A Meditation on Three Trees

A Meditation on Three Trees
 by M. Scott Bashoor

Round a green tree now we gather
      And call our souls to song.
But wasn’t the rooty place rather
      The cradle of man’s wrong?
T’was round a tree of ages past
        Man’s sorrows first did rise.
His destiny by sin was cast
        Into fiery demise.

What of the sad memory dark
        Of evil wrought back then?
What takes the shame from the old bark,
        The shame that came from sin?
There must be yet another tree
        Where sin and shame were fought,
Where all sin on Christ came to be,
        Salvation there was wrought.

How fitting is the coming, then,
        To this green tree, I think,
To praise the One who died for men
        To snatch them from the brink.
His suff’ring is the reason tall
        We have this jubilee.
This favorite season of them all
        Is naught without His tree.