Why "The Olive Leaf"?

Throughout my life I have always believed in Jesus Christ. As a little boy I loved hearing about the things Jesus said and did during his time walking among us. The stories filled me with wonder. What would it have been like to sit at his feet as he gave his "sermon on the mount"? Or to have been witness to the many healings he performed? To have had the honor to be one of the disciples who called him master? I'll never forget the experience I had when, one day in church, a woman stood and sang, "I Walked Today Where Jesus Walked." The words of the song filled me with a palpable longing that has remained with me to this day.

Well, the idyll of my childhood inexorably gave way to the many cares of adulthood. The years have flown and I am now a man in my late fifties. Though I gratefully acknowledge that God has abundantly blessed me, I have also had to pass through some very hard things. In all my hardest times I found that Jesus was there for me, offering help and comfort. There is a song that expresses my feelings during these times better than I ever could,

Where can I turn for peace?
Where is my solace
When other sources cease to make me whole?
When with a wounded heart, anger, or malice,
I draw myself apart,
Searching my soul? 

Where, when my aching grows,
Where, when I languish,
Where, in my need to know, where can I run?
Where is the quiet hand to calm my anguish?
Who, who can understand?
He, only One.

He answers privately,
Reaches my reaching
In my Gethsemane, Savior and Friend.
Gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching.
Constant he is and kind,
Love without end.

There are hurts so deep that they are beyond any earthly remedy. When those times come I call upon Jesus and he goes through it with me. Now, when I think of him, my heart swells with so many feelings my eyes grow wet. It's so hard for me to put these feelings into words, but I have been looking for a way to try.

I have created "theOliveLeaf.org" as a place where I can write my feelings of love and gratitude for Jesus Christ, as well as insights I get in the scriptures, particularly the stories of Jesus, and how I have come to apply them personally.

So that is my intent, but, in particular, why did I choose, "theOliveLeaf" as my domain name? Olives are strongly associated with Christ and deeply symbolic. It was upon the Mount of Olives, in a garden called Gethsemane, where Jesus began his sacrifice that atoned for the sins of all mankind. Gethsemane means, "olive press." To extract oil from olives requires great pressure. I have seen images of a couple of kinds of ancient olive presses. One method used a long lever and a heavy weight to press down upon the olives. The other, which I have pictured here, was to roll a heavy stone along a circular trough, repeatedly crushing the olives.

I have no idea which type would have been in use in Judea at the time of Christ, but either way, the symbolism of the "crushing pressure" is the same.

Jesus felt that crushing pressure as He began to take upon Himself the weight of our sins in the garden. The scripture says that He "began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy" (Mark 14:33). Luke's account adds, "And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground" (Luke 22:44). It is impossible for us to truly comprehend what Jesus bore to atone for our sins, but Gethsemane, or "the olive press," makes a powerful symbol for it.

Another symbol pointing us to Christ is the "olive branch," which is associated with peace. Today, we say, "He extended an olive branch" as a way of saying, "He sued for peace." Jesus Christ is the author of peace. He said, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid" (John 14:27).

Finally, olive oil is a symbol of healing, particularly of the healing of our wounded souls available in Christ (James 5:14).

With all these associations to Christ of everything olive-related, I chose "The Olive Leaf" as an expression of what I hope this site will become: my small way of expressing my devotion to him to whom I owe so much, and, in fact, everything.

It may be that few will ever read what I write here. If this site serves only as a private devotion, then it will still be worth it. If, in addition, it can serve to give encouragement even to one other soul who is striving to find that "peace of God, which passeth all understanding" (Philippians 4:7), if it can help point them to the source of that peace, even the Prince of Peace, then, truly, "my cup runneth over" (Psalms 23:5).