For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height depth nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

Back when I was a kid growing up in west Denver after breakfast all of the kids would meet up to play. We might be gone for hours riding bikes, playing here or there, playing army, building forts, and such. Our mothers knew that we were probably within a two mile radius of home and that hunger or darkness would get us home.

I remember a lake that was on the outer edge of that radius. Next to the deep end of the lake there was this tree. Only being maybe seven years old that tree seemed huge. In my mind’s eye it must have been fifty or sixty feet high when in reality it was probably much smaller. I remember all the kids climbed it. It was a rite of passage. That tree separated the little boys from the big boys….Can you guess what happened?

One day, I still don’t remember how, but I made it up on to that first limb, and once I was there I was stuck. I was too scared to go up and too scared to go down. I don’t know how long I clutched that limb. I still remember that the ground was seemingly twenty feet below me. I remember planning to jump but the height, my mother’s repeated warning that tree climbing lead to broken arms, and fear kept me up there for a long time. I don’t remember how I finally got down. I have vague memory that an older boy helped me down amidst plenty of reminders that I was too little for climbing trees, especially this tree, it was for the big boys.

Trees that separate us are what I’d like to talk with you about this morning. Trees play an important part in our spiritual lives. I would take you back to the third chapter in Genesis in the Garden of Eden. There is this tree in middle of the garden. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil and there we find Satan tempting Eve. “Oh, Eve you are too little. This tree is for the big kids. If you were big enough you’d know that all who climb it and eat from this tree will be big kids and they will be like God, even knowing good and evil.

What Satan was doing was sowing the seeds of temptation and doubt: Did God really say this or that? Are there things God has withheld from us? Are we really too little for some things…What Eve and Adam didn’t know was that from Satan’s destructive seeds would come the bitter fruit of sin, hardship, disease, destruction, and death.

If you look down a few verses we find that Adam and Eve fall for the temptation. “We aren’t too little!” They climb the tree and taste of fruit. Immediately they realize they’ve made a dreadful mistake- they’ve been lied to, but it is too late they are stuck. Their actions in and about this tree rather than bringing them closer to God have separated them from God.

When they hear God coming in the cool of the evening and calling for them they scramble into the thorny bushes. Scraped and bruised they find themselves hiding from God. Their actions at this tree have separated them from God. The bitter fruit of separation grows as they are banished from the Garden. The consequences of their sin results in the thorns of hardship, diseases, and destruction; and the thistles of hate, war, and death begin to emerge. Where once there was oneness with God, now there is a separation from God. Satan stalks around in the darkness of their separation like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

This separation sadly is passed down to each generation and to each person. We call it original sin, and it is more than just being born into a sinful and fallen world. Where once we might have lived in the shadow of the tree of life we are now living amidst the thistles of our sins, the briars of our ill-fated struggles, and the thorns of death. And Satan, from behind the twisted and splintered trees of a fallen creation hauntingly laughs at us.

But… God in His great mercy did not abandon us. Though we had done no good thing, even though we had trashed the creation He had declared to be very good. He promised to save us, to bridge the gap that separated us from Him. Our separation that began at a tree is ended by a tree.

The tree that ends our separation is the cross, a rugged and splintered one. The punishment that should have been ours the Father placed upon His Son. God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. What are your sins? What has Jesus taken from you? If we say we have no sins we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. There is one who is willing to read your sins, one who may not know them all but he knows a number of them and he is Satan.

What if he came here right now and began to read a list of your more prominent sins, your private sins, the sins you think no one here knows about. It was for those sins and the sins of the whole world that Jesus went willingly to the cross.

On the cross He experienced the ultimate separation. Those He came to save turned away and nailed him to a cross. God the Father poured out His full wrath against sin on Him turning even His face from Him.

It is us that the Father should have turned away from but Jesus took our place. Being all alone Jesus cries out, My God, my God why have you forsaken me. (Mark 15.34)

With a last gasp Jesus said, It is finished. (John 19.30) The separation was brought into the world at one tree by a man was atoned for on another tree by the Godman, Jesus. The separation between man and God was ended. Truly, truly our sins are forgiven! We are no longer separated from God! We are not forsaken!

With sin atoned for, death could not hold Jesus and it will not hold those who believe in Him. If Christ now lives then we too shall live. (John 14.19)

There is now another tree which awaits us. In the book of Revelation chapter 22.2 we hear of a renewed tree of life that awaits us in heaven. It bears twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Yet that is a sermon for another day.

All that is nice but Pastor I’m not in heaven yet. I’m still here living some where between the tree in the Garden of Eden and the cross. Where I am right now is often still a place where others are taunting me and teasing me by saying that God must have overlooked me, forgotten me, or is punishing me. When I try to get away from them it seems I get caught in the thorny brush of living in a fallen world, and sometimes I must admit even I get discouraged, Satan wears me down. Oh, what am I to do?

I encourage you to open your Bibles to Romans chapter eight beginning at the thirty-first verse. (31-32) If God is for us who could be against us? Is there any situation, bully or big kid who is too big or powerful for our God? If God is for us and I think we can clearly see at the cross just how much He is for us – not sparing his own Son but giving Him to save us. If God is for us then who can be against us? Oh, for a time people, some situation, disease or tribulation may appear to have the upper hand but this is temporary. In the end, even if our flesh and blood shall fail we will be ultimately victorious because our Jesus has been victorious.

(35b,36) Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or the sword?... should any of these be able to separate us from the love of Christ?... (37) No, in all these things we are more than conquerors though Him who loved us. (38,39) For I am convinced by the life of Christ, the powerful miracles of Christ, the teachings of the One who is God in fleshing appearing, the cross and the empty tomb demonstrate for us that neither angels not demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

Our God has given us real ways to know that He is with us and for us and there is nothing that can separate us from Him: We have the Scriptures- God’s living and active Word which is able to create and sustain faith. We have the promises of forgiveness and adoption given to us in our baptism. We have all that is Jesus taking hold of us, forgiving and strengthening us by and through communion. We have His clear and powerful words of forgiveness spoken in absolution. These are real and tangible ways that we can know that nothing can separate us from the love that is in Christ Jesus.

Now all around us are people who are bullies or bullied, people who are lost, confused, and harassed by Satan. Because of sin, they are still separated from God. They need someone to sit with them and tell them of the trees we’ve talked about today. If time is short tell them about the tree that is the cross and all that was done there.

Amen