Like an Olive Tree

by John Comer

I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God’s unfailing love forever and ever” (Psalm 52:8).

How does my garden grow?

With an olive tree near the front door of our home. If God has a tree which is dear to his heart, it may be the olive. It has long and close ties with his people.

During the anxious days toward the end of the Great Flood, as Noah’s ark rested on the mountains of Ararat, his hope was rewarded as the dove returned with a freshly plucked olive leaf in its beak. A dove with an olive branch is now the universal symbol for peace and hope. We speak of holding out the olive branch, and people know what we mean.

While Moses was on Mount Sinai, God told him to use “clear oil of pressed olives” to keep the lamps burning in the sacred tabernacle. Also, exotic, fragrant ingredients were added to olive oil in the formula for compounding the sacred anointing oil used in God’s service.

Later in Israel’s history, in King Solomon’s great temple in Jerusalem, the two cherubim in the inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place, were themselves constructed of olive wood covered with pure gold.

The prophets and apostles used this tree for illustrations in their teaching. Paul wrote of God’s kindness in grafting Gentiles, wild olive shoots, into the richness of the good olive tree.

As long as the earth stands, the Mount of Olives will be a special place because of its association with Jesus. He often went there to pray. He rode down its slopes, past the olive trees, and into Jerusalem on a donkey, to hear shouts of “Hosanna in the highest.” It was in the olive groves on the base of this mountain at a place called Gethsemane (the oil-press) that he was betrayed and arrested. It was from the Mount of Olives that he ascended to the Father.

The City of Tucson has made the planting of fruiting olive trees illegal because the pollen is so allergenic. Every year we threaten to dig out our tree. Regardless, the olive will live on and flourish in Scripture.

As you suffer and sneeze through olive blossom season, perhaps it will bring you some comfort to remember God’s wonderful association with this noble tree.