What is the Greatest Gift You can Give?

Kathryn & Sybren are standing in front of the Ancient Bristlecone Pines at Inyo National Forest, California.

This past September, Sybren and I took a road trip to California in our little blue pick-up. Sybren said we should make the trip while we still can. We rode our bikes in Napa Valley and visited three major parks which we had never toured before. Within 72 hours, we saw the tallest trees, the biggest trees, and the oldest trees on our planet.

That is the subject of today’s essay.

In Napa Valley nestles a towering forest of 300-foot-tall Redwoods, some of the tallest trees in the world. Next, we walked through a grove of Great Sequoias marshaling the southwestern edge of Yosemite National Park. These are the biggest trees in terms of circumference. Then, on the western end of Yosemite we crossed the famous Tioga Pass at 10,000 feet, wound slowly down the Sierra Nevada mountains into Bishop, California, then climbed back up the Sierras further south on narrower, more desolate, steep, winding roads into the Inyo National forest, the magical land of Ancient Bristlecone Pines, the oldest organisms on earth. Tree historians estimate the oldest of these to be 6000 years.

Pictures hardly capture the beauty of these majestic trees, their crowns spreading across brilliant cerulean skies while sunlight danced through the branches like fairy lights, but we tried.

Redwood forest in Napa Valley. This grove was about 400 acres.

This Redwood was impossible to photograph, although we tried.

Sybren and I are standing in front of a Giant Sequoia at Yosemite.

Pictured is a Giant Sequoia on its side. While sad to see, the perspective of seeing the roots was fascinating.

On the narrow road to see the Ancient Bristlecone Pine forest, I took this photo from inside the truck, not realizing the hood acted like a mirror reflecting the sky, the rocks, and trees.

The Sierra Nevada mountains are home to the Ancient Bristlecone Pines.

The Ancient Bristlecone Pines don't look like much, but many are over 4000 years old and a few are as old as 6000 years. Grow slow and grow old! They are the oldest organisms on the earth.

If only we could grow these trees in Washington, Texas. But the care required would be impossible for them to thrive. Not only is Texas too hot, too humid, and too close to sea level, but even if we could create the right growing conditions, the needs of these trees extend beyond human ability to nurture them after our demise. We are truly ephemeral by comparison. Only God can take care of them. The best thing we can do is leave them alone.

 In the case of the Bristlecone Pines, they grow where no other trees can. They grow above the typical tree line in the highest elevations of the Sierra Nevada mountains. How that is possible is a question that God alone can answer.

I picked up Great Sequoia seeds littered on the ground like small flakes of brown rolled oats and studied them. How long would one have to live to see a seed grow into a tree 15-feet in diameter?

More than 1500 years.

I shook these seeds from the Great Sequoia cone.

No human being has ever lived that long. Even Methuselah, the longest living man recorded in the Bible (969 years), could not have seen a Great Sequoia reach maturity. First of all, he would have had to live in California. Then, at age 969, the oldest Great Sequoia would still have been an adolescent tree.

In Texas, we love our live oaks. Yet a full-size live oak would never touch the lowest branches of a Redwood.

 What if these trees could talk? Or better yet take pictures and make movies? The stories they would share, right? They would have a great perspective. Wouldn’t the 1849 Gold Rush rate as a current event to them? Whereas to us it’s practically forgotten history.

Think about this: these trees were already mature when Christ was crucified and resurrected. In fact, the ancient Bristlecone Pines were already 2000 years old when Moses crossed the Red Sea. What if these trees could have witnessed those events and shared them with us?

Long-lasting things are precious. But these are not things. These giant and ancient trees are living organisms that form part of God’s creation and his plan.

Like the trees, the Church is also part of God’s plan.

In choosing his apostles, Christ established His Church. Like the Sequoia seed, the church started small. No one could have predicted how quickly that the church would spread and grow except for God.

The fact that it did reveals something about those who became Christians. These people ached for something good, true, and wise that gave their life purpose, something apart from the vengeance and evil that characterized the world. The Church strives to bring hope, love, joy, and peace and works at living a holy life in a fallen world.

In part, the Church grew quickly because of the Bible, a library of 66 books by 40 authors over 2000 years that point to our Savior, Jesus Christ. Not only was Christ crucified, but nearly all the authors and prophets who authored the books in the Bible were persecuted and killed. Yet the tree of  Christian Faith, the Church, grew and grew taller, wider, and older, bringing hope, peace, joy, and love.

If you do not believe in God, if you are at least intellectually honest and care about humanity, can you consider what kind of world it would be if there were no churches, church organizations, church run food pantries, church founded hospitals, religious universities, or religious schools? What if God was not in a single person’s consciousness? What kind of world is that? Would you want to be in that world?

What happens to our humanity when we lose the spark of divinity? If we know that the Great Sequoia, the Redwood, and ancient Bristlecone Pines are beautiful, how do we know that, if not from something also planted in us that is holy?

Only the Master Gardener can create a Great Sequoia, a Redwood, and a Bristlecone Pine, and a Church.

This Christmas season, our Pastor challenged us to think about what the greatest gift was that we can offer Jesus.

It’s ourselves.

Jesus calls each and every one of us to love one another as He loves us.

Give yourself to Jesus.

Merry Christ-mas.