Dry or Green

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

DRY OR GREEN

Luke 23:26-31

26 As they led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. 27 A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. 28 Jesus turned and said to them, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For the time will come when you will say, 'Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!' 30 Then "'they will say to the mountains, "Fall on us!" and to the hills, "Cover us!" '  31 For if men do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?" 

NIV

This is the moment when Jesus is in the midst of the greatest suffering that only the divine nature within him could bear. Although he is fully man, and the pain he endured was truly felt in his flesh, he also was fully God and he and he alone could bear such agony, for he was bearing the sin of the world. What Jesus said to those women was a quote from the prophet Hosea regarding the destruction of Israel because of its sin. The lesson Jesus was conveying was that men, when there is some form of justice based on standards established by God, still do not live in accordance to it, but when they replace God’s ways for their own, this world is set for desolation. Israel had done just that. They had taken what God had given them, the Law of Moses, and turned it into their own brand of religion, forsaking the way God desired them to live, using the law, using the scriptures to see Jesus for who he was, their Messiah, their Savior. Today it is no different. We have to see Jesus for who he is. When we replace the gospel message with our own brand of religion we are no better than those who had Jesus put to death. We only have to see the world for what it is. The tree is already dry, for it no longer has its roots in the living stream of water. The world is that dry tree and the justice of God is going to prevail against it, for it will be cut down and thrown into the fire. Even those of us who live in the living green tree with our roots in the stream of living water, Jesus, still do things, living in a manner in which we should not. Although Jesus is referring to the time about forty years from the moment of his suffering when Jerusalem is decimated, as he said about it when he told his disciples about not a stone being left on another, it also applies to all mankind for all the ages. Unless we live as God intends for us to live, having complete faith and trust in the work of Christ on the cross for our sin, we are in danger. Unless we have died with him, that is our old man, we are in danger. At least that is what the scripture declares. Jesus told Nicodemus, that unless we are born again we will never see the kingdom of God. How can we be born again, unless we first died? But being born again, we need to be a living tree, green, its leaves always remaining green, never failing to bear fruit, not concerned when the heat comes, having no worries in the drought, for our roots are in the stream of living water, Jesus, who said he was the living water. The world as well as many religions have left that stream of living water for their own brand of living, under their own form of beliefs. The world is not concerned with the justice of God, but rather their own justice and even that is not true, it is tainted and stained with the perverted hearts of men. There is a time coming when Jesus returns for us, the world will experience the desolation he speaks of here. How blessed we are to know we have escaped the wrath that is coming. Jesus is our way home. The world sure looks dry, come Lord Jesus, come!