Christmas Tree Teaches Redemption

COLLEEN TINKER

“Christmas trees are pagan. We have no business celebrating Jesus’s birth with symbols of idolatry!” Many people grew up in Adventist homes where this attitude dominated Christmas. A bit like their cousins, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, many Adventist families downplayed Christmas as much as possible, refusing to decorate the classic Christmas evergreen, and even avoiding making much of Christmas dinner or of the day in general. 

Christmas-deniers often use Jeremiah 10:1–5 to explain their refusal to decorate a tree:

Hear the word which the LORD speaks to you, O house of Israel. Thus says the LORD, “Do not learn the way of the nations, And do not be terrified by the signs of the heavens Although the nations are terrified by them; For the customs of the peoples are delusion; Because it is wood cut from the forest, The work of the hands of a craftsman with a cutting tool. 

“They decorate [it] with silver and with gold; They fasten it with nails and with hammers So that it will not totter. 

“Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field are they, And they cannot speak; They must be carried, Because they cannot walk! Do not fear them, For they can do no harm, Nor can they do any good.” (Jeremiah 10:1–5)).

The fact is that, in context, Jeremiah was warning Israel away from the idolatry of the pagans. He was explaining the ways the pagans used ordinary wood from which to fashion idols to worship. “The irony,” Jeremiah was saying in essence; “is that they literally MAKE the objects they worship, and those objects cannot speak, walk, do good, or do harm. The pagans literally worship what their own hands make!”

This idolatry was in complete contrast to the Israelites’ command to worship the God who made heaven and earth—the God who made them! 

This passage has nothing to do with Christmas trees nor with trees by any other name. This passage was warning against worshiping the creations of the people’s hands instead of worshiping the one true God who created everything. 

It’s not surprising that many Adventists have guilt associated with Christmas and Christmas decorations. After all, Ellen White made it clear that Christmas trees were supposed to be used NOT for a place to put gifts but for a place to hang monetary offerings for “missions”. And who or what were the missions?

In short, Adventists were urged to hang money on trees in the church so the church could distribute it to worthy causes or people at the church’s discretion. 

Here is a sampling of her instructions about Christmas trees and gifts:

Every tree in Satan’s garden hangs laden with the fruits of vanity, pride, self-importance, evil desire, extravagance,—all poisoned fruit, but very gratifying to the carnal heart. Let the several churches present to God Christmas trees in every church; and then let them hang thereon the fruits of beneficence and gratitude,—offerings coming from willing hearts and hands, fruits that God will accept as an expression of our faith and our great love to him for the gift of his Son, Jesus Christ. Let the evergreen be laden with fruit, rich, and pure, and holy, acceptable to God. Shall we not have such a Christmas as Heaven can approve? Thousands of dollars are needlessly spent every year in gifts to each other. That is means lost to God, lost to his cause. It pleases the vanity, encourages pride, creates all kinds of dissatisfaction, murmuring, and complaints, because perhaps the gifts are not just what was desired, not of the high value wanted or expected (Review and Herald, December 9, 1844, par. 10).

As the holidays are approaching, I appeal to you, instead of making gifts to your friends, to bring your offerings to God. Let us show that we appreciate the great plan of redemption. As God has given us all Heaven in the gift of his dear Son, let us express our gratitude by thank-offerings to his cause. Let the evergreen Christmas trees yield a rich harvest for God. 

I present before you our missions in foreign lands as the object of your gifts. Let us show that we value the precious light of truth by making a sacrifice to extend the light to those who are in darkness. Through our self-denial and sacrifice, lands that have never heard the truth may hear it (RH, December 7, 1886, Par. 14, 15).

For many Adventists, Christmas trees have a faint aura of “sin”. Lights, ornaments, and gifts wrapped and shiny for giving to loved ones represent selfishness and greed. With seamless manipulation, Ellen White taught Adventists that only the Adventist organization and its causes were worthy of its members sacrificial giving. 

If a person wasn’t giving to the Adventist organization (represented as giving to God), then that person wasn’t spiritual and wasn’t really worshiping Jesus. 

Christmas was to be seen not as a celebration of life and salvation but of ascetic privation and self-abnegation. Adventism was the one cause worthy of a person’s loyalty. Even Baby Jesus was subservient to the Adventist cause; Ellen White used His birth to extract guilt-offerings from her members. 

Christmas Tree Redeemed 

It was Christmas of 1997 when God assured us that as we left Adventism and faced the losses and changes we could not yet see, our bread and water would be sure.

That Christmas we purchased a tree in the rain at night—and upon bringing it home we discovered the trunk was crooked, and the tree would not stay upright. After an hour of struggling, Richard’s frustration and mine were reaching critical mass. Suddenly, as clearly as if they had been spoken, the words “Give thanks in all things” rang in my mind. Leaning all my weight into the tree as Richard did something with shims at its base, I said, “Thank you for this stupid tree, Lord—now please make it stand up!” Moments later, the tree was standing, firm and solid, and it never faltered throughout the rest of the season.

The next morning, though, that tree had not drunk any water—not a good sign for an eight-foot fresh tree. The excessive amounts of dry needles that had fallen onto Richard as he struggled the night before had alarmed him then, but now they seemed to be a sign. The “stupid tree” was not only crooked; it was dead. It was too late to get another one; company was coming. We had to make the best of it.

Remembering the command to give thanks, Richard and I told Roy and Nathanael that the tree was dead, but we were going to thank God for it anyway. Every night our sons thanked God for the “stupid tree”.

Four days after the four of us began praising God for that dead evergreen, the water in its stand disappeared. I stared in disbelief at the empty water basin—but it wasn’t quite “empty”. A thin film of moisture remained on the surface of the bowl, as if the tree had just finished drinking, and the container was still damp. Astonished, I refilled the bowl—and I refilled that bowl every day for the rest of the month. That night Nathanael thanked God for the “good tree”.

The day our company was coming I stood looking at that tree, sparkling with clear lights and white bows on its supple boughs. No more dead needles had fallen from that tree. “It’s a resurrection tree, a tree of life,” I whispered to myself as I breathed its fragrance. And then, as distinctly as I had heard the command to give thanks, I “heard” these words: “Your bread and water will be sure.”

“Thank you, Jesus,” I cried. If He could make a dead, crooked Christmas tree stand tall and drink, He could provide for us as we left Adventism and all we knew.

Furthermore, I realized with clarity that the Lord chose to demonstrate His miraculous provision not by providing an avocado or a citrus tree, but by literally making a dead Christmas tree drink and stay supple through the whole month of December. Never again would I be troubled by the thought that Christmas trees might be too secular (or even pagan) for the celebration of Jesus’s birth. 

That tree was purely for the sake of beauty; it provided no food or shelter. Yet the Lord confirmed that He honored our celebration of His birth. Our attraction to Santas and reindeer was gone; our Christmas tree represented our new understanding of our salvation. Our Savior was born to die, and now He lives!

If you know God is calling you to follow Him with deeper integrity, to trust Him with your convictions and cognitive dissonance, we want to assure you that He is faithful. He has promised His certain care and provision, and He will provide for you. Even if you lose everything as you follow Him, He is faithful and will give you Himself in unimagined ways—as He has done for us in the 26 years since that day the Lord confirmed to me that our bread and water would be sure.

The words of Paul tell the truth: “I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:8).

Give thanks in all things; your bread and water will be sure. †

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Colleen Tinker

Colleen Tinker, the editor of Proclamation! magazine, and her husband Richard left Adventism in 1998 with their two sons, Roy and Nathanael, who were in grades six and ten. They have co-led the Former Adventist Fellowship since 1999. Colleen, a graduate of Walla Walla University, is a former high school English teacher and also the former managing editor of Adventist Today magazine. Colleen became the stepmother of Roy and Nathanael in 1989, and in 2008 she adopted them. Romans 8:15-17 has assumed new depth and significance for her and Richard since she and her sons chose to claim each other legally and permanently. She and Richard share an office and a commitment to sharing the gospel of the true Jesus with all of those seeking a way out of the bondage of the false gospel of Adventism.

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