Included In Jesus

On this mid-week, Holy Week Wednesday, we pause on this plateau-like place, on our climb to the Place of the Skull. It is not a place of beautiful sights, for it is a dead place, full of the skulls of the dead who were crucified there. We know where we are heading for we know that our Loving Lord, Master and Friend, will shed His precious Blood, in that Golgotha place, that hill on Calvary’s Mount, paying in full, the price of our sin. We come on this ledge of leisure, this plateau of privilege, for it is a blessed and inclusive time.

Today, from our working text, we are shown that wild olive branches have been grafted in. If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. Romans 11: 17 – 18.

The telling truth is that whether or not we have doubts, railings or rantings against this fact, it remains unremoved that wild olive shoots have been grafted in among the other domesticated branches. Is this not a strikingly marvellous picture, one that mesmerizes us? Is this not a bountiful benefit to the wild branches, being accepted into the fullness and completeness of the true vine, receiving what it never had previously?

Grafting in, is not uncommon or unusual with botanists and even some lay gardeners, who have experimented successfully in the art of grafting in. I personally know this to be true. A friend of ours, who was an avid gardener, once grafted into a Julie mango tree, another kind of mango. It was the Long mango. I know, because we had the opportunity of staying at her place and there was one mango tree, bearing Julie mangoes on one set of branches and Long mangoes, on the other set of branches. The point being made is that the successful grafting in of different kinds of the same, is possible.

To be grafted in, as has been gleaned from the text, is to fix in, put in, or fit in wild olive branches into the places where cultivated branches once were. If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others. The whole picture is not in any way confusing, patchy or fragmented. In other words, it is all smooth, in unity and uniformity.

Indeed! The vine has branches removed or taken out. The vine does not go around with missing branches, but has other branches planted in or grafted into the spaces. Observe, the grafted in wild olive shoots are not just placed any and everywhere in the vine. That would be totally uncharacteristic, disorderly, ugly and ridiculous. Such unwise actions will only breed, disunity, friction, disharmony and confusion. It will be absolutely horrendous. No! The graft-ins are seamlessly fitted into the existing spaces. All become one, so that there is no wild and domestic; no cultivated and uncultivated; no Jew and Gentile; or those called the people of God and those not called the people of God. All will be one in the Lord. This most beautiful work of grace, power and might is stated by God Himself, in Hosea 2: 23. I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called, ‘Not my loved one’. I will say to those called ‘Not my people’, ‘You are my people’; and they will say, ‘You are my God’. All become one in Father God.

On this plateau-like place, this oasis if you like, on our climb to The Place of the Skull, we observe Jesus as He has accepted the invitation of a Pharisee to come and have dinner with him. At this point in time, with only a couple more days before He sheds His Blood, at Golgotha, Jesus is there reclining at the dinner table. I refer to it as an oasis time for Jesus, in that it is a time of beauty, comfort, honour and deep love for Him, expressed most sincerely and simply. Mark tells us this. Now the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were only two days away. Mark 14: 1a. It is here that we observe Jesus include or graft in, a sinner woman, to the scorns of His host.

We take this story up, as told by Luke. While Jesus reclined at the table, there must have been a stir, When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume. Luke 7: 37. Luke goes on to explain how she pours out her heart, soul, mind and strength on Jesus, as she stands behind Him, at His feet, weeping and drying His feet with her hair. She then kisses the feet of Jesus and anoints them with her most expensive perfume. The Pharisee is a good and religious man, like the cultivated branch. The woman is a sinner, like the wild olive shoot. When Jesus saw the heart and mind of His host, He pulled him down on it and ended lifting high the woman. Jesus includes her into Himself and the Kingdom of God.

Known or not known, will you receive these refreshing and reinvigorating words of Jesus as He includes this sinner? See how He grafts her in, fixes her in, securing a place for her.

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Luke 7: 44 – 46. Jesus assures her that all her sins have been forgiven. Then He seals this work of saving grace with these most soul-freeing, sin-bursting, heart-rejoicing words. Your faith has saved you; go in peace. Luke 7: 50.

Will you ask yourself, as I have asked myself, with deeply penitential heart and mind, this question? Is my faith of such that Jesus is happy and most delighted to announce to me that I have been saved by my faith? Do I know the lavish blessing of peace that He and He alone is able to pronounce upon me, so that I can leave in peace and live in peace?

You and I are Jesus’ wild branches whom, through His ever-working Spirit, He has cleansed and made us free from sin, to be included with Him and in Him and know His peace.