Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old is gone, the new is here!  II Corinthians 5:17 NLT

If you’ve learned anything about me since I started writing for the Gatepost Weekly, you know that I treasure green living things. To say that I love to garden would be an understatement. Growing things of beauty and providing food for the table has been a part of me since childhood. At this time of year, I wait impatiently for the day when I can get outdoors and “play in the dirt.” To pass the days and prepare my mind for spring, I researched gardening opportunities, and I came across an article about grafting trees that caught my attention. It’s an art form I’ve never tried and, at this point in life, I likely won’t, but it made interesting reading and planted a few seeds for thought in my head.

It seems that fruit trees, in particular, do not grow well from seed. Most of the fruit trees we find in nurseries and garden centers have been cross-pollinated and if we attempt to grow new trees from their seed, they will revert back to one or an incorrect blending of both of the parent trees, thus producing fruit that doesn’t resemble that of the tree in your backyard. In order to ensure the quality of the fruit you’ve come to expect from your tree, grafting is your best choice for reproduction and you’ll need to start thinking about performing this surgery while the tree is in its prime because the grafted specimen will take several years to produce fruit. All things happen in God’s good timing.

I won’t go into detail, there are plenty of online sites to aid you in the process, but you will need to gather cuttings from your original fruit tree in winter while the tree is dormant and acquire rootstock from a reputable dealer in spring. Your cuttings (scion) can be grafted onto the rootstock using a number of methods. You’ll need to study them and make your choice, based upon things like location, needs, the result you want to achieve, etc. An important factor in choosing your materials is compatibility. If your rootstock and scion are not compatible, the graft will be rejected. Be sure to adequately prepare yourself for the task, which is good advice regarding any project.

I recently heard bits & pieces of a conversation on YouTube (and we all know we can trust the credibility of YouTube) between a man-on-the-street interviewer & a Jewish man. I certainly can’t quote the video but the gist of it was that the Jewish man adamantly stated that Jesus was no savior and that he, a Jewish man did not need a savior…he had God. He went on to insist that Jesus was not the long-awaited Messiah but just a teacher or priest. That’s when I really began to think about the simple fact that had the Jews in Jesus day not rejected Him as their Savior, had they not nailed Him to a cross and watched Him die but had, instead, embraced Him, how different our world would likely be today. We Christians were not God’s chosen people, but when the chosen ones killed Him, we were grafted onto the family tree of Jesus!

The big news is that because God’s chosen people rejected His son, the gospel opened for the Gentiles. We became the grafted branches of the chosen people. (Paraphrased from Romans 9:30-31)

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. As Christians, we will spend the next six weeks in contemplation of who Jesus was and what He came to do. Think about who you are in Him and how you came to be an important part of His family.

“Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief and you stand by faith. Romans 11:19-20a