The noble cedar

Carolyn Lewis
Posted 4/14/22

As I was coming out of the Lingle Post Office one day a friend stopped me to tell me how much he enjoyed my articles in the paper.

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The noble cedar

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As I was coming out of the Lingle Post Office one day a friend stopped me to tell me how much he enjoyed my articles in the paper. His very favorite was the Palm Tree article, and I told him that one meant a lot to me too. He mentioned another tree he loved was the cedar, and I had been thinking about that tree also. I saw it mentioned many times in 1 Kings in the building of Solomon’s temple and even his home was built of the magnificent cedar of Lebanon. The only times I heard about it otherwise was in the making of cedar chests. Hearing him talk about his interest in cedar trees stirred up my interest, and I began looking up the cedar tree to find out more about it. 

There are many different kinds of cedar trees, but the ones in Lebanon were an Old World tree, stately and noble. They are a coniferous tree with fragrant, reddish wood. A tiny cedar seedling can grow to be a mighty and beautiful tree, tall, with a wide spread and a girth of 40 feet. It was used as a symbol of beauty and strength, with a sweet fragrant aroma. It was brought from long distances to be used by Solomon in God’s Temple. 

I have a beautiful cedar chest with copper hinges and trim that a great uncle made in the 1930’s that I have used as an end table in my living room for many years. I don’t hear anything these days about cedar chests. It used to be important to have some necessary items for a home before you got married. It was essentially a Hope Chest, looking forward to the day when we would be married and able to use all the wonderful things we had stored away. It also had that sweet fragrant aroma that lent its perfume to the articles inside. Cedar is also a bug and moth repellent so that made it excellent for storing away bedding and quilts. 

To me the hope chest was an expectation of a happy, wonderful event of a new marriage and the beginning of our own family. It was looking forward to a new future and a new exciting life with our loved one. That sweet fragrant aroma of our new quilt would relax us at night and give us a good rest. 

That reminds me of another time we have that sweet fragrant aroma in our lives; when we receive Jesus into our lives and make Him Lord, we have that relaxing feeling that He is now in charge and we can trust in Him to guide us and direct us through our new exciting future with Him. 2 Corinth: 2:14,15 “But thanks be to God, who always leads us in His triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.” 

The Bible is my own personal Hope Chest, it is full of His love for us, His guidance on a daily basis, and His strength during all the difficult times we encounter here on earth. He gives us something to look forward to and we have unlimited treasures inside to pull out as we need them. 

There’s another use of that sweet fragrant aroma that God uses in the Bible that applies directly to us. We are to be a fragrance of Christ to others in our life. As a Christian, we hold eternal life within us, and we are to be a sweet fragrance to others as we share our lives with them. We can share what God is doing in our life and help them learn how to put their faith in Jesus. We can encourage them and pray for them. Our prayers for others will be a fragrant aroma to Christ, as He wishes for them to come to know Him so that He can bless their lives. 

As we think about our eternal Hope in Christ, let us help others start their own Hope Chest full of treasures from our Savior, with that sweet fragrant aroma that only a life in Christ can offer.