John 15:1-8
This week we continue to look at the deep fullness of life we can enter into as God’s children. Through Jesus’ own death and resurrection, we die to the world and ourselves and are born from above into a new and pure heart, and the pure in heart shall see God.
Last week we introduced this theme of abundance through one of the seven great I AM sayings of Jesus. I am the Good Shepherd, and we saw that through Jesus’ careful and constant shepherding of us we ourselves become good shepherds.
Today Jesus uses a different name for himself as a way to describe how actively our Lord’s salvation works in us to make us holy and pure. Holy and pure enough, in the sufficiency of Christ, to bear fruit for the Lord.
‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower (or gardener)’ (v.1), and we are the branches coming out from the vine that either bear fruit or don’t bear fruit.
We are looking at today’s passage as in terms of how the extraordinarily intimate fullness that existed in Eden between God and mortals is once more made possible. Jesus restores the intimacy of Eden between us and the Father, who is the Gardener.
I would ask to you to picture that verdant and abundant paradise of Eden. Jesus says, “I am the vine and you are the branches” (v.5). At first glance it is a seemingly gentle and slow moving image, but it contains, I think, the heart of the Gospel for us, and everything that we most desperately and unconsciously long for, the return to something like Eden.
In the Old Testament, a quite common metaphor for Israel by the psalmists and prophets, particularly Jeremiah and Isaiah, was that God had planted a vineyard, (Israel), but because of its disobedience, it kept producing wild or sour grapes.
But here is Jesus re-writing the metaphor, by calling himself ‘the true vine’. “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener”. Jesus is saying that he is the fulfilment of Israel itself, as well as the fulfilment of all our hopes and dreams for what we could become.
The vine planted by God the gardener will longer produces sour grapes, but abundant, sweet grapes through the fruit of the vine. The intimacy with God that had been lost to Israel can now be restored to both Israel and you and me through the Messiah, Jesus Christ the Son of God.
If we are united to Christ, grafted into him, then his destiny becomes our destiny and we are made right with God and we can truly become the person that God has made us to be, to enjoy the relationship with God that we were created to have, not because we suddenly get it right, but because Jesus got it right and we are grafted into him.
So, our understanding of this passage begins with the realisation that we don’t need to strive to achieve intimacy with God. Jesus has gone before us and won that back on our behalf and invites us into union with him.
Just like a branch from a vine. It is so very intimate. Jesus’ intimacy with the Father becomes our intimacy with the Father.
But in case we have too romantic or dreamy view of that intimacy, Jesus tells us straight away that there is inevitably pain involved in that. Intimacy begins with pruning away all that is not good and is not helpful.
In verse 2, Jesus says of his Father, “Every branch that does not bear fruit he cuts of and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful”. Here is the thing; whether you are bearing fruit or not bearing fruit, you will be pruned.
The Greek word here ‘to prune’ also means ‘to cleanse.’ And to cleanse is to purify. Only the pure in heart will see God.
But, as Jesus says here, it is done for a purpose, so that we can become even more fruitful, so that even the sort of dislocation that this causes, as old familiar ways are suddenly seen in a ghastly new light, is a product of the intimacy of love that we share with God.
But even in the midst of this cleansing, the intimacy is not lost. Far from it as Jesus says in v.4, “abide in me, and I will abide in you”. Even in the times of trial, in the difficult times, in the times when we are being pruned, the intimacy with God is never lost.
He abides in us, he lives in us, he remains in us, as we do so in him. Even when we don’t feel the presence of God with us because of all sorts of reasons, we can stand firm in the faith knowing that the intimacy is not lost because it runs far deeper than my mere transitory emotion or feeling.
He remains in us – even if at times we don’t feel it. If we bore fruit only when we felt in a fruit-bearing mood, it would be a scant crop indeed!
No, it’s a promise, if we abide in him we will bear fruit. Jesus said in v.8 ‘my Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.
Much could be said about what this fruit is. All are correct, the fruit of the Spirit certainly. But today we look at it as also being answered prayer. Our answered prayer is the fruit we bear. Jesus tells us in v. 7: “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you”.
This fruit of answered prayer is born of the intimacy of the relationship we have with God. God is so close he hears our faint breathed prayers. He gives them to us to pray for all things so fruit will be born. Go loves answering prayer.
It’s easy to miss the magnitude of this. Just you and God and he is all ears for you, when he looks at us, he sees us absolutely pure and blameless. For we abide in the vine.
Jesus is saying that the Father’s love for him is complete, lacking nothing, and Jesus’ love for us is complete and lacks nothing. And, in response to that complete and utter love that Jesus has for us, we are to remain in him completely; giving ourselves completely over to him in love and intimacy.
And as we do that, so the love of God transforms our hearts and transforms the way we relate to others. The intimacy that we share with God becomes the foundation of the relationship that we share with one another.
Ultimately, the Christian faith is all about intimacy; with God and with one another.
This is a truly beautiful ‘I AM’ saying of Jesus as he invites us into an intimate relationship with the Father. He wants to abide in us as we abide in him. We are pruned and cleansed and made fit for purpose which can be painful as we are allowed to get a glimpse of our lostness away from the vine.
So wherever we are at this morning, whether we are in a good place or a hard place, we can be confident in the remarkable closeness of God to us. That he remains with us and hears our prayers and wants to be not only saviour and Lord, but our friend and brother.
When we begin to taste the depth of the fullness of this relationship we are overwhelmed. When we learn to receive God’s intimate love and intimate friendship, when we learn to share intimate love with one another, then we truly will be restored to Eden.