Tree of the Cross (14th c), Pacino di Bonaguida

In this exquisite wood panel, Pacino di Bonaguida depicts the Cross of Jesus as the Tree of Life. In a cave at the root of the tree lies the devil, and at ground level, the Genesis narrative of creation and fall unfolds, indicating that Christ’s death upon this Cross, this tree, sprouted from the seed of Adam and Eve’s sin. Twelve branches sprout from the trunk, symbolizing the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve Apostles of Jesus. Hanging from these branches are the fruits of the Crucifixion, and each fruit depicts a scene from the life of Christ. If you read them from left to right, beginning with the bottom branch, these images take the viewer from the Incarnation to the eschaton. By depicting the Crucifixion as the central image among many images, we understand the Cross as the crowning event in salvation history, which contains within it the entire breadth of the divine plan for redemption. “The desire to embrace his Father’s plan of redeeming love inspired Jesus’ whole life, for his redemptive passion was the very reason for his incarnation” (CCC, §607).

He grew up like a sapling before him,
like a shoot from the parched earth;
there was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him,
nor appearance that would attract us to him.
He was spurned and avoided by people,
a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity,
one of those from whom people hide their faces, spurned,
and we held him in no esteem.

Yet it was our infirmities that he bore,
our sufferings that he endured,
while we thought of him as stricken,
as one punished by God and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our offenses,
crushed for our sins;
upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole,
by his stripes we were healed.
(Isaiah 53:2-5)

The Church has always presented the Cross as the saving Tree, from which new Life comes forth, contrasted with the Tree of Eden, where our first parents turned against God’s love. The hymn Crux Fidelis, sung each year in the Good Friday liturgy, beautifully evokes the description of the Tree of the Cross as the most beautiful of all, because it holds the sweetest of burdens, Christ Himself:

 

For, when Adam first offended,
eating that forbidden fruit,
not all hopes of glory ended,
with the serpent at its root:
broken nature would be mended
by a second tree and shoot. …

So the Father, out of pity
for our self-inflicted doom,
sent him from the heavenly city
when the holy time had come:
He, the Son and the Almighty,
took our flesh in Mary’s womb. …

Hear a tiny baby crying,
founder of the seas and strands;
See his virgin Mother tying
cloth around his feet and hands;
Find him in a manger lying
tightly wrapped in swaddling bands! …

So he came, the long-expected,
not in glory, not to reign;
Only born to be rejected,
choosing hunger, toil, and pain,
Till the scaffold was erected
and the Paschal Lamb was slain. …

 

No disgrace was too abhorrent:
nailed and mocked and parched he died;
Blood and water, double warrant,
issue from his wounded side,
Washing in a mighty torrent
earth and stars and oceantide. …

 

 

 

Noblest tree of all created,
richly jeweled and embossed:
Post by Lamb’s blood consecrated;
spar that saves the tempest-tossed;
Scaffold-beam which, elevated,
carries what the world has cost!

 

Faithful Cross the saints rely on, noble tree beyond compare!
Never was there such a scion, never leaf or flower so rare. …

Sweet the timber, sweet the iron.

Sweet the burden that they bear.

(Hymn Crux fidelis, for the Good Friday Liturgy: Adoration of the Holy Cross)

 

See also: Lignum Crucis