The Trinity in Unity and the Unity in Trinity - Isaiah 6:1-8

In the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In a few moments, we’re going to confess in the Athanasian Creed that the Father is incomprehensible, the Son is incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit is incomprehensible. When British author, Dorothy Sayers, heard this, she quickly added the phrase “the whole thing is incomprehensible.”

We’re living in a day and a time where the doctrine of the holy Trinity is unpopular. One could understand why, I suppose, because it is difficult thing to fully comprehend. That’s why we try to explain it using metaphors, such as “God is like an egg.” But, actually, that is both an incomplete and misleading metaphor. I can separate an egg into shell, white, and yolk, discard the shell, toss the yolk, and eat only the white but still have egg. If you try to separate the Triune Godhead, you no longer have God. You have a mess which is unbiblical and unChristian. 

I don’t know that any human being is able to fully comprehend the mystery of one God in three persons, three persons in one God, separate yet inseparable. The truth is that we don’t need to understand everything about the Trinity perfectly, but we are called by God to understand it as best we are able, using our intellect, our ability, and our human reason. It’s important because God reveals this to us in Holy Scripture. If God says it to us in His Word, we must believe it. If we believe it, then we must also speak to defend it. This is called confessing the faith. The Christian church not only confesses the faith every day individually and every Sunday corporately, but especially on this holy Trinity Sunday when we confess the triune God in the very precise and specific language of the Athanasian Creed.

Some people claim this understanding of God is too academic. God is no mere academic principal. Just ask Isaiah. Isaiah had no such difficulty in understanding and expressing the holy and Almighty God. He has a vision of God, and in the vision he sees the fullness of Almighty God sitting on a throne in the holy temple, and the train of his robe, a symbol of God’s divinity and His holiness, fills the entire temple. God is surrounded by six-winged seraphim all swirling around the throne, joining together and singing the incredible doxology, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty; the whole earth is full of your glory.” The voices are so glorious and so powerful that it is as if an earthquake is happening, shaking the very foundations of the temple, as smoke fills the Holy Place.

The scene is almost beyond human comprehension. Artists have tried to capture this scene, our own minds try to imagine what Isaiah saw. While we may not know this side of heaven exactly what it was like, we have an inkling of the grandeur and can begin to appreciate the majesty of the moment. Because in that moment, Isaiah is absolutely overwhelmed.

And who wouldn’t be? This is God, Yahweh himself, I am who I am. This is God, who spoke to Abraham, promising that he would have a son, and through that son, the nations of the earth would be blessed. This is God who spoke to Moses from the burning bush and who led Israel from Egypt into the promised land, guiding Israel in a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. This is God whose very presence entering into the tabernacle and then the Temple, dwelling among his people. And when God spoke, whether in direct theophany as he did to Abraham and Moses, or through the mouths of his prophets who declared, “Thus saith the Lord,” it was God: mighty, powerful, all knowing, all powerful, present everywhere, both dwelling among and surrounding his people with his presence.

So you can understand Isaiah’s fear and terror when he sees the presence of God filled the temple. God is holy. Isaiah is not. God is eternal. Isaiah is temporal. God is Creator. Isaiah is creation. God is without beginning or end. Isaiah was born and some day he would face death. God calls. Isaiah was the one called. God is sinless. Isaiah is a sinful man who serves among sinful men and the holy, sinless power of God cannot abide the presence of sin.  

And, because of that, what could have been a moment filled with sheer awe and joy at seeing the majesty of God, the moment was instead filled with fear and terror. “Woe is me! I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the middle of people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”  He had seen God. He was sinful. His countrymen were sinful. He would die for what he witnessed.

“Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” On this Trinity Sunday, that sentence stands as a remarkably clear confession of our own sins and the sins of those around us. Our lips are far from clean. Words of prayer and praise are far from our mouths as we instead use God’s name as a curse and slander our neighbor’s good reputation, all in the name of “truth” of course. But it’s not just our lips. Our ears join in, as we listen to the gossip around us, seeking out more and more that we can use against our neighbors. Our hands take that which isn’t ours, and lash out in anger instead of holding on to each other with mercy and compassion. Our feet fail to lead us in the paths of righteousness and the places where God’s people gather for receiving the gifts of God, choosing our own way instead. Our hearts are filled with greed and anger instead of love, joy and peace. Our eyes look at what isn’t ours to have, leading us to covet; our eyes look lustfully at others whom we are not given to love, honor, and cherish; our eyes lie and deceive to us that the fruit before us is good and pleasing and, besides, God doesn’t really mind if we give it a little taste…

And, when we consider that our lips are no better than Isaiah’s, nor are our hands, feet, eyes, and ears, or hearts, we realize that we, too, deserve nothing but death for we are unclean people, sinful people, who fall far short of the glory of God. “Woe is me. Lord, have mercy on me a sinner.”

What is perhaps the most remarkable part of Isaiah’s vision isn’t that he sees God, and witnesses the angelic court of the King, and that he hears the choir sing. It’s not even that Isaiah recognizes his situation standing before God. It’s that even before Isaiah can ask for it, God shows mercy to Isaiah. In the mercy of Almighty God, even as He sits on His glorious throne surrounded by winged seraphs, He acts. The Lord sends one of His angels down to the temple and, picking up a burning coal from the burning altar, touches Isaiah's mouth. Here, God does not send fire in anger, but in His mercy, He reaches down and cleanses Isaiah's mouth. It’s as though the coal cauterizes the sins from his tongue.

The coal comes from the altar. The altar is the place where the sacrifices are made for the sins of the people. As this is taking place in the Temple, and Isaiah sees the throne of God, it is probable that this is a scene from the Holy of Holies, the locatedness of God’s presence at the ark of the covenant. The lid of the ark is called the mercy seat, the specific place where God promises to be among His people. Every year, the high priest would collect the blood of a perfect sacrificed lamb into a basin. Some blood would be sprinkled on the worshipping community of Israel, but the rest would be poured out on the mercy seat of the ark while the corpse of the lamb was consumed in fire.

The Old Testament sacrifice was a foreshadowing of The Sacrifice which was to come. Every year, the Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, sacrifice had to be repeated. Countless lambs were slaughtered. Until Christ, the Lamb of God, is made the perfect, vicarious, substitute sacrifice for the world.  His mouth speaks blessings, not curses – even to those who drove the nails and beat Him mercilessly. His hands are held up in blessing, delivering His peace and His joy to those who believe in His name. His feet walked the way of the cross, carrying the sins of the world so that we do not suffer the eternal damnation that our sins deserve. His ears listened with compassion to the cries of the broken and repentant, offering mercy and forgiveness. And His blood is shed, a perfect sacrifice, covering our sins from God’s view so that all He sees is His beloved, redeemed people in Christ. And, today, so that you have no doubt that your sins have been atoned for, He places onto your lips, not a burning coal, but His very own Body and His very own Blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of those same lips.

Your lips, redeemed by Christ the Crucified, today make the good confession of faith. Today’s world says, “you have your beliefs and I have mine,” while preaching tolerance with the mantra “just get along.” Regardless what popular opinion might be, as Christians we are not free to just believe whatever we want or to confess or practice that which denies the Word of God. The Christian church speaks boldly of the faith into which we were baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: one God in three persons, made known to us through Jesus Christ, who sent His spirit that we might believe. The Church confesses it. And we believe it.

And, if you don’t fully understand the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, don’t worry. That doesn’t make you a less-than Christian. It is wonderfully, incredibly doctrine to help us understand a wonderful, incredible God. I actually find comfort in not being able to fully understand and explain God – if I could, what kind of God would that be? It’s not about passing a test. It’s about knowing God, through Christ, by the power of the Spirit, and knowing His love and mercy for us.

So, don’t worry about comprehending it all. Instead, receive the gifts that the Triune God gives you in Baptism, in absolution, in the Word, and in the Supper. And, with your cleansed lips give thanks to God.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

"Can These Bones Live?" - Ezekiel 37: 1-14

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Beneath the streets of Paris, France, are miles and miles of tunnels that date back hundreds of years, used to mine limestone from beneath the city. In the 1700s, as the city expanded, cemetery space became more and more difficult to find. With no new ground available in the city, existing graves were opened and old skeletons were exhumed so that new corpses could be buried.  Wanting a safe and solemn place to store what was exhumed, the remains were taken to the empty, underground tunnels and placed carefully into shelves that were carved into the stone. Now, three hundred years later, these tunnels, colloquially called, “The Catacombs,” or les catacombes de Paris, and these ossuaries hold the bones and skulls of tens of millions of Parisians. In places, the bones are stacked so tightly and so high that it is as if tunnels are themselves nothing but bones.

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I have only seen photos of the catacombs with its ancient tunnels filled with dirty brown bones. Simply looking at these at these pictures, I am filled with mixed emotions. There is a very stark beauty in seeing part of the body that is normally hidden by muscle and sinew and enwrapped in skin. There is also a morbid curiosity: who were these people, what did they do, how old were they when they died, when did they live and what did they see? But there is also a certain, haunting, frightening quality. No matter how I might consider the pictures along philosophical or romantic lines, those bones are there for one reason and one reason only: le mort - death. The catacombs are filled with bones of the dead.

Bones humble us. Whether we are looking at skeletons in a museum, the model on the desk in the doctor’s office or at pictures in a book, the lifeless, breathless bones remind us of our mortality. From dust we are, and to dust we shall return.

Empty bones are a reversal of creation. In the beginning, God took dirt and formed it into Adam – “Adam,” by the way, is Hebrew for “dirt.” God’s sculpture looked like a man, but it wasn’t a man, having neither life nor breath in it. Son of man, can this dirt live? O Lord, you know.

There is a wonderful bit of word-play in Old Testament Hebrew. The same word, ruach, can mean Spirit, or wind, or breath, depending on the context. Most translations read that God breathed into Adam the breath of life. God’s Spirit blew and breathed life into the dirt, enlivening it from adamah, dirt, into Adam, man. Son of man, can this man live? Yes, by the power of God’s spirit who gave life. Later, when God choses to make a spouse for Adam, He does so using a bone – a rib – from Adam’s side. Adam rejoices in the gift: she is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, he cries, and gives thanks to God for Eve. Her name, by the way means “Mother of all living things.”

But Ezekiel isn’t standing next to fresh dirt that is filled with possibilities. He’s not standing in the Garden of Eden watching God take a fresh bone from one to form another. He’s been taken up in the spirit of God – that’s vision talk – and led by the hand of God, and he is standing in a valley filled with dry bones that have been exposed to the elements: bleached white by the sun, washed clean by the rain, dried by the wind. These are very dry bones: hollow, marrowless bones, life-less bones, hope-less bones. Very dry, very dead bones, all left out on the valley’s dead floor. And these aren’t neatly placed skeletons either, organized and carefully preserved. These are scattered, mixed up here and there, as if they had been savaged and ravaged by the wild animals and carrion, unburied and unloved, cursed in death as they were in life. They are cut off from life, cut off from the resting places of their fathers, cut off and abandoned as nothing more than refuse.

Son of man, can these bones live? It doesn’t take an orthopedic specialist to interpret the vision. The greatest doctor in the world couldn’t do anything with these bones. There is no way on earth those bones can live. Or, can they?

In Ezekiel’s vision, the bones represent Israel who had become unfaithful, chasing after the gods – lower case g – of the heathen Gentiles. God punished Israel with the destruction of the nation, her soldiers killed in battle, her leaders and most noble citizens taken into exiled captivity, the cities leveled, and fields destroyed.  This all happened after the presence of God left the Temple and the Temple, once the beautiful, sacred House of God, was stripped of its sacred beauty, desecrated, and then destroyed. Literally, the nation and the people of Israel was nothing but a skeleton of what it used to be under David and Solomon.  The question, “Son of man, can these bones live?” isn’t really about the bones. This is a vision, remember? It’s about Israel. Is there hope for Israel? Is there life for the people? Is restoration possible, or are they cursed to die among the Gentiles, cut off from one another, cut off from the promises of God?

Son of man, can these bones, can Israel live? Yes: by the power of God, through the Spirit, working in the proclaimed Word of God, that which is otherwise dead can be made alive.

Ezekiel prophecies, as ordered by God, calling the bones into order and into structure. Then bones, them bones, them dry bones – bones that are dried up, with hope lost, and cut off from the living – them bones hear the Word of God and they respond. Foot bones connect to ankle bones that connect to leg bones that connects to thigh bones. Hip bones and back bones and ribs and tibias and fibias join in, and a skull rests at the top. The bones, the dry bones are connected, but can they live?

Ezekiel speaks again, as commanded by God. Ezekiel speaks, prophesying to the winds, to the very breath of God, and the spirit responds to the Word. God’s spirit gives life. A true breath of life rushes into those bones that are dead, that are without life. It is a re-creation that takes place, as the four winds – symbolizing the fullness of God’s Spirit – the four winds rush in. And in that moment the dead gives way to the living, and that which is empty of breath is filled God’s Spirit that rushes in like the wind blowing across fields and valleys.  The vision is a promise of what is to come for Israel, that they are still God’s beloved, and they will be restored and enlivened once again to be His army sent into the world. “I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people, and I will bring you into the land of Israel. I will put my spirit within you and you shall live.” (v.12).

Remember: this is a vision, a symbol of God’s people of God whose faith has died. The prophetic Word of God spoken by Ezekeil will call Israel to repentance and the Spirit, working through that Word, will both create and strengthen faith in that very same Word. Israel will be restored – not to a great political nation as it was under David and Solomon, but as the house of God. And through Israel, the Messiah will come and a New Israel will be established. The New Israel is called, simply, the Church.

On Pentecost Sunday, the apostles stand on the shoulders of Ezekiel and they speak prophetically and powerfully to the Jerusalem crowd. Themselves empowered by the Spirit of God, the Word they proclaim is carried by the Holy Spirit into the ears, hearts, and minds of the people. Peter preaches, telling the crowd – possibly even some of the same people who fifty days earlier shouted for Jesus’ crucifixion – that Jesus is the Messiah for whom Israel had long waited and He is the One whom the Church proclaims into the world. The Spirit’s mighty work on Pentecost - tongues of flame, the sound of the rushing wind, the hearing of the Good News in their own languages – it’s so that people can hear of Jesus. Peter preaches to the dead bones of the people in Jerusalem, telling them that Jesus is the one who is cast out into the valley of death. He dies out near the city dump where the bodies were tossed like detritus, nothing more than flotsam and jetsam of human remains. He was cast out from His own people and died a common criminal and was buried in a grave, just like His father, David. But, sons of Israel, these bones of Jesus will live. On the third day, He rose from the grave, alive and victorious over sin, and death, and the devil, and the grave.

And, through that prophetic Word, “thus says the Lord,” the Spirit of God worked mightily and powerfully, creating faith in the hearts of thousands who, then, carried that same Spirit-empowered Good News to their homes and communities. The Spirit, working through the Word they shared continued His work of leading people to Jesus.

Son of man, can these bones live? It is tempting for us, I think, to sit here on this Pentecost morning and lament that we have not experienced such a Pentecost moment, either as part of the spiritually dead-to-life crowd, or as the proclaimer of the Word that enlivens. If we equate the work of the Holy Spirit only with the dramatic, extra-ordinary events such as what happened in the valley of bones, or in the streets of Jerusalem, we will be disappointed. We make jokes about being Lutherans and Germans and not being the excitable sort. We don’t talk a lot about spiritual gifts or about how the Spirit moved powerfully in that sermon or worship service. But, make no mistake: the Spirit is very much at work here, today, among us. He is constantly at work in our lives, making our bones – our faith in Christ – alive and strong. For most of us, before we could even speak or understand what was happening, through water and Word, He created faith in us, faith in Christ, through our Baptism. For others, He began working in us through the Word that was spoken to us by friends, family, and pastors who faithfully spoke of Jesus as Savior. In those words, by means of the Word, the Spirit worked powerfully to create faith. For all of us, He continues to work through that same Word of God that was given to the prophets and the apostles, faithfully proclaimed to you, faithfully read and studied by you, faithfully shared by you to your children and grandchildren.

He works to point you to Jesus, the Savior of the World, and day in and day out, through that same Word of God, He holds you close to Jesus so that on the day of resurrection, the say of Jesus’ return, you too will be raised and say, “Yes, these bones do live.”

 

 

Jesus Died to be Your Friend - John 15:9-17

Last week, we heard Jesus talk about vines and branches. Most of us don’t know much about those things. We plant gardens, we raise vegetables, we have fields of grass and grain, but very few of us know much about vines and branches, about grafting and pruning and such things. It’s just not our wheelhouse.

This week, Jesus speaks of friendship. Now, that’s something we can understand. We have lots of friends, of varying degrees of closeness. If you think of it like a bullseye, out here we have acquaintances – people we know casually, like at work or school. We know their names, maybe a little about him or her, just enough that we can say hi and have a quick conversation. But, if push came to shove, the acquaintance probably isn’t someone you would hang around with. You wouldn’t invite them to a party or go to a movie with them, take them dancing or out to dinner with them. Why? Well, you’re acquaintances…that’s all.

Then, there are people with whom we are friendly. Sort of Level Three friends, so to speak. Maybe you played on the same team a few years ago, or worked on a project together, and found you have some common interests, or know some common people. You could talk with these people and not feel uncomfortable, you could sit down at lunch and carry on a conversation that has some real meaning. You could talk about some things of substance, but there are still things you don’t talk about. You’re just not *that* close. The Level Two friends are like these, except you’re a little closer.

And then there are the Level One friends. Level One friends are the people nearest and dearest to your heart. We use terms like “best” friend to describe these people – even if we seem to have more than one best friend. These are the people we hang out with all the time, we look for them at lunch, we text them all afternoon, we talk on the phone, we blow up their Instagram pages and tag them constantly in our social media. These are the people who are sometimes even closer than our own brother or sister and, sometimes, we even think of them as family.

And, if you have a friend like that, you have a gift, indeed because a friend like that is a rarity. Friendship, companionship is something that is a core need for human beings. People are not made to be alone. God realized this in the Garden of Eden when He created Eve to be Adam’s helpmate. Outside our parents, and later, when you marry, a friend is a gift and a really good friend is a very, very special gift. Even Solomon, in his wisdom – or, perhaps because of his wisdom – had a difficult time, finding only one upright man among a thousand and no righteous woman at all (Ecc. 7:28).

We yearn for, we long to find that one-in-a-thousand friend, the friend who sticks with us without any strings attached, who loves us for what we are and in spite of what we aren’t, who defends, supports, loves, and cares for us in your time of need and whom we can love reciprocally in their time of hardship. And, men – lest you think this is only for women, I assure you, this is even more true for us, to have a friend who is even more dear than a brother.

There is a fad that comes and goes, to give friendship jewelry. I think girls do this more than boys, but once boys get to a certain age, they will sometimes give a piece of friendship jewelry to a girl. There are friendship rings, friendship bracelets, even friendship necklaces. Some are handmade, some made out of metal. Some are made in pairs or with parts that match like puzzle pieces to show how close their friendship is.

Today, I want to give each of you a friendship gift. In your bag is a wood cross. It’s to remind you of your greatest friend of all, Jesus. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down His life for His friends.” That’s the mark of the truest, greatest friend of all: He is willing to surrender His life for you.

And, here’s the most remarkable thing about it: He dies for friends who wanted nothing to do with Him. He’s speaking to the Twelve on Maundy Thursday evening. In just a few hours from that moment, when He is arrested, all of the disciples will run away and leave Jesus alone. When asked, they’ll deny knowing Him. And when Jesus breathes His last, only His mother and one of the disciples will stand at the foot of the cross to watch Him die.

That was then, we think, this is now. We would never run away. Yes, yes we would. Yes, we will. Yes, we do. We turn the Commandments into mere suggestions that we can pick and chose, twist and manipulate. When friends challenge us to defend our Christian faith, instead of confessing, to preserve a friendship we crawfish and say, “well, it’s just one way to get to heaven.”  Jesus’ name becomes a punchline, God’s name becomes an expletive, our Baptism is only a picture in mom’s photo album, and confirmation is nothing more than a reason to get presents. What a friend we are for Jesus.

Yet, Jesus dies for us for exactly those very reasons. He dies a sinner’s death so we do not. He calls us to repentance in His name, to live in our Baptism knowing that we are great sinners but He is an even greater Savior. Christ’s friendship is grounded in a unique love, far, far different from what the world considers as love. Jesus’ love is unconditional. It’s as if He is saying, I am willing to do something so radical, so remarkable, so reckless that you cannot even begin to imagine it. I do this because I know what you truly need and what is best for you, even if you do not understand, reciprocate it to me, or appreciate what I am about to do for you. I am going to do for you what is in your best interest, even though you hate me because of it. This great love of Jesus leads Him to the cross. He dies for the world – even His friends who betrayed Him, who denied Him, who ran away into the darkness to leave Jesus alone. Jesus dies for you, for me, for a world of sinners. He buries our denials in the grave and He does not bring them back with Him to life. He rises, glorious and victorious so that you can be His friend into eternity. He choses us, His imperfect friends, to be His friends…holding us so dearly that it is as if we are His brothers and sisters.

This friendship is a no-strings-attached relationship. You don’t have to dress like Him, you don’t have to talk like Him, you don’t have to like the things He likes. But we do get to love like Him. That’s His only command, and it’s not a burdensome command. In the Old Testament, there were Ten Commandments. Jesus reduces them to one: love.

Jesus says, “Abide in my love.” Abide means to remain, to sit, to dwell, to stay put. That’s the confession you will make in a few minutes: that you will remain in this faith into which you were baptized. Christ has called you His friend, He has given you the greatest gift of all in His death and resurrection, simply because He loves you. Remain in that love. How? Be here, in His house; receive His gifts; grow in faith; grow in love.

The other way you remain in that love is to love one another. Jesus dies for you with this great love; He died for the person next to you out of the same love. If Jesus loves you and you and you, what else can we do except to love one another as Jesus loved each of us.

There will be days when your friends fail you. There will never be a day when Jesus fails you. He is your greatest friend, willing to give Himself for you. This cross is a reminder of His great love for you. So, keep this cross close. I keep mine on my desk. I have another one in my side-table drawer in my bedroom. I make them and give them as gifts to my friends. But, I’m giving it to you, not to remember me. I’m giving it to you to remember Jesus.

Ralph was dying of cancer. I gave him one of these crosses for his birthday a few months before he died. After that, he had that cross with him practically every moment of every day, awake or asleep; at home or in the hospital. One day, I asked him why keep it literally on his chest all the time and he simply smiled and said, “It reminds me of Jesus.” When he passed away, the family left it in the casket with him. Ralph died with Christ in his baptism 78 years ago. He clung to that cross in his life; he had it with him in death, too.

That’s the beauty of Jesus. He is with us in life and in death, in days when our faith is strong and in days when our faith is weak. He holds us close to Him. Why? Because He is our friend and He loves us enough to die for us. Amen.

When We Feel Like Branches Chopped From the Vine - John 15:1-8

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

“I am the vine; you are the branches,” Jesus says. This is a mini parable, of sorts, picture language of how Jesus connects us to Himself in Holy Baptism, joining us into His body, the Church just as a vine dresser grafts new branches into established vine-stock. Connected to Him, His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, fills us and we produce spiritual fruit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self control – which we share with others in the name of Jesus. Christians produce Christ-like things because He is in us and we are in Him.

It’s worth noting and remembering the context of John 15. This happens before Easter, on Maundy Thursday night while Jesus and the disciples are sitting at table celebrating Passover. This is a final time together where Jesus is reminding the Twelve that He must suffer and die at the hands of the chief priest, the Sanhedren, and the Roman government and be put to death. He will be taken from them in His death. This reinforces His promises to His disciples but it also deepens the promise: He is not only dwelling with us (John 1:14) but because we are connected to Him, as branches to a vine, He is within us.

A couple years ago, Megan and I planted a peach tree in the back yard. Notice: I planted a whole tree. I didn’t lop off the branches and stick them in the ground, nor did I plant a branchless trunk in the ground. I planted a tree. Branches have no life apart from the trunk. The trunk is there to feed the branches so they can produce fruit. No branches, no peaches; no trunk, no branches, no peaches. Trunk plus branches equals tree equals fruit.  Here is the comparison: we have no life of our own. Our life comes only from Jesus. His resurrection from the dead has revealed that He is the source of all life. Though we die, we shall live. He has defeated sin and death for us, and now nothing can separate us from His love. He gives us life – not just life after death, but life now even as the Kingdom continues to enfold around us. His forgiveness, His life, His salvation flows from He, who is the vine, into us, who are the branches. This life flows into us, and we fill the world with the spiritual fruit that is produced in His name.

But, I’ve lost track of the number of times where Christians – well-grounded, faithful Christians – have asked me, “But Pastor, if this is true, then why do I feel so alone? I if I am connected to Jesus, why do I feel that God is so far from me? Why do I feel so weak, as if my faith is drying up?”  Why, indeed? If we are as connected to Jesus as a branch is to the vine from which it comes, why do we feel this way?” The assumption is almost always that we have remained stationary and that Jesus has somehow moved from us. These thoughts, these feelings, they are frightening. They lead to secondary questions: I thought He would never leave us or forsake us. I thought He loved me. Does this mean my faith is leaving? Does this mean I am no longer His? Why has Jesus left me?

If this is you, or if it has been you in the past, or one day when this is you, I want you to know that these feelings and thoughts are not unique. They have happened to me, to people whom I know, and probably to the person sitting next to you, in front of you, and behind you. They happen to God’s people from time to time. It’s part of life in this world, part of life under the cross of Jesus. And, when it happens, we cry out to God for His mercy and kindness.

Why does this happen? Why does it feel as if this is happening to us? It makes sense if it was someone unfaithful, who doesn’t care if they are still connected to Jesus or not. But this is us, children of God that it happens to.

This is the tussle, the wrestling of faith. The German word for this is anfechtung and it does a better job than we can do in English. Anfechtung wraps together temptation, and trials, and affliction and tribulation. It means the gut-wrenching struggles of life over and against the life of faith. When things come at us we experience anfechtung as wrestle in faith because we remember and we know the promises of God that we have heard over and over and over again. These kinds of prayers and concerns are even in the Psalms – Spirit inspired words recorded in the Scriptures for you. “O God, do not keep silence; do not hold your peace or be still, O God!” (Ps. 83:1)  “O God, why do you cast us off forever?” (Ps, 74:1)  “Give ear to my prayer, O God, and hide not yourself from my plea for mercy!” (Ps. 55:1) “Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Ps. 10:1)  Even Jesus prays like this, using Psalm 22 as He hangs on the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

But, where are you, O God? I’m calling; are you listening? Am I to believe this thin promise against all of the evidence of bad things that is in my face. It seems God Himself is pushing against us, as if he says, “I don’t want anything more to do with you.” And we wrestle and we tussle in faith because we remember, by a thin thread, and we can still feel on our foreheads the drop of God’s Baptismal promise, “You are my beloved…”  

Obviously, I am speaking today to Christians, to fruit-bearing children of God. Connected to Jesus, it is both what we are and who we are. Yet, Jesus says, “Every branch is me that does not bear fruit He (that is, the Father-Gardener) takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit He prunes.” There is a difference, here, in what the Gardener is doing. An unfaithful branch, a not-fruit-bearing branch, a branch that is not doing that for which it is purposed, a branch that is not fulfilling its connectedness to the vine, it is cut off. It is taken away, presumably to the burn pile, both so that it does not detract from branches that are fruit bearing but also so that it does not cause other branches to likewise not bear fruit and become unfaithful. But the fruitful branch, the fruit-bearing branch, the branch that is doing what it is given by God to do, that branch is pruned. Why is that?

It’s interesting that the word that St. John uses here, which our translation calls “pruned,” in all of Greek literature it is never used to speak of pruning, that is carefully trimming a branch to improve production. The verb isn’t about pruning; it’s about cleansing. Verse three uses the same word and our translation gets it right – Already you are clean.  Think about it this way: the branches that bear fruit, He does not cut off and destroy, but the Father-Gardener cleanses it. He sanctifies it. He holies it.

He holies us by stripping away so much of what is in here, the things that would compete for Jesus’ attention, that we think are important, so that it forces us more and more to cling to nothing but the Vine and the Vine alone. “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the Vine I cling.” When we realize this, that He is cleansing us, we also realize He is not far from us but close…oh, so close, as a gardener is to his precious vines and branches. The Father-Gardener prunes, He cleanses by stripping away anything that would keep us from Jesus. He is drawing us closer to Jesus by stripping away anything that would separate us from Him. The Law teaches us we have many things to confess week after week – our self-righteousness, our perceived strength and wisdom, our intellect, our self-focused faith - and life stripes them away – God strips them away - one by one.

He keeps stripping away. It’s mysterious and strange isn’t it how He does this? He cleanses away things that get in the way of Jesus. But sometimes, in your life and mine, He even prunes some of the good things He has given us. We know the loss of loved ones. What gifts of God these people are, but He strips them away from us in His mysteriously known time. And finally, one day, He will strip away from us our very lives itself. I don’t know about you, but I do know that the prospect of dying scares me a bit. I don’t think I am wrong in admitting that. The Valley of the Shadow is dark, and it is long, and it is looming. And when I am at the edge of the valley of the shadow, nothing is there that can bring me through that except to cling to He who is the Vine, to trust that He will never cut me off, that He will never crush a bruised branch. He will hold on to me, with hands of forgiveness, and compassion, and grace, and mercy, and He will carry me through the valley into the banquet hall of the feast which is yet to come.  

Do you feel separated from Jesus? The Father-gardener has prepared a nursery especially for you, where you vines are able to be strengthened to the Vine. It’s called the Lord’s House. Jesus is here, for you. When you feel weak in faith, don’t stay home. Come to the nursery. Come and be fed with life-giving water, faith-strengthening Words, life-renewing bread and wine, His body and blood. Come and be connected to the Vine, along with other branches around you. Here, in the Lord’s House, you discover this wonder. Jesus also strips the sin and the guilt away. That makes a difference when the evidence, the sights we see, it seems He is so far away. He is not far; He is near. He speaks to you: you are clean because of the words I spoke to you.

It’s worth noting and remembering the context of John 15. This happens before Easter, on Maundy Thursday night while Jesus and the disciples are sitting at table celebrating Passover. This is a final time together where Jesus is reminding the Twelve that He must suffer and die at the hands of the chief priest, the Sanhedren, and the Roman government and be put to death. He will be taken from them in His death. This reinforces His promises to His disciples but it also deepens the promise: He is not only dwelling with us (John 1:14) but because we are connected to Him, as branches to a vine, He is within us.

“Life narrows down, and crisis comes, and suddenly only one thing matters. And suddenly only one thing matters, and there in the narrow place stands Jesus.”[1]

 

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[1] Arnold Kuntz, Devotions for the Chronologically Gifted. St. Louis: CPH. Date, unknown.