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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Friday as I visited a number of shut‑ins—which included, among others, our members Harold Engebretson and Olene Herricks—I talked with them about grape vines and their fruit. Most of the people I visited had seen a vineyard somewhere, whether in Texas or another state. Even if vines and grapes are not as much a part of our life here in East Texas today as they were of the people’s lives in Jesus’s place and time, we can still get the general idea from today’s Gospel Reading that we ought to be “Fruitful branches of the Vine”—and so our theme this morning as we reflect on today’s Gospel Reading, “Fruitful branches of the Vine”.
Jesus appears to have spoken these words about our being “Fruitful branches of the Vine” on the night when He was betrayed, perhaps even in the upper room, as He and His disciples spoke about and drank the fruit of the vine, namely, wine. Jesus says plainly that He is the Vine and that His disciples are the branches. There is an essential organic relationship—“the closest possible union”—between the two (Behm, TDNT 3:757). They are to abide in Him, so bear fruit, be His disciples, and glorify the Father. For apart from Him they can do nothing—branches cannot bear fruit by themselves, unless they abide in the vine—and branches that do not abide in Him and so do not bear fruit will be thrown away—taken away by the Father, the Vinedresser—they will wither, be gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.
Although not in that order, those are the things that will or have happened to the branches of the vine that we cut off the retaining wall between our lots here at Pilgrim the week before Easter. (You might not think that we cut any branches off for as much of the vine that has already grown back!) The branches we cut off were gathered, withered, and, if not already, will be thrown into a fire and burned. Now, that vine on the retaining wall is not a grape vine, of course, and we did not cut off its branches because they were not bearing fruit but because they were damaging the wall and were an eyesore. Yet, Jesus likens His disciples and so also us to fruitful branches of a grape vine.
For all Jesus’s talk in today’s Gospel Reading about our bearing fruit, that Jesus does not in the Gospel Reading command us to bear fruit may seem somewhat surprising. In fact, one of only two imperatives in the Gospel Reading is the solemn and urgent command to “abide” in Him and He in us. So “abiding” is the only thing Jesus mentioned more than bearing fruit, as abiding in Him is necessary for bearing fruit. You do not really tell a branch to bear fruit, it just does so as it remains in the vine! The idea of “abiding” or “remaining” in Jesus is said to be characteristic of St. John’s Gospel account and to recur in all sorts of expression, but the idea of “abiding” or “remaining” in Jesus is said to occur in today’s Gospel Reading more often and with greater emphasis than elsewhere (Ridderbos, ad loc Jn 15:4-5, 517).
At this point, we might ask ourselves whether or not we “abide” or “remain” in Jesus as we should. Despite all outward appearances, have we essentially severed ourselves from Him? Of course, a branch has no choice about remaining on the vine, so at this point the figure of speech breaks down (Brown, ad loc Jn 15:4, 661). What does our fruitfulness suggest about our abiding or remaining in Jesus? Apart from Him we can do nothing; without faith in Him, pleasing God is impossible (Hebrews 11:6; confer ACG XX:35-39; Ap IV:256, 269). Jesus essentially says that, since their fall into sin and before their conversion, people’s free will has no power in spiritual matters (FC Ep II:6). That is how lost by nature we are in original sin.
I have to say that I have never been and continue not to be one for cutting off of any plant living branches. Even when I was a boy trimming hedges with my father, cutting off living branches bothered me, as it still bothers me when my mother and I work with my potted vines, both in my study here at Pilgrim and my bedroom at home. So, although I have preached on today’s Gospel Reading before, this past week in preparing for this morning, I was particularly struck by the taking or throwing away of living branches of the vine, their withering, being gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. Our being not just living but fruitful branches is that important! Of course, when we repent of our unfruitfulness and trust God the Father to forgive our unfruitfulness for Jesus’s sake, then God truly forgives our unfruitfulness. When we repent and believe, then God forgives our sinful nature and all our sins! Such repentance and faith are arguably themselves fruit that comes from our abiding in Jesus, the True Vine.
Though we were dead in trespasses and sins, God has made us alive together with Jesus Christ, saving us by grace through faith in Him (Ephesians 2:1, 5). Jesus Christ is the True Vine, Who gives life and brings forth fruit. In today’s Epistle Reading (1 John 4:1-11), we heard the Divinely‑inspired St. John write that God showed His love among us by sending His one and only begotten Son into the world to be the propitiation (the atonement) for our sins, so that we might live through Him. On account of the God‑man Jesus’s death on the cross and resurrection from the grave, God graciously cleanses us of all original and actual sin, as we believe in Him and receive His forgiveness in the ways that He gives for us to receive that forgiveness.
In the Gospel Reading, Jesus told His disciples they were already clean because of the word that He had spoken to them, and, indeed, God’s preached Word is Spirit and life (John 6:63) that cleanses and forgives. Earlier that same night when He was betrayed, Jesus spoke of the disciples being clean in connection with water, and, indeed, God’s Word with water in Holy Baptism works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe—younger or older, as in the case of the Ethiopian eunuch baptized in today’s First Reading (Acts 8:26-40). Three days later, Jesus sent His disciples with the Holy Spirit to forgive sins and withhold forgiveness (John 20:21-23), and, indeed, God’s words of individual Absolution spoken by our pastors exercise the special authority Christ has given to His Church on earth. And, earlier in St. John’s Gospel account, Jesus said that whoever feeds on His flesh and drinks His blood abides in Jesus and Jesus in that one (John 6:56), and, indeed, God’s word with bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Altar is Jesus’s true Body and Blood, given and shed for you and for me for the forgiveness of our sin. Jesus’s Word and Sacraments are the ways He gives for us to receive His forgiveness won for us on the cross, and through them God Himself fulfills Jesus’s command for us to remain in Him and He in us, with the result that we are “Fruitful branches of the Vine”.
Jesus’s other command in today’s Gospel Reading is to ask whatever we wish, but that asking is not like we might imagine as from some magical genie. Rather, that asking comes from our abiding in Him and His words abiding in us, and so that asking is in keeping with them; that asking arguably is parallel to our bearing fruit, and that asking likely relates to our abiding in Him, so bearing fruit, being His disciples, and glorifying the Father. When we believe Jesus’s promises to us, we will cooperate with God in doing the good works that He wants us to do, at least beginning to keep the Commandments in a way that is pleasing to Him, even as ultimately we fail to keep them perfectly (Philippians 2:13; confer Ap IV:266; FC Ep II:14; FC SD II:26). Our Heavenly Father, the Vinedresser, continues to cleanse or prune us so that we bear more fruit. As Christians, we understand that our afflictions and suffering are different from what they appear to be; our afflictions and suffering occur with God’s counsel and will and are a sign of His Fatherly love and grace that serve our best interest and are limited to our best interest (confer Luther, ad loc Jn 15:1-2, AE 24:193-194, 199). Regardless of whether or not we have ever seen a vineyard, by God’s mercy and grace we are “Fruitful branches of the vine”.
I like the hymn “At the Lamb’s High Feast We Sing” (Lutheran Service Book 633) as much as anyone else, but it frustrates me a little as today’s Hymn of the Day, because it really has nothing to do directly with today’s Gospel Reading. A generation ago the now‑sainted Jaroslav Vajda was asked to write and wrote a hymn for Lutheran Book of Worship (#378) to serve as a Hymn of the Day for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, and professor of music Richard Hillert was asked to compose and composed a new tune to go with Vajda’s text (Precht, 292). The text and tune were used in our previous hymnal, Lutheran Worship (#273) and in others since then (for example, the 1993 Christian Worship #342), but they did not make it into Lutheran Service Book, perhaps due to the difficulty of Hillert’s tune or its little use. Nevertheless, we conclude now with Vajda’s complete hymn text, including its final stanza’s prayer, steeped in the richness of all of Holy Scripture and today’s liturgical context:
Amid the world’s bleak wilderness / A vineyard grows with promise green,
The planting of the Lord himself.
His love selected this terrain;
His vine with love He planted here / To bear the choicest fruit for Him.
We are His branches, chosen dear,
And though we feel the dresser’s knife, / We are the objects of His care.
From Him we draw the juice of life,
For Him supply His winery / With fruit from which true joys derive.
Vine, keep what I was meant to be: Your branch, with Your rich life in me.
Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +