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Alright, next up…wood. This one could be long (our name is the Branch after all), but I’ll try to restrain myself. Wood is our metaphor for transformation.

There are a few themes that if you pay attention, you’ll see biblical writers return to over and over again. One of these themes is the ‘tree of life’ theme. You see, God is a gardener and all that is good and life giving is represented in the this ‘tree of life’ theme. The Jewish people understood that after the blessing of eden was lost, God began to cultivate a new blessing. They understood that when God called a people, Israel was being grafted into this ‘tree of life’. So strongly was this belief that even the root meaning of the hebrew word for tribe or family is ‘branch’. Every family or clan is really just a ‘branch’ of this ‘tree of life’. Think about it. In some places the expected messiah is called the ‘Tsemach‘, which is a similar word also translated as ‘branch’ (see Is 4:2, Ezk 17:22 and Zech 3:8). So, the Jewish people were all about remaining attached to the ‘tree of life’ and waiting expectantly for THE branch to come and make Israel a great and wonderful blessing to the world (read that Ezekiel passage again and ask yourself who is the branch, who is the lofty cedar and who are the birds of every kind, for the prophets used nature as metaphor long before we thought of it).

So, why is all this important? Well, I think that if we don’t know a little of this ‘tree of life’ theme, it’s hard to really understand Jesus when he says, ‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener…you are the branches.‘ This is the ‘Jesus Plan’™ for spiritual formation. It’s pretty simple really, ‘remain in me, and I’ll remain in you’. Together we bear much fruit but apart you can do nothing. That’s it really, no fancy bible study curriculum, no annual conference to attend and not even a hip young preacher’s tapes to listen to;-). Simply abide in Jesus and let the gardener cultivate your heart toward growth and transformation. As we remain branches in the true vine we grow like the mustard seed or the twig of cedar from Ezekiel. The branches of God grow up into a place where ‘creatures of every kind’ (read, people of every kind) will live and find rest. Spiritual formation for the sake of the world. We just can’t get away from the fact that we are blessed to be a blessing, can we?

Ok, that should be enough to get the conversation started. What else do you see here? What implications does this have for community(water) and mission(wind)? The ‘tree of life’ idea was intensely significant for Israel, what kind of significance should we as Jesus followers attach to it? By the way thanks for the comments so far…’as iron sharpens iron‘…