The Palm

I love Palm trees. I always have. My parents and family lives in Florida and I live in the frozen Northeast. Each year we come down for a 2 1/2 week excursion to avoid the deep chill sometime between December 25 and March 31. I'm writing this entry from florida now. A palm tree sits just outside their window taunting me of our soon departure.

Revelation 7 recounts the great multitude who come out of the great tribulation. Saints who stood opposed to the anti-christ system of the world. They were martyred and stayed strong in faith. This has happened in every generation. From the lion's in the Coliseum of Rome (Revelations's first audience) to Corrie Ten Boom and Dietrich Bonhoeffer under Nazi persecution... to the Bamboo Curtain's Chinese Christians underground suffering for Christ to the Christians in Muslim dominated countries being tortured and killed for their faith, every generation has had those who have stayed strong against Babylon.

This is how John sees them:




Revelation 7:9 (ESV) After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,

"palm branches in their hands."

This is significant for matters more than the fact that Palm trees grow in warm and easier climates. In the book of Leviticus the people are commanded to celebrate the feast of booths. Scholars believe this feast points to heaven as we are all having a place prepared for us by Christ (see John 14). 

During this sacred assembly, the people are commanded to carry palms and willows in their hands and celebrate before the Lord.




Leviticus 23:40 (ESV) And you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days.

What is interesting is the contrast of these two branches - palms and willows. For as pleasurable and joyous palms are reaching up to heaven in perpetual worship and celebration, willows are sad trees drearily drooping their branches down below. There's a reason they call them "Weeping Willows." Yet in Leviticus we have a picture of life here as we wait for life "there" with God. We must learn to celebrate in our "Palm" days and in our "Willow" days. "Rejoice in the Lord always" (Philippians 4:3) says Paul from prison. What else will show the world we are different if we cannot celebrate before the Lord no matter the circumstances of our lives? 

So in Revelation 7 we see the martyred saints with only palms in their hands. The willows are now gone. So too we have a home awaiting us in heaven and there will be no more willows in our hands. Not that they won't be present in the new Earth. I'm sure they will. 

But in heaven, there will be no more willow days. Everyday will be a day warmed by the glory of our God and basking in the love of His Son. Oh how far away those sad days will seem.

Every time you rejoice before the Lord in a horrible situation you remind yourself and preach to others that your hope is not for this life alone. You have sometime they couldn't take away from Peter, Paul, John, Polycarp, Bonhoeffer, Ten Boom and others... a place with God, and a place of peace.

Amen.