The precious wood of the Cross is made up of cedar, pine and cypress trees and those who make pilgrimage to the Holy Land can see it in two ways: in its natural form as distinct trees and in the Holy Church of the Resurrection as an object of veneration, in the form of the Precious Cross, sprinkled in the blood of the Crucified Christ.
Information regarding the origins of the tree whose wood became the Cross of Christ can be found in a number of church traditions as well as in ancient Syriac text. The story begins in the time of the Patriarch Abraham when he received the celestial visitors in the form of 3 men (Gen.18), an image of the Holy Trinity, in the plains of Mamre. According to tradition, with their visit at an end, the three angels set off for Sodom but not before leaving with Abraham their 3 staffs. Sarah, Abraham’s wife, took the staffs purposing to burn them in the fire but the particular fragrance they produced made Abraham retrieve them from the flames and keep them as a gift from God. Abraham kept the staffs until he gave them to Lot in the following way:
After the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot took refuge in a cave with his 2 daughters who in order to conceive offspring made their father drunk and slept with him. The children born to his daughters gave rise to the Moabites and the Ammonites. After this sin Lot prayed asking for the forgiveness of God and also sought Abraham’s counsel as to how he could find absolution. Abraham delivered into Lot’s hands the 3 staffs left by the Angels and instructed him to plant them on the outskirts of Jerusalem and to water them with water from the Jordan river. He told Lot that if they blossomed it would signify that God had forgiven his sin. Lot obediently watered the staffs which in due course blossomed and became a tree made up of three woods, of pine, cypress and cedar.
In the time of Solomon, wood was cut from all over the region including from this 3-trunked tree in order to construct the roof of his temple. The craftsmen working on the roof could not use the wood of this tree, however, no matter how they tried to accommodate it within the structure and for this reasons the workers called it shameful.
As the tradition holds, Caiaphas who presided over Christ’s sentencing (Matt. 26,57, John 18,13) ordered that Christ’s cross be made from this three wooded tree which was considered cursed. He believed that with its irregularities Christ would suffer more and His Crucifixion upon it would be all the more shameful.
Image : Painting of Lot watering the tree in Monastery of the Cross (Seetheholyland.net)
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