No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. (Revelation 22:3-5)

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. See the Tree of Life growing in the heavenly city along that river and the golden street? Life in all its fullness is pictured with the twelve-fold fruit the Tree produces each month the year around. Even its leaves are filled with healing. “No longer will there be anything accursed” (Revelation 22:3). 

This takes us back to the radiant pureness of the Garden of Eden, the first Paradise. Genesis 2 describes the river that watered it. And in its midst was the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Through Satan’s deception and Adam and Eve’s sin, the curse of death came into the world. Our first parents rebelled against God’s love and ate from the forbidden tree. Death reigned and that curse was passed down to all humanity. For everyone who does not continually do everything written in the Law is cursed. 

But on another tree many centuries later, the Son of God hung nailed to the Cross. He became the curse in our place. And by His death, He undid the curse of Adam’s sin. The Scripture declares in Galatians 3, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree'” (Galatians 3:13). “No longer will there be any curse,” God declares. 

The blood of the Lamb that stained the tree of the Cross removes sin’s curse. You have been washed clean and made ready to eat the fruit of the Tree of Life in Paradise restored. Death is undone. Life flows from the throne of the Lamb. In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

Now from the tree of Jesus’ shame Flows life eternal in His name; For all who trust and will believe, Salvation’s living fruit receive. And of this fruit so pure and sweet The Lord invites the world to eat, To find within this cross of wood The tree of life with ev’ry good. (“The Tree of Life” LSB 561, st.4)

Audio Reflections Speaker: Pastor Duane Bamsch