You Are Like The Cypress And The Myrtle.

Bread is a picture of Jesus, the Bread of Life. Feeding on Him and on His word causes us to “Go out {into the world} with joy,” and to be “Lead forth with peace.”

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He was born in Bethlehem which means “House of Bread.”  When He was born, He was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a carved stone manger.  A manger, of course, is feeding trough!  It’s a picture of feeding on Jesus, the Bread of Life.

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When you have had your fill, your hunger satisfied, you are full of joy and peace.  You are restful, not stressed.  It is when you are in this restful state that the Holy Spirit able to lead you as you go through life.

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“…The mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing before you, And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands…”

These are pictures, first and foremost, of how lovely our Lord Jesus is.  As He is, so are we in this world.  Because we belong to Him, we are a blessing everywhere we go!  People are attracted to us.  Even the environment around us changes because Jesus lives in us. People even feel like singing when we are around!

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Trees are made of wood.  Wood in the Bible typifies “Humanity.”  Take a look at tree branches sometime.  They are most often curved upward toward heaven as if in praise the Lord!  Even weeping willow branches are first curved up.

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Church, you and I, like trees, always and everywhere need to “Lift up holy hands” in praise to the Lord.  But the trouble is, we’re the only “Wood” that often has our “Branches” down at our sides. Instead of looking up toward heaven, we are often looking down at the ground, dejected and depressed.  We can take a lesson from the trees and look up to praise the Lord!

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The Cypress tree is actually referring to the Fir tree; you know, the kind of tree you see everywhere in December.  We know it as the Christmas tree!

This was one of the chief trees of Lebanon (Isaiah 60:13); it’s boughs were wide and great… (Exekiel 31:8); and it was evergreen (Hosea 14:8).

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In 2 Samuel 6:5 we read: “David and all the house of Israel played before Yahweh with all manner of instruments made of fir wood.”

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“Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress {fir} tree.”  The wood of the fir tree is very “sonorous,” as they say in the music trade, making it perfect for fashioning musical instruments.  That’s what you and I are, Church:  Musical instruments on which Jesus plays beautiful music for all the world to hear.  Because of Him, we go around with a song in our hearts!  In fact, we are a song going somewhere to happen.

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Whenever we get out of sorts or “Out of tune,” what can we do? Come back to Jesus and be tuned up again!  This is a perfect portrayal of the verse that says “WE ARE TRANSFORMED BY BEHOLDING JESUS.”

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That does NOT mean going to Him to confess our sins and get cleansed all over again.  No!  Our sins were CLEANSED ONCE, for all time, the day we accepted Him as our Savior.  In fact, much of the confusion in the Church in this matter comes from misunderstanding 1John 1:9.  This verse is in the “Perfect tense,” indicating it is a ONE-TIME, NEVER-TO-BE-REPEATED ACT OR EVENT.  IT IS A SALVATION VERSE.

We can, however, take our eyes off Jesus and turn toward the desert, as we walk through the muck and mire of this fallen world.  When we do that, problems seem way too big to handle…..until we turn back to The Problem Solver!  We continually need to wash the dust of this world off our feet with the water of His word.  That settles our hearts!

The fir tree, being an evergreen, is a picture of the eternal life we have in Jesus.  You’ve heard the saying: “Christians don’t die; we just relocate!”

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The Brier And The Myrtle.
“And instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree;”

Briers are just what you’d expect them to be:  Prickly, rambling, scrubby little shrubs that cling to you as you walk through them.  They are annoying little things that are sometimes hard to pick off.  But if you don’t, they will and poke and irritate you, like the little annoyances of life.

But Jesus says He will replace that with the Myrtle.  The Myrtle tree is a beautiful, fragrant tree.  Jesus says instead of being like briers, we are like that!   This beautiful tree also has a lovely white flower with 5 delicate petals, the number of grace!  Myrtle speaks of Jesus’ righteousness and purity as well as of our gift of righteousness by grace, which we received when we asked Jesus into our hearts!

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Queen Esther.

Remember Esther after whom the book in the Bible is named?  That was not the name given to her by her parents.  It was her Babylonian name which means, “Star,” in their language.  For her people, that she certainly was!  In Hebrew, her name means something which speaks to why the Jewish people were sent away in exile.

To read more about that topic, you may follow the link below for the sad details:

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Her parents named her, “Hadassah,” which means “Myrtle tree,” in Hebrew.  This was a tree of blessing that was used in the tabernacle as well as in the construction of most temporary shelters of the Feast of Tabernacles.

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Mary, the mother of Jesus, most likely became pregnant with Jesus on that first day of this feast.  To learn more about that topic, you may follow the link below to a series about the Real Story in the Stars, which is all about Jesus:

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Esther, “Hadassah,” certainly was a blessing to her people when she saved them from total annihilation by the evil Haman. She is a picture of the Church so you know what that says about us?  We are myrtle trees to the world today!

(For more on the story of Esther, you may follow the link below:

https://emmausroadministries.international/2020/10/02/esther-series-part-2-the-festival-of-wine/)

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