Tree of Promise

A little over seven years ago, thanks to the generosity of some good friends, we spent a week in Palm Desert, California. Not my first choice in places to live, but sure is a great place to visit in early March!

We flew into San Diego, hopped in the rental car, and drove 2 ½ hours from the southern coast to the inland desert.

The accommodations were wonderful; the setting, beautiful. One of our main goals for that particular trip was simply to rest, and we found ourselves in a great setting to accomplish that one!

But we’re not prone to just sitting around for too many days, and we were in the California desert, after all.

One afternoon we ventured into Palm Springs, partly to say we’ve been there, but mostly to visit a coffee shop. Coffee was good, but honestly, Palm Springs did scream, “You just have to come back here!” Not to us, anyway.

At the end of our stay, we left a day earlier than our scheduled departure from San Diego so we could take a leisurely route through the San Jacinto Mountains along the Palms to Pines highway, visiting the town of Idyllwild along the way.

Didn’t know it at the time, but Idyllwild is a popular stop for thru-hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail. It’s a funky little town a mile high in elevation. So, it was quite a bit cooler there than in the desert we’d left a couple hours earlier!

One day we visited the Shields Date Garden in Indio, a neighbor of Palm Desert. Lunch was great—some kind of salad with dates…a sandwich with dates. The highlight, though, was taking a leisurely stroll through the “date garden” with its scores of date palm trees. Interspersed along the way were life-sized statues of various scenes from the life of Christ.

In my opinion, visiting Joshua Tree National Park was most memorable.

The park itself is huge! It encompasses over 1,200 square miles, 671 of which hold national wilderness status. Clearly, this is bigger than the day trip we planned!

To us Midwesterners, the topography is other-worldly. Strange-looking cacti covered vast fields; odd bush-like plants towered far above our heads.

We started our visit on the south end of the park with a hike through the desert tundra to a vista affording us views of a ribbon of the highway below and the Solon Sea to the south.

The final stop of the day took us twenty minutes off the main route to the Keys View overlook with its stunning view of the Coachella Valley below and the smog-covered Los Angeles metropolis far in the distance. We arrived late in the day, startled by the icy wind roaring through the valley and up to the overlook. Off to the south, the silver surface of the Salton Sea—sitting at 230 feet below sea level—glimmers in the fading sunlight. The San Jacinto mountain range, with its snow-capped peaks, outlines the western horizon.

It’s a bit rattling (pun intended) to realize the Coachella Valley represents but a portion of the larger San Andreas Fault. Well, if California falls off into the Pacific, at least the area we were standing on would be on the dry side of the split!

Between the hike at the southern end of the park and Keys View twenty-five or so miles to the north, the terrain is varied and surprisingly beautiful. I suggest “surprising” if you think of a desert as dry, brown, and boring.

Naturally, the key feature of the park is the Joshua Tree. Kind of a strange name, actually. The tree is really a species of the Yucca genus, but certainly the largest in the family! Some can grow to 40’…not particularly impressive as trees go (think Redwoods or Sequoias!), but that’s a pretty big Yucca plant!

They also enjoy favored status as a protected species—and for good reason. Almost all the Joshuas on the planet grow in the Mojave Desert region spanning parts of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and northwestern Mexico. And since it takes 50 years for these guys to reach full size, that makes their existence a bit tenuous.

When I planned this trip, I wanted to know how these “trees” got their name. I mean, a man’s name? Not like oak or maple or aspen or spruce…these plants have a guy’s name attached to them. Why? How’d that happen?

Good question.

The generally accepted version is rooted in Mormon folklore. As Mormon sojourners were heading through the Mojave Desert, so the story goes, they saw these giant “trees” with their outstretched arms, reminding them of Joshua raising his arms to lead the Israelites through the Jordan River and into Canaan.

I dunno…seems a bit off to me. Why wouldn’t they name it the Moses Tree? After all, more than once the biblical record says Moses lifted his arms for the sake of delivering God’s people. Never says that about Joshua, that I recall.

Nevertheless, let’s go with it.

And let’s allow the Joshua Tree to remind us of the faithfulness of God to keep His promises to His people.

Centuries before Joshua led the Israelite wanderers across the Jordan into Canaan, the Lord told their ancestor Abraham He would give them this land. Four hundred years before Joshua, before Jacob left Canaan for Egypt, the Lord promised Jacob that his descendants would return.

And here they are, on the west bank of the Jordan River about to cross.

Joshua (perhaps), mimicking Moses forty years earlier, raises his arms as the waters of the Jordan River part, opening the way for the people to enter the land, receiving the divine promise given long before. For the record, the river parted when the priests entered the river…not when Joshua raised his arms—contrary to Mormon folklore.

To the Christian today, God has also given a host of promises, as Peter reminds us:

…he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

– 2 Peter 1:4

Let these unique beauties—the Joshua Tree—remind you that He who was faithful to use His servant Joshua to fulfill the land promise a few thousand years ago will also fulfill every promise made to us!