Easter V Year B [John 15:1-8] (3-May-2015)

This sermon was preached at St Mark's Lutheran Church, Mt Barker, 8.30am, 10.30am.

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Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

I am the vine; you are the branches.

Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit,

for apart from me you can do nothing.

Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, breathe out upon us all your Holy Spirit, to me that I may preach well, and to all of us that we may hear well. Amen.

In our reading today, Jesus describes himself and what it’s like to be part of his glorious kingdom here on this earth. He says: I am the vine, and you are the branches. – It’s a great picture. Jesus often teaches us with pictures to allow the Holy Spirit to shape us and form us as we meditate on his words as they weave in and through our imagination. Here in the Adelaide Hills we are so incredibly blessed to live in this beautiful part of the world, and so often if we’re driving around, we might see a vineyard. Here in South Australia, we are proud to have some of the finest vineyards and finest wines in the world.

It’s also useful for us to learn something about how winemaking works, so that when you come to read our Gospel reading today, you can have a sharper insight into what Jesus is talking about. You see, Jesus has taken on human flesh. He didn’t have to, but he chose to, just because he wants to meet you just like you would meet anyone else. And so, nothing human is foreign to Jesus. He’s interested in everything that is human, because he, who made us, became human, a real man. And so Jesus teaches us in our reading today: I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.

I am the true vine, Jesus says. This gives us such tremendous comfort. Jesus has both his feet standing in the mud. He is deeply rooted in the earth. He is not ashamed to plunge himself in, boots and all, right into the middle of our human existence, our human affairs, and all our human foibles. And yet, he pictures himself as a vine, which has branches everywhere, leaves, and full grapes, which are squeezed down to make rich, well-aged wine, the drink of celebrating.

Now Jesus is speaking to his disciples on the night he was betrayed. He had just celebrated his Last Supper with them, and now he wants to encourage them. And so he points forward to that time, after he had died and risen, when he will be planted with his two human feet, majestically and gloriously seated at God’s right hand in heaven. Jesus says: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

And so Jesus describes himself as this vine, but this is a vine that is not just confined to heaven, but this vine sends out shoots and tendrils all over the earth. Being part of this vine is what it means to be part of Christ’s church. We are physically connected to him. Jesus here is a bit like Jacob’s ladder, which went all the way up to heaven from earth, with angels going up and down on it. Jesus is this wonderful vine, who has branches in heaven and branches which extend all the way down to the earth. Earlier in the Gospel of John, Jesus says: I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me. And so now, Jesus is the vine and no one comes to the Father except by being grafted and connected to this vine.

So Jesus say: I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.

We can see here that the picture of the Father is different. He did not become a human being like his Son, but all of his interest is in the vine. But if you want to be an expert wine-maker, there is only one thing that you can do to manipulate the vine, and that is to cut bits off.

So Jesus continues his sermon by saying this: Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

If we go to Isaiah chapter 5 we will see there a picture of a vine. (You might like to read that chapter by yourself at home.) In Isaiah chapter 5, God plants a vineyard, but it doesn’t yield any good fruit, so he threatens to cuts it down. The picture of the vine in this chapter is very much one of God’s judgment. And here, Jesus also shows the picture of God’s judgment. He says that if you are a bad branch, you will be cut off. That’s a word of judgment. And he says, if you are a good branch, you will be pruned, so that you will bear more fruit. This sounds like a word of judgment, but it’s actually a word of blessing. For us and our experience, being pruned by God is going to look very much the same as him cutting another branch off. It’s going to hurt, but it’s not for our judgment, it’s for our blessing. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

Now, when he speaks about cutting branches off, he’s not talking at all about cutting people off from this life. And so when someone we love dies, we don’t say that they were bearing no fruit, so God cut them off. When a Christian dies, they are still part of the living vine, which is Christ’s body himself, and in eternity the fruit blossoms and grows for ever and ever, filling heaven with countless fruits, full of juice and flavour, such that we could never imagine here could taste so good.

So when Jesus speaks about cutting branches off the vine, he is talking about cutting branches off his kingdom. And if we are cut off from the kingdom of God, this is a terrible judgment. This is spiritual death that Jesus talks about.

You can see that there are two kinds of branches here—fruitful branches and unfruitful branches. Fruitful branches are alive and unfruitful branches are dead wood taking up space. Now a fruitful branch is one that draws all its life from the vine. Fruitful branches are people that recognise that there is no power in themselves to produce anything, except sin and weakness. A fruitful branch therefore seeks all of its life from Jesus. The more the person confesses their own deficiencies, and their own failures, and their own defects, the more the person can draw more and more help and life from Jesus.

You see, there is no life with Jesus without the forgiveness of sins. This forgiveness of sins is the grafting on of an otherwise useless twig, that now can be filled with all of the juice and sap from Jesus. From the forgiveness of sins pours life and salvation and every gift of the Holy Spirit.

But an unfruitful branch, a piece of dead wood, is a person who doesn’t need to receive anything from Jesus. Rather, these people actually think in their arrogance that they have something from themselves to contribute to Jesus. If you want to glorify Jesus, it means you have to humble yourself, and deny yourself, and put yourself to death. You can’t glorify yourself and glorify Jesus at the same time. Either you need his juice, or you are seeking to pump your own juice into Jesus. And quite frankly, Jesus is the maker of heaven and earth—he can easily live without you and your wonderful contributions. And so the dead wood are people who don’t want to receive from Jesus, but want to glorify themselves, and instead of singing “praise the Lord”, they want to sing “praise me”, instead of being saved by the offering of Christ’s blood, they want to be saved by their own works. Instead of listening to God’s word, they really are only trying to confirm and strengthen their own words and their own ideas, so that God, in his great wisdom, might actually ask for their help and decide use these great ideas! These people hate God’s word, even though it is the living juice that gives them life. And when they attack God’s word and reject it, then they heap upon themselves all the praise and all the glory, and tell everyone what pious people they are and what a loving heart they really have and how much they really care! A piece of dead wood is a person who is self-righteous. And this is one of the most dangerous conditions to be in, because when people are like this they don’t even notice it. And so, even though they have made a great song and dance for many years of being model, perfect Christians, in actual fact they never really worshipped any God except themselves.

And so, God does only one thing with dead wood: he cuts it off!

Wake up, if you are piece of dead wood. Dead wood is usually so dead it doesn’t even feel the cutting. If we are cut to the heart, it is a sign not that we are condemned, but that we are alive and that the Holy Spirit is working in us.

Now whether or not we are fruitful, whether we are a branch that produces beautiful fruit or whether we are a piece of dead wood, we still experience cutting. Maybe we have gone through some particular hardship or suffering in our life. We may wonder sometimes what God is doing to us and why he has allowed this or that to happen to me. Why me? Why that person?

Especially, we might go into a time of grief where someone has died. And we think, why them? Why now? When God takes one of his Christians out of this life, he is not cutting them off the vine—he is just harvesting the wonderful fruit. But then, we still might have to grieve, and be patient, and learn how to suffer a bit. But it’s not to destroy our faith—it’s to prune this branch and to make us bear more fruit. It is out of his grace that God prunes us. He also prunes us sometimes by cutting off our false gods and our idols. And what a wonderful thing this is, to become more and more pure in our devotion to Christ, whether we are given days of happiness or days of sadness.

Our Jesus is still the same, and everything we have belongs to him. We ask him for our daily bread, and he always gives it, and he gives it abundantly. But then when we have what we need, how are we going to use it? What are we going to do with it? Are we going to use it in the service of Jesus, and of his kingdom, or are we going to use it in the service of our flesh?

And then when we in our indulgence have built up for ourselves a life of luxury and comfort and fun, surely it is nothing but a wonderful blessing when God the Father cuts off all that extra from us, and cleans us up, and prepares us for a new phase of fruitfulness in our life in service to him. Jesus is the true vine, and if there is some unfruitful part that is hanging on to one of his chosen people, cutting it off is not an act of hatred, but it is an act of love. Then we lift our eyes from this world, and we start to look forward to eternity. Hebrews says: Here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. How are you going spend your journey towards your heavenly city?

Now back to our text. Jesus says: Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.

In Greek, the word “clean” is very close to the word for “pruned”. When a branch is pruned, it is cleaned up. And so Jesus says to his disciples that the very fact that he has even spoken to them at all means that their idols and their false worship are already on the chopping block, because our sins have been forgiven.

Now we have been made clean through holy baptism. This is not our work, this is God’s work. And we know that it is God’s work, because of the word that was spoken to you. God’s word—“I baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”—is the power of baptism, and this is what makes us clean. And so now that we have been baptised, and connected to Christ, the vine, our old self has already been cleaned away, even though we still have to live with it. It has already been put to death, and buried, and our whole lives now belong to Christ, for he has bought us with a price—the price of his blood.

When we were baptised, Christ gave us a completely new birth, not because we made a decision to follow him, but because he has made a promise to us, which is more solid than heaven or earth. When we were baptised, we were given the free forgiveness of our sins. And now, each day of our Christian lives, we are pruned, and our old sins, our old habits, our bad tempters, are put to death and are pruned when we continually hear that same powerful word of God.

Now we might get a bit discouraged, if we thought that our whole life would be one big fat pruning. So Jesus wants to encourage us, and he says: Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.

Stay with me, says Jesus. Just stay put with me and let the gardener have his way with you, through good times and hard times. Come and continually fill yourself up with all the juices that flow from me. Especially, come and be strengthened with the forgiveness of sins, because it’s much better to have the forgiveness of sins and nothing else, that to have the whole world and forfeit your soul. Abide in me, says Jesus. These words were spoken just after Jesus held his Last Supper. So this is so important here. Run to my supper, and eat my body given for you, drink my blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Let me abide in you, so that you may also abide in me, physically. In the Lord’s Supper we continually draw forgiveness of sins, life and salvation from this abundant vine, which is Jesus.

So Jesus says: I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. Our human nature and our human strength are far too weak to do anything good. We have to be completely reborn through Holy Baptism, and the power of God’s word. And this new birth has already been given to us—it is God who works in us and will in us to his good pleasure. And he wants to produce good fruit in us, the fruit of the Spirit, fruit that comes not from ourselves, but from Christ. Nothing from our will, from our reason, from our decisions, from our contributions, can do anything to make us part of this vine. God the Father has to do it, and he does it by baptising us—baptism is where we are grafted onto Christ. And even our faith is not our work, but a work of the Holy Spirit, which comes from hearing the word of God. And in this word of God we find Christ, and when we find Christ we find his forgiveness, and when we find his forgiveness then we find eternal life.

So Jesus now gives us a warning: If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. When a branch withers, it means that faith dies. Without faith, which draws all of the juice and living water of the Holy Spirit from Jesus, the branches are gathered, thrown into fire, and burned. Here Jesus is talking about hell. Heaven is abiding in Jesus – hell is where the dead wood is burned.

We finish our reading today, by reading this wonderful encouragement of Jesus. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.

Jesus points once again to his words, because his words are the source of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not found in our feelings, but in Christ’s living words. And so, Jesus shows us that when his words abide in us then we abide in Jesus himself. And then he teaches us to pray: If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. If you ask for something for the service of your flesh, it will not be given. But if you ask for something in service of this vine, in service of Jesus and his kingdom, then it will be given. What do you need? Maybe you already have so much that you could use, and the more we have, the more responsibility we have to use it for Jesus. Abide in Jesus—trust in him, through good days and bad days. He will provide everything that you need. And then even though you still wrestle with your sin, and want to be rid of it, the forgiveness of sins will produce good fruit, and much good fruit will grow and continue to grow until that time when God will take you from this life into the wonderful harvest of eternity, the wedding feast of the Lamb, where there will be an abundant banquet of wonderful, rich wines. God the Father will have nothing but joy in you, because you are joined to Christ, and all of your sins have been completely forgiven by his life-giving blood.

By this the Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. Amen.

Lord Jesus, teach us to abide with you and trust in you for everything, both to forgive each and every single one of our sins and also to provide for our every single need in this life. Don’t let us be cut off, but prune us and let us be shaped in whatever way you would have us so that we can be useful in the service of your kingdom. Amen.