For more thoughts on Advent, I decided to write some background for the Christmas tree.
Trees played an important role in ancient Germanic Paganism. The World Tree -as any World of Warcraft player knows- was the centre of their life and narrative. Its roots reached under the earth and up into the Heavens, with gods like Ravens perched on its branches. They worshipped around great trees in such a society, and so the early missionaries had to deal with this immensely charged religious object. There’s a great account of St. Boniface – an English churchman – who journeyed to the Germans, and eventually became the first Archbishop of Mainz.
“Now at that time many of the Hessians, brought under the Catholic faith and confirmed by the grave of the sevenfold spirit, received the laying on of hands; others indeed, not yet strengthened in soul, refused to accept in their entirely the lessons of the inviolate faith. Moreover some were wont secretly, some openly to sacrifice to trees and springs; some in secret, others openly practiced inspections of victims and divinations, legerdemain and incantations; some turned their attention to auguries and auspices and various sacrificial rites; while others, with sounder minds, abandoned all the profanations of heathenism, and committed none of these things. With the advice and counsel of these last, the saint attempted, in the place called Gaesmere, while the servants of God stood by his side, to fell a certain oak of extraordinary size, which is called, by an old name of the pagans, the Oak of Jupiter. And when in the strength of his steadfast heart he had cut the lower notch, there was present a great multitude of pagans, who in their souls were earnestly cursing the enemy of their gods. But when the fore side of the tree was notched only a little, suddenly the oak’s vast bulk, driven by a driven blast from above, crashed to the ground, shivering its crown of branches as it fell; and, as if by the gracious compensation of the Most High, it was also burst into four parts, and four trunks of huge size, equal in length, were seen, unwrought by the brethren who stood by. At this sight the pagans who before had cursed now, on the contrary, believed, and blessed the Lord, and put away their former reviling. Then moreover the most holy bishop, after taking counsel with the brethren, built from the timber of the tree wooden oratory, and dedicated it in honor of Saint Peter the apostle.” (Robinson, George W. (trans.) (1916). The Life of Saint Boniface by Willibald. Harvard University Press. 62-64… I stole it from wikipedia)
For Christians Christ is the one who hung on a tree to bear the curse for our sins (Gal. 3:13). The Pagans lived beneath the curse of the tree. They worshipped it, like the tree that bore the fruit which Eve ate. They lived under the weight of sin in their kingdom of Satan, until St. Boniface transformed the tree, by reminding them of Christ who turned the cursed tree into the wood of the Holy Cross to redeem the world. This is why when we see Christmas trees in Advent, it’s good to remember that it isn’t the gods of the super-hero films (Thor) who saved the world, but the one who conquered the curse of the tree in that garden, and set man free. Of course, it must also be admitted that St. Boniface built a Church which became an ark of salvation for the people, God’s ordinary means of distributing his grace. Thank God for the wood of the cross, and the wood of our churches/arks, each given for our salvation.