Part 2: The Three Days 2016 --- Not for Sale, the Greg Iles trilogy, and a Tree

GOOD FRIDAY

Lutherans around the world are in the middle of marking the 500^th Anniversary of the Reformation.  This is a three year celebration, with Synods and congregations focusing on the theme: Liberated by God’s grace. The theme is divided into three specific convictions: Salvation is not for sale! Human beings are not for sale! Creation is not for sale!

Each sermon over the Three Days reflects on the not for sale theme, weaves in a trilogy of novels by Greg Iles, and binds the ideas together through the branches and roots of a tree.

Below the thick 150 ft. canopy of feathery deciduous conifers, - below the Cypress- the moist humid air stands still above the greened waters of the swamp.  The ancient gentle giants - the trees, hung with pirates beard moss, silhouette in rows as ghosts floating in miles and miles of water; confined by emerging roots, in knee stubs seeking oxygen, there is no easy access and no quick way to escape.  This forest is ominous -- a place one could get turned around, lost; one tree looks like all the rest, and each with its 12 ft diameter hides what is beyond. The landscape hems in around those who dare to enter – those willing to face death; to work through grief- and it surrounds one in suffocating loneliness.

The second book in Greg Iles trilogy is titled, The Bone Tree. It continues the drama from Natchez Burning where Iles’ characters play on the civil rights stage where darkening drama includes violent race murders, conspiracy, the New Orleans Mafia, the KKK hit squad, JFK, FBI, Castro.  It involves a deeper unraveling of secrets and the body count rises as secrets can no longer be silenced through death. Time has come when this generation looks back 40 years and pushes their friends, families,  -all whom they know-  who lived through that time to come clean.  This generation wants the truth and the hope of freedom truth might bring.

People die for what they believe in.  People are willing to die to discover and tell the truth.  It is time for senseless killing to stop --- and if it is by death of a valiant few, so be it.

The secrets, as they are let loss, lead in one direction --- to the mysterious bone tree, a legendary killing site--- a hidden tree in a vast cypress tree forest – in the depths of a Mississippi swamp on the edge of a game preserve—concealing more than the remains of the long forgotten. 

In the inner folds of the trunk structure, much is hidden.  The heart of cypress trees are a place of refuge for animals who are hurt or waiting out a storm, some die, some survive; the sanctity of the quiet dry cavern is one of peace, death, and healing.  The Bone Tree, however, has lost any sense of sanctity- being used as a butchering ground and human bone depository.  The bone tree is most desecrated when history is told that a man was crucified upside hanging inside the tree, above the pile of bleached bones. Crucified by family because they thought he had turned on them; a warning that no one is saved. Crucified; crucified in the belly of a tree.

That family lost their soul.  In the darkest maelstroms of life, as described in the novel, souls are sold – by powerful men for audacious agendas, favoured jobs, and family protection- salvation seems to be up for sale.

This morning we stand in the dry cavern of the Bone Tree, looking on at a man hanging crucified. Crucified by his own people because they thought he had turned on them; a warning that no one is saved.  Crucified; crucified on the wood of a tree. 

It was a loss of soul, in the dark maelstroms of life, by powerful men with audacious agendas, favoured jobs, and a need to control the status quo by allowing one man -Jesus- to die to save what was.  In selling their souls they manipulated others to betray, to denounce, to leave, to taunt, to yell – crucify. 

There were some -although scared and confused- persevered beyond their capabilities to be present and experience the truth, no matter how dark, or dangerous the day became.  They stood watching.  They saw the Temple curtain torn in two. They experienced the darkness – the silence.

And they stayed to the very end --- because ---- because they had hope that something new was about to spring forth.  Could this death be the Word, that salvation is not for sale?

The haunting Cypress forest --- flooded, full of danger, with monster gators and poisonous snakes ……It doesn’t look like it today, but, in the swamp lies a miracle; in the rich nutrient debris, trees slowly grow that have a life expectancy of 600-1000 years. After a long wait, 200 years, the heartwood of the tree forms – a heartwood resistant to decay, prized around the world.  For today, we are left in the sanctity of the cavern -under the man crucified on the cross; the space made holy because of who he was. 

The Cypress has lost its leaves for the season  --- it is surrounded by mist and the smell of decay from the swamp, --- eerie, sighing of death … but, just under the water waits a miracle.