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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