This morning I am continuing my reading of John's Gospel. I am reflecting on one of the most famous sections - Jesus' comment about being the vine. Here are the verses - John 15:1-8 NIV:
[1] “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. [2] He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. [3] You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. [4] Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me."
[5] “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. [6] If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. [7] If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. [8] This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples."
Like I often do, I am going to start at the end and work my way to the first. The purpose of Jesus comments is to call us to our purpose to bear fruit, for the Father's Glory. At the end of the day, our ability to bear fruit should be pointing directly back to the God. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit, through relationship with Jesus, giving glory to the Father. Any other representation or allusion is incorrect.
It is through remaining in Him, maintaining our relationship with Jesus that we are able to bear fruit. Jesus actually says the same thing "remain in me" 5 times in these verses. A good rule of thumb in reading His words, is if He says it once its important, if He says it twice, Its really important, three times and it is absolutely essential. I have no grid for something that He says five times, except that it is exponentially more important than absolutely essential! If our relationship with Him is not front and center in our life, than I think we need to review our life's priorities based on His continued emphasis of this one point.
Additionally, this is not a one-way relationship, for Jesus indicates that He will remain in us (verse 5). God said multiple times in scripture (Deut. 31:6,8,; Josh 1:5, and Heb. 13:5) that He will never leave us or forsake us, and this is one of His promises to us. I believe that Jesus is effectively making that same promise here. Our part is remaining in Him, treasuring His words in us, and allowing them to affect our lives, living by them.
Jesus says that He is the True vine, and we are to remain in Him, connected to Him, that makes us part of the vine as well. Notice that He does not compare Himself to a tall stately tree, but rather to a vine that grows close to the ground and seems to have just a continuing branching and bearing of fruit all along it, and the vine root never gets massively large. I believe that the church sometimes thinks of itself as a large tree, with all sorts of hierarchy to strengthen and stand strong, with the leaves being the people, and the branches, bows and trunk being the structure of the church.
Jesus, in contrast, uses a vine as His example of the connectedness He desires. I am thinking back to my experience of vines, and the trunk of the vine is never huge, the branches are generally short, or just another arm of the main vine. Fruit is grown very close to the main vine. I once cut a wild grape vine in the spring and was amazed at how much sap poured out of the end of the vine. I think this is also one of the reasons Jesus spoke of the vine, as you are never far removed from the life flowing river that runs through the vine.
Finally, back to the example Jesus used, He says that He is the Vine and the Father is the gardener, discarding unfruitful branches and pruning those that are fruitful. To be clear pruning is not a painless process and certainly seems to make no sense, unless you understand the goal. Pruning, while it is a cutting back for a time, increases both the amount of fruit that a branch will bear, and strengthens the branch.
I have experienced this in ministry where for an initial season it seemed like everything I did was bearing fruit, and then the Lord directed me out of ministry for a season. I was confused as to why the Lord would cut me from the ministry I was doing, as I was bearing fruit. One day I read this verse and it all made sense. The Lord wasn't discarding me, He was pruning me so that later I might be strong enough to bear much fruit, and able to produce much fruit, more than I ever did previously! This was a huge help, and leap in understanding. The Father as the gardener knows exactly what to cut to maximize fruitfulness, and I need to trust Him. The first time I saw someone pruning a plant, I couldn't understand why they were cutting off all the good branches. After a period of time though, as I saw the plant bearing tons of fruit, I understood the benefits of pruning.
So this morning I am reminded of the absolutely essential effort of remaining in Jesus. I am encouraged that it is to His glory that I bear much fruit, and that He has a plan for my fruitfulness that the Father is carefully guiding!
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