This Sunday, 31 October, we in the choir at Eastwood Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) will sing an Anthem titled The Apple Tree. The song fascinates me. I like to sing it & it's not difficult to sing.
But what fascinates me most is that the lyrics go back a long time and their theme. Jesus our Lord is compared to an apple tree!
Quite a contrast to the popular supposition that the forbidden fruit tree in Eden was an apple tree. Despite Scripture never giving what fruit it was (or if it was even any fruit now found on this Earth), so many, many times I've heard or read about Eve starting trouble by "eating the apple". This is just one of many items that popular culture has wrong about things in the Bible. (Another is that Jesus had long hair or anything else in appearance that set him off from his disciples.)
So it's refreshing to sing of the apple tree in a positive spiritual context. With joy I look forward to singing it this Sunday! Here are the lyrics, as found in a New England hymnal of the late 1700s:
1. The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green:
The trees of nature fruitless be
Compared with Christ the apple tree.
2. His beauty doth all things excel:
By faith I know, but ne'er can tell
The glory which I now can see
In Jesus Christ the apple tree.
3. For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought:
I missed of all; but now I see
'Tis found in Christ the apple tree.
4. I'm weary with my former toil,
Here I will sit and rest awhile:
Under the shadow I will be,
Of Jesus Christ the apple tree.
5. This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive;
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the apple tree.
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