The Baobab

A village council meeting next to a Baobab tree which is also next to a newly planted Emmanuel Lutheran Church.

Often called the "Tree of Life," the massive Baobab tree left me dumbfounded on our latest visit to Tanzania, Africa. While we were scoping out what the mission field might look like before we officially move there in April, we discovered the great Baobab. Known for its water-storing trunks and upside-down appearance this giant stood out amongst all the other trees in the Great Rift Valley near the town of Shinyanga, Tanzania.

While we were visiting Lutheran churches, schools and church worker training centers in the bush we noticed that this tree was very important to the communities that developed around them. Apparently, the Baobab has been important to the people in Africa for thousands of years. It gives essential food, water, and medicine while serving as gathering spots, spiritual sites, and, in some traditions, burial places for revered ancestors. This giant sucks up as much water as possible during the rainy season and stores that water in its vast trunk, enabling it to produce a nutrient-dense fruit in the dry season when all around is dry and arid. This is why the Baobab has become known as "The Tree of Life".

Like the people in Tanzania, we Christians also have a “Tree of Life”. However, this tree of life gives life eternally. Through the TREE of the CROSS, our “TREE of LIFE”, we feast on the living fruit of salvation. As we journey through this dry and arid land of sin we feast upon the benefits of what Christ has won through His dying on this tree. It is upon this “Tree of Life” in which Christ conquered death and life was won. We feast upon the salvation which is brought and delivered to us through the proclamation of His Word and Sacraments.

This idea is beautifully expressed in the hymn, “The Tree of Life” by Stephen Starke which is found in the Lutheran Service Book #561. Below is stanza 4 which wonderfully expresses the Gospel of what Christ accomplished on the “Tree of Life” for you.

Now from that tree of Jesus’ shame
Flows life eternal in His name;
For all who trust and will believe,
Salvation’s living fruit receive.
And of this fruit so pure and sweet
The Lord invites the world to eat,
To find within this cross of wood
The tree of life with ev’ry good.