is absolute. He does not want a little superficial goodness. He wants this: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, with all thy strength, and thy neighbor as thyself.”
Righteousness Is Love
But, thanks be to God, righteousness is more than truth! Righteousness is also love, not a love in competition with truth, but in cooperation with truth. Righteousness in God is that which could not rest, even when man deliberately sinned against him. Righteousness in God drove him to devise a way for the banished to return. What was that way? What is still that way? A Christmas tree. Was it a brilliantly lighted Christmas tree, lovely to look upon? Oh, no! Listen to lsaiah in chapter 53: “For he, (Jesus Christ) grew lip before Him as a tender plant, a root out of a dry ground; he hath no form nor comeliness and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him…as one from whom men hide their face.” Jeremiah describes him as a “branch.” What ugly terms to describe God’s answer to sin! “Root!” “Branch!” Yes, so it seems to those who refuse to see the potential and eternal life flowing from that root and in that branch. That “root” and “branch” furnish the only answer to the tremendous problem which vexes man today, the problem of himself. God sent his Son into the world to give his people his own righteousness. He made himself responsible for our sins. God laid on his Son the iniquity of all those who are his and punished his Son for their sins on the tree.
When, through the working of the Holy Spirit, I receive this benefit by simple faith, his righteousness becomes mine. God clothes me with it. I am ingrafted into that Christmas tree, that Branch of Righteousness, so that “It is no longer I that live but Christ lives within me, and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). Then and only then do I experience the blessedness and peace of restoration.
The Church must be Righteous
What applies to individuals also applies to the body of believers called “the Church.” They are the called, the chosen, the faithful, the ones bearing the fruits of righteousness in obedience to Christ as King. Any group which is less or other than this has no part in Christ’s body. Let us not deceive ourselves today as we drive across the highways of this great land, that all buildings we see which have steeples, stained glass windows and even crosses at the top, are monuments of righteousness before God. Many are the forces which are hacking at the church’s very foundations. Pilate asked that famous question: “What is truth?” and no question is more relevant to today’s world than that. “New morality” (age-old sin dressed up in new garb) is embarrassed by the old-fashioned ten commandments. The World Council of Churches has declared that these commandments were suitable in their clay, but our task is to search for a new set of principles. The infallibility of the Scriptures is being denied everywhere, sometimes blatantly and other times subtly. A subtle denial is the kind that is invading most of the remaining orthodox churches today. That type of denial is the one which says: “So you believe in a literal creation story. Well, you certainly are entitled to your opinion. But remember this is only your interpretation.” The same demoralizing method is applied to virgin birth, miracles, the law, the Sabbath day, the resurrection, and so we could go on and on. This insidious working of Satan in the church, and often through the clergy, explains why the churches are not making an impact on our culture. This is not a simplistic answer. It is the truth. Synods appoint committees to study decline in church membership. Committees report that even in this day when youth are credited with being more educated than in previous years, they do not understand the terminology of the church. Worship committees scurry around seeking new methods, however cheap, tawdry and sometimes blasphemous to brighten up the worship service so it will appeal to young people. And all the while, the answer lies close at hand. The Word in all its directness and simplicity is not being truly preached. And in many places where it is being truly preached, the people in the pew, having been coddled in the cradle of material prosperity, are closing their hearts to claims of the King of Kings on their lives! The powerless pulpit and the comfortable pew—here lies the answer to the ineffective church today. Only the Branch of Righteousness, who is truth and love wedded together can restore it.
The Nation must be Righteous
But what applies to individuals and to churches, also applies to a nation. It must break with sin; it must be cleansed by the blood of Christ; and it must be restored to a right relationship with God. At this very moment millions of Christmas greeting cards are being placed in the mail with this phrase “Peace on earth” printed or artistically scrawled across the front. Soft carols are being played in stores across the nations proclaiming “Peace on earth.” Heads of state are including this phrase “Peace on earth” in their traditional Christmas messages. But with Jeremiah our hearts cry out, “Peace, peace! There is no peace!” Why not? Because man has lost his way. He no longer operates on principles of righteousness which arc truth and love. He has forsaken God the fountain of living water and hewed out for himself cisterns, broken cisterns which can hold no water. There is war going on, far more disastrous than the one in Vietnam. It is war between light and darkness, good and evil, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan, truth and error. Because of man’s sin God is offended, grieved, filled with wrath! His love and grace have been spurned!
In New York City there is a tall, imposing building. Within its walls men gather from nations of the world to seek for peace. They’ve been at it many years now and still there is no hint of lasting peace in the world. The prayer and meditation room of that building, the United Nations Building, gives us the reason why. In that room there is a tree stump symbolizing an altar where nil religions from many nations can get together and call to their gods. There was another altar one time. It was built on Mount Carmel. Around it gathered hundreds of excited people. There was going to be a contest to determine who would be God. Elijah said, “Jehovah is God.” But the people said, “Baal is god.” A sacrifice was placed on the altar. The winning God would consume that sacrifice with fire. Well, you know the story. The people screamed, beat themselves, and nothing happened. Elijah stood quietly back and sensing their frustration said, “Say, maybe your god is on a trip, or maybe he’s sleeping and needs to be awakened. You’d better call louder.” And the people screamed louder and cut themselves until the blood gushed out. “But there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded” (I Kings 18:29). When evening drew on Elijah said to the people, “Come close.” He repaired the altar of Jehovah, poured water around and in a quiet, calm voice he said, “O Jehovah…let it he known this day that thou art God.” And FIRE from God descended and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, and can you believe it, even the stones and the water! And they (the people) fell on their faces…and said Jehovah, He is God.”
Righteousness Ours Through Faith
Our hope lies not in a stump hut rather in a Branch, the Branch of Righteousness, Jesus Christ, the blessed Mediator between God and man, the only hope for true and lasting peace. How can we become attached to that Branch and then partake in true peace? Only by repentance and faith! “Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved!” And when we have thus been broken, God will produce in us a moral cleansing, a desire to do the will of our Father. Then and only then will we be truly concerned for our neighbor. All partitions of social status, education, financial success, skin color and race will be removed. This is the kind of peace the world wants but cannot have because it has rejected the Prince of Peace, the Branch of Righteousness, the Savior. What the world needs is not a diplomat, nor a politician, nor rockets and bombs, nor the secular social workers who try to solve the race problem, nor naive “do gooders” who only say “Love, love” without insisting on truth, but the Savior, the Branch of righteousness “who shall execute justice and righteousness in the land” (Jeremiah 33:15).
Soon we shall celebrate Christmas. Whose tree will adorn your home? Will it be the tree of self-gratification? Or will it be God’s tree, the prophet’s Christmas tree, the Branch of Righteousness standing in the center of your life adorned not with glittering tinsel, but with the fruits of the Holy Spirit?
Rev. T. Vanden Heuvel is pastor of Central Ave Christian Reformed Church, Holland, Michigan.
The Occasion
It is important to sec the occasion for this prophecy. At this time Jeremiah is in prison; the city of Jerusalem is surrounded by the greatest military might of that day. Nebuchadnezzar and his army has conquered all the Jewish territory except Jerusalem, the last stronghold of Judah. The army of Babylon has already been around the city for a year and a half.
Jeremiah is in prison because he predicted the ruin of Judah and urged surrender to the enemy. While Jeremiah is in prison he is told by God to purchase a little field in the land of Benjamin which has already been conquered by the enemy. Jeremiah obeys and afterward asks, “Why did I have to purchase that piece of land?” The Lord answers, “The purchase of that field is a symbol of the fact that just as you own a field in the conquered land of Benjamin, so also the people of Judah shall return from captivity to possess the land of Canaan.” “But,” says Jeremiah, “how can this be done? How can a people so wicked, so decadent, so rebellious be restored?” For forty years Jeremiah has preached the Word in thunder and in weeping with no response but rebellions and disobedience. The people only sink deeper into the depths of darkness and degradation. How can they be restored?
God answers by telling Jeremiah that these people are the covenant people whose relationship with the Lord has been ruptured. It can only be restored in righteousness, by the Branch of Righteousness, Jesus Christ, the prophet’s Christmas tree.
A Breaking Down
Now this restoration of which God speaks involves first a breaking down. This is not hard to understand. In refinishing wood, one must remove the old varnish before applying the new. This is hard labor. A child or an adult who has learned to play the piano “by ear” and then desires to take lessons from a qualified musician, usually finds that he must “unlearn” many bad habits. He must “start from scratch” so to speak. This is hard work. In order for Judah to be restored to God’s favor, there had to be the process of swift judgment and destruction. They had to be “crippled to be crowned,” “broken to be built.”
The second step in restoration is moral cleansing. God says he will come to them and pardon their iniquities.
A Restoration
The third step in restoration is that the city will be a name of ;oy, for praise and glory, a restored people. “All nations shall see this and shall see all the good that I do unto them and shall fear and tremble for all the good and all the peace that I procure unto it” (Jeremiah 33:9). Then shall come the material prosperity. Shepherds again shall lead their flocks.
This is the prescribed path of righteousness. But there are many who want the material prosperity without the breaking down and the moral cleansing. God never works that way. God’s method is always the method of righteousness, that is 1) breaking down, 2) moral cleansing, 3) restoration. The secular government fails to recognize this. It does not follow the order of righteousness. How then can there be peace and happiness until the evil is removed? Men want peace on earth but peace only comes by one method, righteousness. Jesus said, “Blessed (happy) are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness.”
Vice-President Spiro T. Agnew said something like this in a very significant speech in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Thursday, October 30, 1969. I quote: “It is time to stop dignifying the immature actions of arrogant, reckless, inexperienced elements in our society. The reason is compelling. It is simply that their tantrums are insidiously destroying the fabric of American democracy.”
Solomon said, “Righteousness exalts a nation, sin is a reproach to any people” (Prov. 14:34). The righteousness that exalts a nation is the righteousness of which Jeremiah speaks, one that is a beautiful wedding of truth and love.
Righteousness Is Truth
Righteousness is truth. All unrighteousness is a lie. All iniquity is crookedness. Agnew said of the self-proclaimed “saviors” of the American soul: “Relentless in their criticism of intolerance in America, they themselves are intolerant of those who differ with their views. In the name of academic freedom they destroy academic freedom. Denouncing violence, they seize and vandalize buildings of great universities. Fiercely expressing their respect for truth, they disavow the logic and discipline necessary to pursue truth.” Righteousness is truth in a man. It reveals the rottenness underneath. When a man confesses to God, “have sinned grievously and I am sorry” righteousness is operating because truth is being declared. God is the God of righteousness. A man may masquerade before others as something other than he is, but God the righteous Judge measures him for what he is. He breaks down in truth in order to build in love. When God does his work with you and me, and with a church or nation, he does a complete work. There is no superficial reconstruction with God, which leaves the foundation rotten. There is no whitewashing of the exterior leaving the walls cracked and peeling underneath. God first destroys the rotten foundation. Everything evil he sweeps away. This means that no matter how good a life we lead, whatever we are, whatever we’ve done, when we stand before God’s righteousness, his truth will measure us as falling far short of the glory of God. “There is none righteous, no not one” (Rom. 3:10). God’s standard is absolute. He does not want a little superficial goodness. He wants this: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, with all thy strength, and thy neighbor as thyself.”
Righteousness Is Love
But, thanks be to God, righteousness is more than truth! Righteousness is also love, not a love in competition with truth, but in cooperation with truth. Righteousness in God is that which could not rest, even when man deliberately sinned against him. Righteousness in God drove him to devise a way for the banished to return. What was that way? What is still that way? A Christmas tree. Was it a brilliantly lighted Christmas tree, lovely to look upon? Oh, no! Listen to lsaiah in chapter 53: “For he, (Jesus Christ) grew lip before Him as a tender plant, a root out of a dry ground; he hath no form nor comeliness and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him…as one from whom men hide their face.” Jeremiah describes him as a “branch.” What ugly terms to describe God’s answer to sin! “Root!” “Branch!” Yes, so it seems to those who refuse to see the potential and eternal life flowing from that root and in that branch. That “root” and “branch” furnish the only answer to the tremendous problem which vexes man today, the problem of himself. God sent his Son into the world to give his people his own righteousness. He made himself responsible for our sins. God laid on his Son the iniquity of all those who are his and punished his Son for their sins on the tree.
When, through the working of the Holy Spirit, I receive this benefit by simple faith, his righteousness becomes mine. God clothes me with it. I am ingrafted into that Christmas tree, that Branch of Righteousness, so that “It is no longer I that live but Christ lives within me, and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). Then and only then do I experience the blessedness and peace of restoration.
The Church must be Righteous
What applies to individuals also applies to the body of believers called “the Church.” They are the called, the chosen, the faithful, the ones bearing the fruits of righteousness in obedience to Christ as King. Any group which is less or other than this has no part in Christ’s body. Let us not deceive ourselves today as we drive across the highways of this great land, that all buildings we see which have steeples, stained glass windows and even crosses at the top, are monuments of righteousness before God. Many are the forces which are hacking at the church’s very foundations. Pilate asked that famous question: “What is truth?” and no question is more relevant to today’s world than that. “New morality” (age-old sin dressed up in new garb) is embarrassed by the old-fashioned ten commandments. The World Council of Churches has declared that these commandments were suitable in their clay, but our task is to search for a new set of principles. The infallibility of the Scriptures is being denied everywhere, sometimes blatantly and other times subtly. A subtle denial is the kind that is invading most of the remaining orthodox churches today. That type of denial is the one which says: “So you believe in a literal creation story. Well, you certainly are entitled to your opinion. But remember this is only your interpretation.” The same demoralizing method is applied to virgin birth, miracles, the law, the Sabbath day, the resurrection, and so we could go on and on. This insidious working of Satan in the church, and often through the clergy, explains why the churches are not making an impact on our culture. This is not a simplistic answer. It is the truth. Synods appoint committees to study decline in church membership. Committees report that even in this day when youth are credited with being more educated than in previous years, they do not understand the terminology of the church. Worship committees scurry around seeking new methods, however cheap, tawdry and sometimes blasphemous to brighten up the worship service so it will appeal to young people. And all the while, the answer lies close at hand. The Word in all its directness and simplicity is not being truly preached. And in many places where it is being truly preached, the people in the pew, having been coddled in the cradle of material prosperity, are closing their hearts to claims of the King of Kings on their lives! The powerless pulpit and the comfortable pew—here lies the answer to the ineffective church today. Only the Branch of Righteousness, who is truth and love wedded together can restore it.
The Nation must be Righteous
But what applies to individuals and to churches, also applies to a nation. It must break with sin; it must be cleansed by the blood of Christ; and it must be restored to a right relationship with God. At this very moment millions of Christmas greeting cards are being placed in the mail with this phrase “Peace on earth” printed or artistically scrawled across the front. Soft carols are being played in stores across the nations proclaiming “Peace on earth.” Heads of state are including this phrase “Peace on earth” in their traditional Christmas messages. But with Jeremiah our hearts cry out, “Peace, peace! There is no peace!” Why not? Because man has lost his way. He no longer operates on principles of righteousness which arc truth and love. He has forsaken God the fountain of living water and hewed out for himself cisterns, broken cisterns which can hold no water. There is war going on, far more disastrous than the one in Vietnam. It is war between light and darkness, good and evil, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan, truth and error. Because of man’s sin God is offended, grieved, filled with wrath! His love and grace have been spurned!
In New York City there is a tall, imposing building. Within its walls men gather from nations of the world to seek for peace. They’ve been at it many years now and still there is no hint of lasting peace in the world. The prayer and meditation room of that building, the United Nations Building, gives us the reason why. In that room there is a tree stump symbolizing an altar where nil religions from many nations can get together and call to their gods. There was another altar one time. It was built on Mount Carmel. Around it gathered hundreds of excited people. There was going to be a contest to determine who would be God. Elijah said, “Jehovah is God.” But the people said, “Baal is god.” A sacrifice was placed on the altar. The winning God would consume that sacrifice with fire. Well, you know the story. The people screamed, beat themselves, and nothing happened. Elijah stood quietly back and sensing their frustration said, “Say, maybe your god is on a trip, or maybe he’s sleeping and needs to be awakened. You’d better call louder.” And the people screamed louder and cut themselves until the blood gushed out. “But there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded” (I Kings 18:29). When evening drew on Elijah said to the people, “Come close.” He repaired the altar of Jehovah, poured water around and in a quiet, calm voice he said, “O Jehovah…let it he known this day that thou art God.” And FIRE from God descended and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, and can you believe it, even the stones and the water! And they (the people) fell on their faces…and said Jehovah, He is God.”
Righteousness Ours Through Faith
Our hope lies not in a stump hut rather in a Branch, the Branch of Righteousness, Jesus Christ, the blessed Mediator between God and man, the only hope for true and lasting peace. How can we become attached to that Branch and then partake in true peace? Only by repentance and faith! “Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved!” And when we have thus been broken, God will produce in us a moral cleansing, a desire to do the will of our Father. Then and only then will we be truly concerned for our neighbor. All partitions of social status, education, financial success, skin color and race will be removed. This is the kind of peace the world wants but cannot have because it has rejected the Prince of Peace, the Branch of Righteousness, the Savior. What the world needs is not a diplomat, nor a politician, nor rockets and bombs, nor the secular social workers who try to solve the race problem, nor naive “do gooders” who only say “Love, love” without insisting on truth, but the Savior, the Branch of righteousness “who shall execute justice and righteousness in the land” (Jeremiah 33:15).
Soon we shall celebrate Christmas. Whose tree will adorn your home? Will it be the tree of self-gratification? Or will it be God’s tree, the prophet’s Christmas tree, the Branch of Righteousness standing in the center of your life adorned not with glittering tinsel, but with the fruits of the Holy Spirit?
Rev. T. Vanden Heuvel is pastor of Central Ave Christian Reformed Church, Holland, Michigan.