Exodus 15:23-25

A Wonderful Tree

They could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter:... and the Lord shewed him [Moses] a tree, and he cast it into the waters, and the waters were made sweet. Exodus 15:23; Exodus 15:25.

Did you ever think how much happier this world is because there are trees in it? If you shut your eyes and picture one of the greatest days of your summer holidays, you will certainly see a tree or trees among the many things that made you happy. Perhaps you see yourself lying underneath one, or performing wonderful feats of climbing. Trees are among the good gifts of God to boys and girls. It may dawn upon you for the first time in your life that the world is beautiful, when you look upon the trees in spring. “The green is lovely, mother,” I heard a little girl say, and then she added, “Why don't people dress themselves more often in that color?”

And trees, as you know, have a big place in the Bible. One of the first trees mentioned in it gives us a troubled feeling. I remember being made very unhappy long ago by trying to understand about that tree in the Garden of Eden. But this one of which we read in Exodus brings us a pleasant surprise. The story of it reads like a fairy tale. Things that happened long ago do have a way of seeming like fairy tales.

Listen to this Bible “tree” story. The Israelites had been wandering for three days in a very dry country; they could get no water to drink. At last they reached a place called Marah. There was plenty of water there, but it was so bitter that no one could drink it. They complained, and they murmured against Moses; that was just their way. Moses prayed to the Lord; that was his way. The Lord's way was to show Moses a tree, which, when he cast it into the waters, made them sweet.

If we had had the management of things, we should have said, “The waters are not fit to drink, let the children of Israel go on.” Then the people, many of them at least, would have died of thirst. I read the other day of a little girl who kept stirring her tea so vigorously that there seemed danger of a hole being made in her cup. She sipped and stirred, and sipped and stirred; at last, holding the spoon in her hand, she said, “Oh, mother, it won't come sweet, pour it out.” But the mother was wise. She did not pour it out, but said, “Oh dear! I forgot to put in any sugar.”

Some people can hear sermons from old stories, and from fairy tales. What sort of sermon does this story of the tree at Marah preach? One that should be quite useful for boys and girls. Did you ever see a little fellow being dragged to school against his will? He cried as if his heart would break. To him going to school was like having the waters of Marah to drink.

A good mother would never yield to his tears by letting him stay at home. She would try to sweeten the waters by showing him how good it was to get to know things.

Hans Andersen, the great fairy tale writer, tells of a boy who had learnt to sweeten the waters for himself. “There once lived in an old cellar, down in a little narrow street, a poor, sick boy. He had been confined to his bed from his earliest years; perhaps now and then he was able to take a few turns up and down his little room on his crutches, but that was all he could do. Sometimes during the summer the sunbeams would stream through his little cellar-window, and then, if the child sat up and felt the warm sun shining upon him, and could see the crimson blood in his slight, wasted, transparent fingers, as he held them up to the light, he would say, ‘today, I have been out! ' He knew the pleasant woods and their bright vernal green only by the neighbor's son bringing him the first fresh boughs of the beech-tree, which he would hold over his head, and then fancy he was under the shade of the beech trees, with the birds warbling and the sun shining around him.

“One day in spring the neighbor's son brought him some field-flowers, and among them was one with a root; so it was put into a flower-pot and placed at the window, close by the bed, and, being carefully planted, it flourished and put forth shoots and bore flowers every year. It was like a beautiful garden to the poor boy, his little treasure upon earth; he watered it, and tended it, taking care that every sunbeam, from the first to the last which penetrated his little low window, should fall upon the plant. And its flowers, with their soft colors and fragrance, mingled with his dreams.” ( Andersen's Fairy Tales, 196.) It is good to think of sick children having the water of Marah sweetened for them, is it not?

During the world wars and times of trouble, many of your fathers and mothers, or grandfathers and grandmothers, had to drink the waters of Marah. They felt them to be very bitter. the waters were sweetened. They came to know, like never before, the beauty of sacrifice. Many of your big brothers gave up their lives for the sake of what they knew to be right, and they were not afraid. They gloried in the doing of it.

Now, I want to tell you about another tree. The cross on which Christ died is sometimes spoken of as the “Tree.” It is by that Tree that we are saved from what makes both life and death very bitter that is, sin. I do not need to speak to you of the unhappiness that comes from doing wrong. You have tasted that Marah many times now. You know the bitterness of doing wrong. But Jesus Christ died upon the “Tree” that you might have the sweet happiness of forgiveness.

He died that we might be forgiven,

He died to make us good,

That we might go at last to Heaven,

Saved by His precious blood.