There is a marvelous legend from the Middle Ages. Perhaps you have heard it.
The son of Adam and Eve, Seth, returned to the site of the original Garden of Eden, to try and obtain mercy for his dying father. He was met at the gates, which, as the Bible says, are guarded by cherubs carrying flaming swords.
Seth met the cherub and asked for some sort of mercy for his father — something that might possibly save him.
The angel handed Seth some seeds from the Tree of Life.
Seth took those seeds back and planted them, and they grew into a new tree. Meanwhile, Adam died. But the tree that grew from Seth’s seeds was later cut down and became the staff that Moses wielded when he raised the serpent (Num. 21). Then, it became part of a bridge in Jerusalem. And a little while later, it floated in the pool of Bethesda, when the waters, there, were causing miracles.
It was also at about that time that the pole from the tree cut down by Moses, that grew from the seeds planted by Seth, those seeds coming from the Garden of Eden’s Tree of Life, was taken from the pool in Bethesda and used to make one of the crosses used for executing criminals on Golgotha. Jesus died upon it.
