Three times today our readings mention trees.

“The fruit discloses the cultivation of a tree”, said the Book of Sirach. Then came Psalm 92: “The just will flourish like the palm tree and grow like a Lebanon cedar. Planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God, still bearing fruit when they are old, still full of sap, still green, to proclaim that the Lord is upright. In him, my rock, there is no wrong.” And, finally, the Gospel: “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush.”

Trees are one of the joys of nature. I’m not urging tree-hugging particularly, but they are the crown of the vegetable world, just as we are the crown of the animal world. There’s a sympathy between us. It has been proven that if you plant trees in a rough area of a city, crime diminishes, and if a person can see trees from their hospital bed they recover more quickly. The planet needs trees for its health and so do we. No wonder, the Bible is full of trees. The great drama of Eden turns on trees, and at the end of the Apocalypse, there stands – rediscovered – the tree of life in the middle of the heavenly city, bearing fruit every month, with its leaves for the healing of the nations. And so, in today’s readings, the tree is a metaphor for us: the healthy tree a symbol of a healthy person, a symbol of our human vocation to be well-rooted, upright and fruitful. Won’t it be good, after this long and wearing winter, to see the trees turn green again? Trees are a joy to us and when Christ rises from the dead and shines on us like the sun, we become a joy to the world, like Mary Magdalene in the garden by the empty tomb. He climbed the tree of the Cross and became the Tree of Life for us.

Let’s push this a little further. Lent begins on Wednesday. When we think of Lent and its 40 days, we should also think of the 50 days of Easter that come after it, and in the middle, like the hinge of the two seasons, of the Triduum of the Lord’s death, burial and Resurrection. We should think of the whole Easter / Paschal cycle, think of it as a whole, from the ashes of next Wednesday to the wind and fire of Pentecost, from the 5^th of March to the 8^th of June this year, with Maundy Thursday to Easter Sunday at the heart of it, the 17^th to the 20^th of April. That’s the central panel with its two wings, two tableaux, either side. The Bible often stresses two aspects of trees: i) they need to be well-rooted, to go deep into the earth, so not be easily blown down and find water there  ii) they need to blossom and flourish and bear fruit. Like the Lord in his Paschal mystery, trees need to go down and rise up. And so do we. We need to die and rise.

In today’s 2^nd reading, St Paul ends saying two things to his Christian brothers and sisters: “be steadfast and immovable”, that is, be rooted, go down deep, and “always abound, overflow, in the work of the Lord”, that is flourish upwards and outwards. Maybe this is a programme for Lent and Eastertide. Maybe we can think of Lent as a time for strengthening our roots, for hidden, buried growth, for deepening our faith. To put it mildly, culturally, economically, politically, spiritually we are in wild and windy times; in an age of uncertainty and instability. As Christians we need to be rooted. We need to know ourselves better, to be more in the truth of our human condition, away from fantasies. In Lent we return to ourselves, examine our lives and the spirits, good and bad, at work in our hearts. Lent is for being humble and real. We feel our weakness and our need of God’s mercy, our dependence on the Father. We need to sink our roots into that mercy, into the flowing water of God’s word and the sacramental life of the Church, deepening our faith in Christ’s love. “Be steadfast and immovable”, be rooted, says St Paul. And the deeper the tree descends, the higher it rises, the more creatively it responds to the upward call of the light – trees turn to the sun. As Jesus rises and ascends in Eastertide, like the sun climbing the sky, so we begin to blossom and flourish, put out the leaves of good actions for the healing of the nations, bearing fruit, rediscovering our vocation: like Mary Magdalen in the garden: “go and tell my brothers”; like the disciples of Emmaus returning to Jerusalem; like Peter and the others breakfasting by the lakeside after the great catch of fish, knowing now what they had to do. May the 40 / 50 / 90 days ahead of us root us, firm and immovable, and have us flower, overflowing in the work of the Lord.

A few years ago, the Greek Orthodox Church canonised a monk from the island of Patmos. He only died in 1970. Long story short, he had a thing about trees. He said we should love them, and often if people came to confess serious sins their penance would be, plant a tree. And so a treeless place is now woodland. We might find time just to look at a tree: isn’t their shape and posture a symbol of nature and man at prayer, turned to the light? “Plant a tree”. Better still, become a tree, a good tree, planted in the house of the Lord, steadfast and rooted, flowering and fruiting, abounding in the work of the Lord, sharing the death and resurrection of Christ.

St Mary’s Cathedral, Aberdeen, 2 March 2025