The Tree of Life

Discovery Island is your “magical departure point” for excursions into the different realms of the Animal Kingdom, says Disney. “The vibrant centerpiece of the park, Discovery Island, is adorned with colorful buildings that rise from the cool shadows of the Tree of Life.” Hmm . . . the Tree of Life. It seems I’ve heard of that somewhere before.

“Like Cinderella’s Castle in the Magic Kingdom park, the Tree of Life is the icon of Disney’s Animal Kingdom.” Oh yes . . . Genesis! The creation story. The Tree of Life.

“Towering 14 stories and encompassing 50 feet at its base, it is a powerful symbol representing the interconnected nature of all living things.” Let’s see . . . in Genesis 3:24 the Lord God “drove out the man; and at the east of the Garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.” It seems that God does not want people to take from this tree.
But Disney sure makes it sound good: “Carved into the gnarled roots, enormous trunk, and uplifted branches are the twisted, turning shapes of more than 300 animal forms. And the entire tree is surrounded by shimmering pools and grass filled with a host of birds and small mammals.” Ah . . . paradise.

Just watch out for that flaming sword!

The fact is that God’s peaceful kingdom has not fully come to earth, neither in Florida nor anywhere else on the face of the planet. Don’t be fooled by the Tree of Life – it’s a 14-story fake, although a beautiful one! And don’t be tricked by the apparent harmony of the Animal Kingdom – it’s a high-tech theme park!

There’s the fake mist, which comes out of a spigot. Then, as if on cue, the fake gorilla that’s perched a few feet away begins to roar, and then the whole fake rain forest ceiling begins to shake with fake thunderclaps. Of course, you can get the same effect at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City.

Disney tries to create a peaceful and more perfect world, but it is only an illusion. Wolves still attack lambs, animals get sick and die, and the Tree of Life is lifeless – a huge piece of decorative scenery. Clearly, the Animal Kingdom park intrigues us because it touches a chord deep within us: a longing for a world in which order replaces chaos and peace replaces conflict.

But we are members of a Christian community that still has plenty of “wild animals,” people who fuss and fight and feast on each other’s faults. We know that the peaceful kingdom will be constructed only by the One who, according to Isaiah, has the “spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord” (Isaiah 11:2).

Why is this? Why do we need a godly leader to bring us peace? Why can’t we eliminate conflict on our own?

Because peace is unnatural. It goes without saying that polar bears eat seals, and lions eat antelopes, my cat eats rodents – this is the natural order of things. But violence goes beyond the wild kingdom to play a very important part in the functioning of civilization. “We are, quite literally, a people that morally live off our wars,” say Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon. We “live off our wars because they give us the necessary basis for self-sacrifice so that a people who have been taught to pursue only their own interest can at times be mobilized to die for one another.”

War makes people stop looking at themselves – it inspires them to identify with the whole society. Now if the violence of war is a part of the natural ordering of society, then peace is unnatural. You can see that out on the highways. Just read some of the bumper stickers:

• If I said anything to offend you … it was purely intentional.
• Horn broken. Watch for finger.
• Some people are only alive because it is illegal to kill.
• Auntie Em. Hate you, hate Kansas, taking the dog. Signed Dorothy.

We need a godly leader to show us a better way, because peace involves transformation. Look around the church, and you see people resembling peacocks and panthers, llamas and lizards. Not in appearance, of course, but in personality. And this state of affairs creates conflict in congregations. For there to be peace among the people of God, we cannot simply stay the same. We must be transformed.
Author Frederick Buechner observes that in Beauty and the Beast, it is “only when the Beast discovers that Beauty loves him in all his ugliness that he himself becomes beautiful.” It’s only when we discover that God loves us in all our unloveliness that we ourselves start to become godlike. The word for this transformation is ‘sanctification,’ and it is a long and painful change “because with part of themselves sinners prefer their sin, just as with part of himself the Beast prefers his glistening snout and curved tusks.”

But little by little, “the forgiven person starts to become a forgiving person, the healed person to become a healing person, the loved person to become a loving person. God does most of it.” And the end of the process is eternal life. We need a godly leader to transform us into sanctified beasts who can live together eternally.

A fellow went into a bookstore and asked the clerk behind the counter where the self-help section was. She said, “Sir, if I told you that, it would defeat the whole purpose.” Sanctification and peacemaking require God – they are not self-help, do-it-yourself projects.

Peace comes from above – from God. The age-old conflicts in our world – between Arabs and Israelis in the Middle East, Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, Republicans and Democrats in the United States, Gator fans and Seminole fans in Florida – teach us that harmony is not a do-it-yourself human project. Divine intervention must be a part of any peace that is deep and lasting. For peace is more than an absence of conflict – it is a condition of justice and wholeness that requires wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and the ‘fear of the Lord.’

Isaiah teaches that the Spirit of the Lord will rest on the leader who brings us peace. The godly leader who will rule this new world is Jesus the Christ: the shoot of the stump of Jesse, the one whose birth we celebrate at Christmas, the bearer of the Spirit of the Lord. He brings us the peace that passes all understanding, but he also brings a sword of sacrificial struggle into the midst of a violent world.

To follow Jesus on his mission of peacemaking is to accept the fact that his peace is not natural. It requires transformation. It comes from God. And it will not be complete until the knowledge of the Lord fills the earth “as the waters cover the sea” (v.9). The peace of Christ is a difficult peace, but it is the only peace worth pursuing.

True harmony cannot be found in Orlando. It can only be seen in a vision of God’s animal kingdom, that world ruled by Christ in which the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the many “wild animals” of the Christian community shall dwell together in peace. Our task as a church is to dream of that kingdom, to pray for it, and to open our hearts to it.

The Tree of Life does not exist at Disney. It can only be touched through a relationship with Jesus, the shoot from the stump of Jesse. We are to remain attached to Him, like a branch to a vine, and to bear much fruit with him. For “apart from me, you can do nothing,” says Jesus (John 15:5).

It is Jesus – the true vine, the true Tree of Life – who challenges us, nourishes us, changes us and helps us. For only Christ can give us the true peace that comes from God alone.