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I’ve been getting into song writing this year and while I used to write songs as a teenager, most were satire and humor and I wasn’t serious enough to write many serious songs. I did attempt a few but I don’t really sing or play any instruments so I didn’t have any way of converting them to music.
Well, with the advent of AI tools like Suno.com (shameless plug and yes, that’s an affiliate link but we both get 500 credits if you use it) anyone can make music. And honestly, whether you’re doing it for fun or seriously trying to make something good, it’s pretty mindblowing.
Anyway, back to this Christmas song.
With the holiday approaching a few family members suggested I should try my hand at a Christmas song. I liked the idea and even had a concept in mind but I didn’t try to force it, I just let it stew for a couple weeks.
Then, it all kind of came to me. I knew I wanted to do something about the tree in Nephi’s vision of the tree of life and Mary.
If you think about it, there’s a mini Christmas story happening right there in 1 Nephi 11. You have a beautiful, bright tree, the heavens opening and an angel coming down, a virgin bearing a child in her arms who is the Son of the Father, the Lamb of God, and joy to the soul.
I had been thinking about the legend of how Martin Luther created the first Christmas tree. But all the research I’ve been doing about the divine feminine, the blessed tree, etc. caused an idea to pop into my head, “Mary was the first tree of Christmas” and that’s the core idea of the song.
I write the chorus first, you want to have some kind of good hook. This song features a little bit of a lengthy introduction to the idea, tells a story with some hints that it’s Mary which should be obvious by the time you get to the chorus.
After the first chorus I wanted to go back to the garden of Eden with the two trees there and the motif of life and death they presented. Then, parallel that with Mary as the tree of life and the cross being a tree of death. Wove in some womb/tomb imagery and some parallels to the breath of life in the garden and Mary witnessing the first and last breath of Christ but then living to see salvation’s day.
That’s the idea, that Mary was the first “tree” of Christmas. I think the symbolism there is really cool and I think Mary is a singular figure, someone we probably underestimate and who likely had one of the most important roles that any human being had to play on earth.
I’m not the best artist, but I love to draw, and I’m not the best writer or lyricist but I love to do it anyway. It’s just another form of expression and sharing ideas.
So enjoy and have a blessed Christmas!
Lyrics
The First Tree of Christmas
Wasn’t fir or pine
It didn’t bear ornaments
Or strings of colored light
The first tree of Christmas
Was planted long ago
In the ancient land of Israel
Grew mankind’s only hope
The first tree of Christmas
Sprang from Jesse’s line
The first tree of Christmas
Fulfilled a plan divine
To the first tree of Christmas
Angelic words were said
Hail, thou highly favored
Of heaven thou art blessed
The first tree of Christmas
Beauty burning bright
Bearing condescension
A child of love and light
Oh, fallen world, behold Him
The Lamb of God foretold
Fruit of the tree
Most joyous to the soul
In the beginning was a garden
Where man first drew his breath
There stood a tree of life
And one that brought forth death
Through many generations
Prophets saw the tree
A virgin would conceive
And bear the Prince of Peace
The first tree of Christmas
Beauty burning bright
Bearing condescension
A child of love and light
Oh, fallen world, behold Him
The Lamb of God foretold
Fruit of the tree
Most joyous to the soul
From the cradle unto Calvary
A tree of life, of death
The first tree of Christmas
A first and final breath
Planted in a womb of earth
Three days and nights He lay
The first tree of Christmas
Saw salvation’s day
The first tree of Christmas
Beauty burning bright
Bearing condescension
A child of love and light
Oh, fallen world, behold Him
The Lamb of God foretold
Fruit of the tree
Most joyous to the soul
Oh, fallen world, behold Him
The Lamb of God foretold
The fruit of the tree
Most joyous to the soul
2 Comments
Love the song and the imagery. I have seen the tree as Christ, as indicated by the angel to Nephi, but this perspective of Mary is wonderful and insightful. Thanks for being open to the Spirit and for sharing it with us.
As you know, symbols can take on many meanings and there’s an association with Christ and the tree of life. In Nephi’s vision, it seems that the tree he sees is associated with the mother while Jesus is associated with the fruit of the tree. Nephi describes the tree by saying, “the beauty thereof was far beyond, yea, exceeding of all beauty; and the whiteness thereof did exceed the whiteness of the driven snow” and describes Mary as “exceedingly fair and white…beautiful” the same language as the tree. And just as the tree bore fruit, Mary bears fruit and that fruit is Jesus.
I think there is another piece to this puzzle in Alma 42 where we read, “justice exerciseth all HIS demands, and also mercy claimeth all which is HER own” and “mercy cometh because of the atonement.” Justice is masculine and mercy is feminine and mercy can claim her own because of a third object, the atonement which is through Christ. I think we see this pattern in Nephi’s vision.
We see a tree bearing fruit first, or in other words, a mother, a birth, and her offspring. We then see Mary first without and then with Jesus, or in other words, a mother, a birth, and her offspring. Finally there is a third example. The angel first asks if Nephi knows the condescension of God before he is shown Mary, then he is told “behold the condescension of God” and then the first thing he sees is another birth in the form of the baptism of Jesus who is the offspring or fruit, but where is the mother?
I think she is represented by the dove which was a near Eastern symbol connected to the divine feminine. Something that may have made more sense before Josiah’s reforms. Jesus appears to in many ways have been trying to restore or reference beliefs that were held then but later rejected. He certainly challenged those beliefs in his teachings.
I think there are three levels to Nephi’s vision that point to a divine feminine and Mary is just the second level. So we see a pattern like this:
Tree > Mary > Dove/Holy Ghost/Divine Mother
Fruit > Jesus > Spiritual offspring
The song is rooted in only the second level focused on the Mary and Jesus relationship and what Mary witnessed as “the first tree of Christmas” and Jesus as the fruit of the tree of life. We don’t partake of the tree itself, we partake of the fruit the tree provides. The tree is the love of God “which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men” which is very much like the Holy Spirit and the gifts that flow from it the tree, the mother, the Holy Spirit as symbolized by the dove.
Becoming spiritually born of God requires the gift of the Holy Ghost and birth is a female thing. I think there is a higher divine feminine working through her son, a divine family operating as one. Mercy claiming her own through the gift of her son and his atonement.
I don’t claim to know precisely the mechanics of all of this but those are the connections I see and that would be just scratching the surface. There are implications but they lead to places where we don’t have the light of revelation to the church as a whole to guide much further.
This is a level of depth that I think exists and can be plainly seen in Nephi’s vision. In other sermons and teachings there are generalizations where Christ and his atonement can be represented by the tree of life and more specifically by partaking of the fruit, but I do think there is much more depth to Nephi’s vision on this subject that we appreciate.