“…you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root,…”

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A plum can grow on a peach tree. It doesn’t happen naturally, of course. Grafting is necessary. A twig from a plum tree is carefully inserted into a branch of a peach tree. The tree remains a peach tree but it bears plums on the grafted twig.

The Bible uses this image as an example of the relationship between Christ and believers. St. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, says they are grafted into a Christ as an olive shoot is grafted into a good root. St. John describes Christ as the vine giving life to its’ branches.

When we are grafted into Christ through baptism we do not become divine, just as the plum twig does not become a peach twig. But the plum twig draws all its’ life from the tree.

It is a great miracle of God that we may be be grafted into divinity and partake of the very life of God though Christ.

“May the peace of God that passes all understsanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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