Dead Trees Sprout

I did a double take.  I couldn't believe my eyes. The dead hibiscus had sprouted!! We had watched in horror as the hibiscus, a gift, had shed its leaves and died. For months two dry sticks were all that remained. In fact we had already begun searching the garden centres for a replacement. Yet, here it was with fresh green sprouts!  The passage in Job 14:7-9 came alive in front of my eyes! 

At least there is hope for a tree

If it is cut down, it will sprout again and its new shoots will not fail.

Its root may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil,

Yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant.

Job's Story:

 Job feels like he has been cut down.  He is the dead stump.  He has lost his family, his income, his livestock, and his health.  His friends, who came to comfort him have berated him, implied he has deserved the multiple tragedies and question his integrity.  Everything that Job has accomplished, been involved in, his position, his reputation and his faith have gone.  In despair Job oscillates between demanding an audience with God to present his case or wishing he had never been born.  He is without hope, unlike the stump of a tree.  To all intense and purposes the tree stump is dead, but at the hint of water, when the season changes, the life that is dormant in the tree wakens. Job knows this, he has seen it happen over and over again. Yet right now in the middle of his own story, he cannot see that anything can come from the dead stump of his life.  It is all over. Have you ever felt like that?

This however is not the end of Job’s story. In fact this passage becomes a prophetic image of what will happen in his own life. In time, Job will find God, and God will answer his cry. In time new life will stir in his own bones, in his circumstances and in his family.

With God there is always hope. Hold on, if you are in the middle of the story.

Jesus’ story:

Jesus is referred to “the branch” that was cut off  (Isaiah 11)  He was cut off and cut down in the prime of his life. Cut off from his people, cut off from God and left for dead on a cross. Buried in a tomb, it appeared to those closest to him that everything about him and what he preached was dead.  All over rover!. After three days, the Spirit of God stirred and resurrection life flowed into the dead body of Jesus. Like Job, Jesus flourished! His “family”, the church, multiplied. The dead branch put out new shoots.  Jesus foretold this about his life in John 12:24 “ I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives.”  Jesus’ story can be our story.

Our story:

Adverse circumstances, despair, disappointment, tragedy still stalk all of us.  Individuals, communities, nations and the church go through seasons where everything is cut off, cut back, and left as a dead stump. However, there is life and there is hope if we trust in God.  I like what Mark Batterson writes, “Don’t put a full stop where God has put a comma.”  

One of the most powerful messages of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that death is not the end. A dead tree, or a sealed tomb are no problem for the resurrection power of God.

Like Job, you may feel that everything has come to an end in your life, but if you, like the tree’s roots seek for the living water, Jesus Christ, dead trees will sprout!