Christmas is a time where we probably pay a lot more attention to trees than we normally do.  They glow in windows at stores and decorate town squares.  We drag them into our houses, real or artificial, and decorate them with lights and ornaments and all kinds of shiny things.  We pile presents underneath them.  And that tree becomes the place we all gather around.  It becomes, in many ways, the centerpiece of our Christmas morning.

And maybe that’s a good thing.  Because a different kind of tree is also at the center of what Christmas is really all about.  Jesus didn’t come to be born into the world and live His life.  He came to die on a cross—a tree, really—so that we could live.  He came to give His life in exchange for ours.  And as He hung bleeding on that cross, surrounded by a hostile crowd, between two thieves, rejected by His creation and His brethren, His purpose was fulfilled.

Philippians 2:8
And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

The crucifixion is the centerpiece of history and of our faith in Christ.  It is what everything else revolves around.  And then after we’re saved, Jesus should be the centerpiece of our lives, what everything else focuses on and revolves around.  Jesus should be what we look to with such adoration and expectation.  The tree where Jesus died is an important reminder not only that we needed a Savior, but that God provided one.  So as we gather around our Christmas trees this year, let’s remember that other tree and all that it stands for as we celebrate Jesus.