“Abide in Me”
John 15:1-8
5/10/09
In today’s Gospel text Jesus calls Himself the
true Vine and teaches that His disciples as branches must stay
connected to Him, in order that they might produce good fruit.
Some would say Jesus is using a metaphor here, comparing Himself to a
vine, as if He were saying, “I’m like a true vine, and you
disciples are like branches.” But the word
“true” here gives us a clue that it is not He who is like
other vines, but that all other vines are like Him, the true
Vine. Jesus is a Vine like no other vines. All other vines
illustrate Him as they do things similar to what He does. Vines
are like Jesus in that they provide nourishment, sap, and life to their
branches. Branches are like Jesus’ disciples in that they
are on the receiving end of that nourishment, sap, and life and produce
good fruit as a result. Vines and branches produce fruit for a
gardener. The Gardener to whom all other gardeners are compared
is God. Vines and branches are like Jesus and His disciples as
they produce good fruit for God the Father.
Like God, earthly gardeners help their vines and
trees to produce good fruit by removing any branches that aren’t
producing fruit, while pruning those that are. Fruitless branches
may be compared to Christians who have fallen into unbelief and
unrepentance, those who have kept themselves from receiving the Word of
Christ, the sap of the vine, and who have not let that Word have its
way with them in their lives. Such Christians are dead even while
they are connected to the vine. Such branches the Gardener
removes from His Vine and throws into the fire of His judgment.
The other branches who are producing fruit God then prunes with
suffering and discipline, so that they might produce all the
more. Pruning is probably a painful experience for the branches,
but it is really for their good. In the end, all the glory goes
to the Gardener and the Vine, not the branches, for the good fruit that
is produced. As Jesus says here to His disciples, apart from Him
they can do nothing, and as the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian
Christians concerning his ministry, “I planted, Apollos watered,
but God caused the growth.”
We branches, however, often want the glory for
ourselves. We’ve worked hard at producing fruit (so we
think), and we want God to notice what a good job we’ve
done. Not only that, but we compare how much fruit we’ve
produced to how much the other branches around us have produced.
Some of us gloat over our fellow branches, while others despair that
they aren’t producing as much. Not only do we focus on the
quantity of fruit we produce but also its quality in comparison to that
of other branches. But it’s when the branches focus on
their fruit production that in fact they cease to abide in the Vine.
It’s interesting to note here that Jesus never
commands His disciples to produce fruit. A gardener doesn’t
go up to a vine or a tree and demand that it produce fruit. (You
might get mad at your fruit trees or tomato vines because they’re
not producing, and you might want to yell at them and tell them to get
to work, but that’s not going to get them to produce.)
Fruit trees don’t produce fruit because they’re told to;
they produce fruit because they’re fruit trees, and the branches
of a fruit tree put forth fruit because they’re connected to the
tree. Jesus doesn’t command His disciples to produce fruit;
He commands them to abide in Him and His Word, in order to produce
fruit. As disciples of Jesus remain connected to Him by hearing
and keeping His Word, they will produce good fruit. As the sap of
Christ’s Word flows into our lives, it will produce the fruit of
faith in Him and works of love towards one another - the only kind of
fruit that the Gardener accepts.
Now, just as silly as it is to command branches of a
tree to produce fruit, so silly does it seem to command them to remain
attached to the tree. Branches don’t normally rebel against
the trees to which they are attached and start jumping off. But
here’s where we can learn a lesson from them. You see, we
sinful branches can and often do abandon the Vine that supports
us. We cut ourselves off from the Lord’s words and His
Sacraments, and thus we cut ourselves off from Him. And when we
do that we die, even though it still might look like we’re
connected to the Vine. We might still go to church. We
might still act like Christians. We might still do many things
that look like good works. But if we have hindered the
Lord’s Word from entering into our heart and having its way with
us, whether by way of unrepented sin or by disbelief or by trust in
ourselves or some other god of our own making, then we dry up like a
dead branch and we cease to produce the fruit that God desires.
When we keep the Lord’s Word from flowing in and nourishing us,
we keep His life-giving sap from keeping us alive in the faith and
producing works of love towards our neighbor. And its by His
grace alone when He doesn’t take us and throw us into the fire
right then and there, but rebukes us with His words of Law and then
speaks us dead branches back to life with His Word of Gospel and grafts
us back into the Vine again.
It’s only when we stay connected to the true
Vine that we have life and can produce fruit. So Jesus commands
us to abide in Him. Jesus is our life. Apart from Him we
are dead and can do nothing. But when we abide in Him, we are
able to produce all kinds of good fruit. To abide in Jesus is to
abide in His Word. What is it to abide in His Word? To keep
it, hold it precious, treasure it, hear it, believe it, do it.
His Word proclaims Him crucified and risen from the dead for you.
Jesus became a dried up branch and was thrown into the fire of
God’s wrath for you, so that you wouldn’t have to be broken
off and cast away yourself. Christ’s words point to
Him. They tell of the forgiveness of sins you have on account of
His works for you. Christ’s words tell you of God’s
love and mercy towards you for Christ’s sake, which then produces
the fruit which God wants us to produce - faith towards Him and fervent
love towards one another. It’s not the fruit that makes us
Jesus’ disciples; it’s Jesus and His words about His works
and His love towards us that make us disciples. And it’s
because we are His disciples - branches which abide in the true Vine -
that we produce good fruit. Paul writes, “Let the word of
Christ richly dwell within you.” When we abide in
Christ’s Word, Christ Himself abides in us. And when Christ
and His Word abide in us, we will produce good fruit.
The only fruit that the Gardener accepts is the
fruit of faith in Christ, fruit produced by those who abide in Christ
by faith in His Word. As the Lord’s love has its way with
you, you will love one another. The Christian’s works of
love and service towards others may not look much different from a
non-Christian’s works. The only difference before God is
that the Christian’s works have been cleansed of the sin attached
to them by the blood of Christ. Having been washed and sanctified
by the Word of Christ both you are your works of love are acceptable to
God, and for that reason He calls your works good. These works
may not look spectacular or appear to be great. Most of the time
they’re simple works like taking care of a child or an elderly
parent, showing honor and love towards parents and other authorities,
being a faithful father or mother, worker or student, neighbor or
friend, being a good and law-abiding citizen, praying for others and
helping them in their need. The fruit of other branches may look
better, but before God they’re all the same. All these done
by faith in Jesus Christ are considered to be good fruit by God.
Now, as mentioned earlier, in order to get the
fruit-bearing branches to produce more, the Gardener prunes them.
We who abide in Christ and His Word have been spared the fire of
God’s judgment and wrath, which is reserved for dead
branches. But this does not mean we will not experience the pain
of discipline. Suffering for a non-Christian has no meaning; it
is a preview of God’s coming judgment. But since Jesus was
judged on the cross in your place, suffering for you in Christ does not
point to God’s wrath and judgment. Rather, it reminds you
that you have a merciful heavenly Father who disciplines you because He
loves you as His child. As Solomon writes in the book of
Proverbs, “My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline or
be weary of His reproof, for the LORD reproves him whom He loves, as a
father the son in whom he delights.” For us Christians, the
pruning/discipline of God is given for our benefit. It causes us
to abide in the Word of Christ all the more. And the more we
abide in His Word the more fruit we’ll produce.
But one final point... Now we may be tempted
to boast in our work of abiding in Christ and His Word. But if we
did that, then we would not be abiding in Christ and His Word, because
by Christ’s Word we know that we can boast of nothing which we
do. Branches don’t get to boast either in how much fruit
they’re producing or in the fact that they are keeping themselves
connected to the Vine. All the glory goes to God through Jesus
our Savior alone. As Paul writes, let him who boasts boast in the
Lord. Both the fact that we remain in Him and produce good fruit
is due to His work through His Word alone. As He Himself here
says, “Apart from me you can do nothing.”
As a car is dead without gas running through it or a
branch is dead without sap from the vine running through it, so we are
dead without the Word of Christ running through us. Here Jesus is
abiding in you as He delivers Himself crucified and risen for you
through His Word and Sacraments, and here you are abiding in Him as you
are on the receiving end of that life-giving sap. And as He has
His way with you in your lives you will produce much good fruit for God
and glorify Him in so-doing. So, when you see good fruit in your
life and in the lives of your fellow branches, don’t go focusing
in on the fruit you’re producing, but rejoice in the Vine which
gave His life for you to which you are connected and which gives you
life, now and forever. Amen.