Eucalyptus

“Blessed in the one…whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers.”
~Psalm 1:1-3~

“On each side of the river stood the tree of life,
bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month.
And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.”
~Revelation 22:2~

“Of the 700 species of eucalyptus trees in the world,
most are native to Australia.
Seeing all those different kinds…
made me feel like a kid in a candy shop of trees,
all of them intricately created by the Maker of all beauty.”    
 ~Lynne Baab on “The Miracle of Trees”~

The graceful eucalyptus adorns many homes as trendy décor. I used it, myself, as a staple in my wreath-making days. Of course, it is well-known that the mainstay of the marsupial koala’s diet is eucalyptus leaves, and while the leaves are actually poisonous to humans in high doses, the anti-fungal and antiseptic properties of the oil can be used topically for wounds or applied as a decongesting chest rub. While its fragrance can be too potent for some, eucalyptus serves as a powerful metaphor of 2 Corinthians 2:14-16:  

“Thanks be to God,
who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession
and uses us to spread the aroma of knowledge of him everywhere.
For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing,
to one a fragrance from death to death,
to the other a fragrance from life to life.”

So, how do you smell? We are called to be a sweet fragrance and ministers of the new covenant, a flowering leaf that is a healing salve to conflict, a balm to the chaos our culture tends to cultivate.

The Old Testament law was a bud that contained the bloom of the New Testament promise, as Paul writes in Galatians 3:24:  The law was our guardian until Christ came. My pastor once asked of his congregation, “Are you a closed bud or a flowering blossom?” The unclean were made clean, and those weary with carrying deep grief were refreshed. He woos us to come to Him, “All who are weary and heavy-laden” (Matthew 11:28), so that we can be infused with His divine power, giving us all we need for now, imbibed with His character. Jesus is the flower—the fulfillment—of the Law” (Mike Majeski). He is the embodiment of our tree of life hope, offering us “completeness, safety, health” (Cramm, NIV God’s Word for Gardener’s, p. 710). All the pain that we experience can be pressed into a fragrance of worship, like an incense. I love how Bill Johnson describes this for us: 

I determined to take what was painful to me…
I took loss, I took confusion, I took guilt…
and I let it flavor the fragrance of worship,
because I’ll never have the chance to offer Him that same sacrifice in heaven, because in heaven there’s no loss, no confusion.
This is the only opportunity to offer Him that prized offering that comes out of the brokenness of my own life…
even though we didn’t get to see the breakthrough we wanted to see. ~“Worship in All Seasons”~

Barnabas modeled the essence of this flowering blossom metaphor in his relationship with Saul. Opening himself up to a former persecutor, Barnabas forgave grievances toward Saul and made “every effort to embrace” him, in spite of personality and cultural differences (Shelley Cramm, NIV God’s Word for Gardeners Bible, p.1253). He bloomed, and the gospel spread because he didn’t allow past hurts to hinder his walk.

When we stay closed tight—because of pain, rejection, betrayal—we prevent ourselves from growing, and we miss out on helping others on their journey. When we allow God to grow us in our grief, we open up like a flowering blossom, and He is the one who spreads that fragrance on the gentle breezes of His Holy Spirit, “using us to spread everywhere the aroma of the knowledge” of what He has done in our life and how He has brought healing to our broken places.