Many of us have favourite Christmas tree stories in our repertoire of festive tales. One of mine happened in our first year in my first parish, St. Peter’s Ecumenical Church in Slave Lake, Alta. On Dec. 10, 1991, my wife, Gwenanne, and I decided it was time to get our tree. I remember the exact day because it is her birthday. Getting a tree was and is a part of her birthday ritual in our household.
We are related to all the trees, birds, fish etc. Life in its totality shares our vocation of praising God—including trees. The Bible, too, speaks this wisdom. Isaiah 55:12 tells us For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountainsand the hills before you shall burst into song,and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Rev. Dr. Allen Jorgenson, assistant dean/associate professor of Systematic Theology at Martin Luther University College, Waterloo, Ont. takes a deep dive into the world of trees, and the early practices involving ‘Christmas Trees’. Be sure to grab your copy of the December Issue of Canada Lutheran, available now.
Answers to the ‘Name the Christmas Carol’ activity from the December 2018 issue:
- Eight P.M. to six A.M. without noise (Silent Night)
- Miniscule hamlet in Near East (O Little Town of Bethlehem)
- Exuberance directed to the planet (Joy to the Earth)
- Listen, aerial spirits announcing (Hark! The Herald Angel)
- Yonder in the hay rack (Away in a manger)
- Assemble everyone who believes (O Come All Ye Faithful)
- Cherubim audited from aloft (Angels We Have Heard on High)
- Hollowed post meridian (O Holy Night)
- Befell during the transparent bewitching hour (It came upon a Midnight Clear)
- Trio of monarchs (We Three Kings)
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