Dead trees and dead heroes

The dead tree by the location of the original Garden of Eden. (Photo supplied)

If you go to the place where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers meet and converge, you won’t find the Garden of Eden anymore. You will, however, find a nicely manicured park with a large tree at the center. The base of the tree is encased in a marble slab, and surrounded by a chain fence so you can’t get too close.

Some believe it’s the original Tree of Knowledge. I’ve also heard a story about Abraham (who’s considered a prophet in Islam) visiting the tree and making a prophecy about it. Whatever the case, it’s a special, sacred tree. And it’s very, very dead.

The land I call home is known for pilgrimage. Every year, over 20 million people journey on foot, some from very far away, to visit the tomb of one of their most revered spiritual heroes. He was a man specially favoured by God, they say, a holy man whose shining example of virtue puts him on a different level than ordinary people could ever hope to attain. But by making the journey to his shrine, some of that favour may rub off on them.

So many stories, so many pilgrims; searching, maybe, for what we lost when we left Eden. Echoes of that original exile still resonate through the ground, through the lives of the people around me, through my own life as a foreigner and sojourner. Drive a few hours from the rivers and the dead tree, and you’ll reach the birthplace of Abraham, the place he and his family set out from on their own sojourn. A few more hours, and you can visit the palace where Daniel and his friends lived as exiles in Babylon.

Biblical history is all around me, but sometimes it’s hard to believe God is still at work here. I live in a city of about 1.5 million people, but the number of Christians here would not fill up a typical EMC church building. Do my small efforts really accomplish anything? Quite far from a legendary spiritual hero, I’m an ordinary person living an ordinary life. I go to work, I do errands, I try to meet people and share stories about Jesus. I fumble around in a language I haven’t mastered yet. I pray. I plant little seeds and hope the soil is good.

But thankfully I don’t have to be a hero, because I serve a God who is alive. I’m not here to be legendary. I’m just here to invite people on a journey. Not to the shrine of a dead hero, not to a vanished paradise we can never return to, but to another home, another city, another river. A Tree of Life whose leaves will heal the nations. A kingdom ruled by a Saviour who speaks, who heals, who saves, who does all these things in the present tense, because he is alive.

This worker is unidentified due to security concerns.