Luke 19:39-40: “But some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Him, ‘Master, rebuke your disciples.’ ‘I tell you,’ he replied, ‘If these become silent the stones will cry out.’”
“You will discover things in the woods that you will never find in books. Stones and trees will teach you things you never heard from school teachers.” St. Bernard of Clairvaux
The word in Greek for cry out is krazo which means to an inarticulate shout that expresses deep emotion. The word in Aramaic that Jesus spoke is naqea which means the same as the Greek, but has more of the idea of making an appeal and in this case it is in a Niphal form so they will be caused to cry out, it can’t be contained. As an appeal it is crying out to reconsider, take notice. The word rock in the Aramaic here is caphas, which you might recognize as the name Jesus liked to call Peter it really means a pebble or stone. I remember when I lived in the country and we had a gravel driveway or a caphas driveway. Whenever a car or even a person walked up our driveway we would hear the crunching of the gravel or caphas as the vehicle or person approach. It was the crying out or the negea of the caphas they would announce the presence of a visitor. I think Jesus was saying: “I’m coming whether you like it or not and if my prophets don’t announce listen to the crunching or the naqea caphas the signs of my coming. In other words you can tell my disciples to be silent but I will still come nonetheless.
I have returned to the white tree, my trysting place with God, to hear what God’s lesson is for today. As St. Bernard of Clairvaux declared stones and trees will teach us things that we will never learn from school teachers. Paul Cezanne loved to paint the Mont Sainte Victoire, just a big old rock mountain. Ah but Paul Cezanne saw colors in those rocks that most people did not see. He would spend hours studying those rocks and he would begin to see colors in those rocks and the paint for others to see. A rock is a rock, don’t tell that to Bernard of Clairvaux or Paul Cezanne. There is a message from God even in the rocks. Even the rocks cry out the very presence of God. In your journey to God’s heart, look for the obvious, look at every mountain and every blade of grass, it all cries out from the heart of God.
When I first arrived at the Abbey I looked around and all I could see was just grass, trees and rocks, nothing else. There were birds and some squirrel. I wondered where I would get inspiration to meditate on God and then I remembered Luke 19 that he rocks would cry out. They would cry out with krazo or naqea deep emotion.
As I sit pondering the white tree I wondered just what further lessons I could learn from this tree. As I prayed and meditated on the presence of God suddenly it was if the white tree were crying out to me with deep emotion, “My roots, examine my roots.” I did examine them and determined they were deep into the ground. So deep that no storm in the many years that it has stood guarding the Abbey ever blew it down.
I recall reading in the Talmud that when one is being carried away by a stream of water he would reach for a tree. He would not reach for the branch as they would easily break but he would reach for a root as that would hold firm.
Yes, another simple lesson from God today and that is one I have heard all my life so much so that I tend to just overlook it. We must be firmly rooted in the Word of God and God Himself if we are to stand against the storms of life. I commented to a pastor one time that we must let the mature people in the church be allowed to study the Word of God for themselves. He replied, “But how do you keep them from running off on every weird doctrine?” I told him that if he did his job as a pastor and established a firm foundation, allowed them to dig deep roots into the basic truths of God such as salvation by faith alone, the virgin birth, the death and resurrection then no wind of doctrine would blow them very far away. Instead we are so afraid that some Christian is going to leave the reservation that force feed them our doctrines and not allow them to listen to what the Holy Spirit seeks to reveal to them personally.
Somehow this makes me shiver a little. Is God preparing me for another storm to come into my life? Is that what my trip to the Abbey is mean to be, a preparation? I am here to firmly plant my roots into Him. Well, there is one consolation and that is if God is indeed preparing me for a coming storm I know it is one that He is allowing and it is not the result of some of my stupidity that brought about most of the storms in my life.
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