Why Apples have Red Cheeks
(unknown origin)
 4:04
|
In the Garden of Paradise there was a tree reserved for God alone. It bore the most beautiful red apples you can possibly imagine. Every time that either the animals came near to it, or the birds flew past it, they paused to look at the wonderful tree with the red apples and to admire its beauty. Adam and Eve too, who lived in Paradise, often gazed at the tree reserved to God alone.
But one day the Snake tempted Eve, she plucked an apple, tasted it, and also gave it to Adam to eat. The beauty of the tree was suddenly spoilt, and when Adam and Eve were driven forth from Paradise the garden lost its most beautiful tree. It had such a shock that its apples lost their entire colour. They were colourless and hard, and if someone had now tasted them, they would not have been sweet and juicy but as bitter as gall.
Yet the tree would one day be beautiful again, although not for many hundreds of years. A descendant of this Tree of Paradise grew in Mary and Joseph's garden in Nazareth. It was short and stunted and each year it bore such hard and bitter apples that nobody wanted to eat them, not even the donkey.
However, when the Angel came to Mary to tell her she would become the mother of Jesus, he also went to the apple tree and whispered to it: "Be ready, apple tree, for your years of distress are over. At Christmas time a child shall be born Who is the Son of God. Remember, you are the tree who bears God's fruit.".
This was in the spring. In the weeks that followed, Mary and Joseph were amazed to see the tree growing taller, and soon putting out such a wealth of flowers one might have expected to see it collapse under their weight. There was a mighty buzzing and humming in its branches as the bees came from far and wide to sip nectar from its blossom. Later, the tree was clad in such a rich coat of green leaves that it hid everything underneath.
When the fruits ripened in the autumn, they were no longer small and hard but really big and beautifully round. In fact, they even began to turn red, very gently at first and then stronger and stronger until all the apples had brightly shining red cheeks, they were so happy to be the apples of God again, when he was born on earth. Mary collected some apples in her basket and when she saw how sound and firm they were, she said to Joseph: "Let us keep them for our child."
Thus it happened that when they had to go to Bethlehem, the little donkey carried among the bundles on his back a bag of red apples that were being kept solely for the child, and Mary and Joseph did not touch them, even when they were very hungry.
This is how the curse was removed from the apple tree. It can from now on give its fruits to mankind again, although a few each year are kept for the Jesus Child, the ones with the most beautiful red cheeks. These show us especially well how happy the apple tree is that God has come into the world, and this is why they belong on the Christmas tree.
|
