MMM MAPLE SYRUP!

(A fresh look at Good Friday)

 ‘Tree taps’ by Maine_Mike is licensed BY-NC-ND-2.0

What would pancakes be without maple syrup? 

Do you realize that a maple tree has to be wounded to produce the sap necessary for this prized liquid?  Sound familiar?  Jesus was ‘wounded for our transgressions’. Isaiah 53:5 And the blood and water that flowed out of the wound in His side is far more precious than any syrup.

Maple syrup is made from the sap of a maple tree.  A maple tree happens to have been given a way of protecting itself against freezing.  When the temperature falls to near or below freezing, sap is sucked up into the tree through the large pores that connect with the tree’s roots.  This sap protects it from freezing.  The sap will continue to rise in the tree until the temperature is above freezing.  

With above freezing temperatures, the sap reverses the process and begins to return to the trees’ roots.  It is at this critical time, when the sap is descending that sugar makers get excited.  They drill or ‘tap’ a hole or holes in a maple tree, hammer in a spile or spout into the hole, attach a bucket with a lid and begin to collect the sap.  The sap is gathered over 4-6 weeks, usually between early March and late April.  (See pic above). After harvesting the sap, it is transported to a sugar house where it is boiled down to become maple syrup.  It takes 10.5 gallons of sap to make one quart of pure maple syrup. 

The wound in Jesus side I mentioned above was prophesied by Zechariah in 600 BC!  He wrote, ‘They will look on me, the one they have pierced.’ Zechariah 12:10. And fulfilled when Jesus was on the cross and ‘one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.’ John 19:34.  

His blood was shed for our salvation, ‘and without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins’.  Hebrews 9:22. And ‘God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.’ John 3:17.

And the water that flowed out of His side imparts life into those who believe.  As He said, ‘I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.’ John 10:10. He also said, ‘Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.   By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.’ John 7:38-39.  And, like the water that flowed from Jesus side brings life, so too will the rivers of living water that flow from within you bring life to you and those around you!

From the wound in the maple tree, we get syrup.  Look at what the world got from Jesus wound!

Have you been wounded?  We all have at one time or another.  The question is what comes out of your life as a result of your wounds?  Redemption for you and others, what the bible calls the fruit of the Spirit, ‘love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control?’ 

Or bitterness, ‘looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled.’  
Hebrews 12:15. NKJV. 

This is the message of the maple tree and the life and death of Jesus Christ.  CHOOSE WISELY.  Choose redemption!  ‘God said in Deuteronomy 30:10, ‘I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore, choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.’ 

CHOOSE THE SWEET SYRUP OF LIFE!