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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,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed, alleluia.)
If you navigate at all with Google Maps, as I regularly do and as I especially did on my recent three-thousand-plus‑mile trip with my mother, you may know that, at some-times and in some-places, Google Maps unnecessarily says to “continue straight” on the same route. Often, there is no apparent reason for that particular command at that time or place; there may even be no‑where to turn, even if you wanted to turn. Like Google Maps’s unnecessary command to “continue straight”, Jesus’s command—“Abide in Me”—to His disciples in today’s Gospel Reading at first listen might seem to be equally unnecessary. After all, Jesus Himself had just said that His disciples already were “pruned” or “clean” because of the word that He had spoken to them, so why did Jesus tell them to “abide” or “remain” in Him? Likewise, if you and I are already baptized into Jesus and if we are here this morning seeking and receiving His forgiveness of sins through His Means of Grace, why do we need to be told to “Abide in Jesus” as a branch abides in a vine in order to produce grapes?
To Kilgore, the closest vines and branches that I know of are outside of “Britt’s Wine and Dine” at the old Elder School on Highway 31 just west of 135, but, from the looks of them the last time I drove by, I do not think that those vines and branches are really producing grapes yet. But, you do not have to see a vine, branches, and grapes in order to understand either that the vine makes possible the branches’ making grapes or that the point of Jesus’s illustration is that our abiding or remaining in Him is necessary for us to produce fruit—fruit such as the good works of being sorry for our sins and trusting God to forgive our sins for Jesus’s sake. Of course, one’s telling a literal branch to remain in its vine hardly makes it do so, and that is arguably a point where Jesus’s figure of speech breaks down, for He can and does tell figurative branches, like His disciples and us, to remain in Him. We are to have inner fellowship with Him and experience His and our Father’s tender nurture. Jesus’s command is said to focus neither on our beginning to abide in Him nor on our continuing to abide in Him, though if we have not already done those things we certainly need to do them; rather, Jesus’s command is said to focus on our urgently abiding in Him and on our abiding in Him above all else (Wallace, 720-721). When Jesus commanded His disciples “Abide in Me” on the night when He was betrayed, Jesus certainly knew what challenges His already-abiding disciples were going to face, as Jesus certainly also knows what challenges we already-abiding followers are facing and will face. And, in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus notably shifts from speaking about His disciples who abide in Him to speaking about a hypothetical person who does not abide in Him, and He makes that shift right at the point where Jesus warns about branches that wither, are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned (Wallace, 393).
Perhaps all too easily you and I think that, once we are baptized and confirmed, we do not need to continue to grow in faith by being taught God’s Word at greater length and in deeper depth than relatively-brief and somewhat‑superficial sermons. Perhaps we have forgotten what Jesus says about our being unable to bear fruit by ourselves, that apart from Him we can do nothing. Apart from Jesus, we by nature deserve nothing but present and eternal punishment. And, even abiding in Jesus, in this lifetime we still need to live with daily sorrow over our sin and trust in God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake. When, enabled by the Holy Spirit, we do so repent, then God does forgive us. God forgives our sinful nature, our sin of not abiding in Jesus, and all of our other sin, whatever our sin might be.
Lutheran artist Edward Riojas’s image on the front cover of today’s bulletin stands in a long line of Christian tradition that visually depicts Jesus as the true vine in combination with both the tree of the cross and the tree of life (Brown, ad loc John 15:1-17, p.672). Truly, the Son of God in human flesh went to the cross in order to give us life. As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading, the love of God was made manifest among us in God the Father’s sending His only Son into the world in order to be the sacrifice that satisfies His righteous wrath over our sin, so that we might live through Him (1 John 4:1-21). On the cross, Jesus died for us, in our place, the death that we deserved, and then He rose from the dead, in part showing that God the Father had accepted His sacrifice on our behalf. As St. John wrote, we come to know and believe the love that God has for us in His Son Jesus Christ and have confidence for the day of judgment, confidence that we will not be condemned but that we will be seen as righteous in Christ. And, as St. John wrote, we know that we abide in God and He in us because He has given us of His Spirit.
God gives us His Holy Spirit through the reading and preaching of His Word to groups such as this group and through the applying of His Gospel to individuals with water in Holy Baptism, with a pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution, and with bread and wine that are Christ’s Body and Blood in the Holy Supper (Augsburg Confession V:1-2). In today’s First Reading, Philip baptized the Ethiopian official when he was brought to faith (Acts 8:26-40). In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus said that His Word “pruned” or “cleansed” His disciples. And, elsewhere in St. John’s Gospel account, Jesus says that whoever feeds on His flesh and drinks His blood abides in Him and He in them (John 6:56). Perhaps nowhere more than in the Sacrament of the Altar do we “Abide in Jesus” and He abides in us, as we eat His Body and drink His Blood and so also receive forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Abiding in Him and He in us, we, in turn, bear much fruit, as He in today’s Gospel Reading describes us doing.
In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus not only commands that His disciples and we “Abide in Jesus”, but Jesus also commands that, as we abide in Him and His words abide in us, we ask whatever we wish, with Jesus’s promising that whatever we ask will be done for us. No doubt we can all think of things for which we have asked that have not been done! To be sure, as we “Abide in Jesus”, we will wish whatever Jesus wishes, and so, as we ask for those things, God the Father will grant those requests, especially those involving our bearing much fruit and being Jesus’s disciples, which ultimately glorify God the Father (Brown, ad loc John 15:7-17, pp.679‑680). We might say that our abiding in Jesus and His abiding in us is, in the words of the Collect for the Day, how the minds of the faithful are made to be one will, how we love what He commands, and how we desire what He has promised. As the Epistle Reading described, we test the teaching that we hear, and we love our brothers and sisters in Christ. We do not do anything perfectly, of course, and so God the Father continues to “prune” or “cleanse” us through His Word in all of its forms, not to mention through afflictions that He permits us to face. As the caption on the front cover of the bulletin quotes from today’s Closing Hymn, “We are His branches, chosen, dear, And though we feel the dresser’s knife, We are the objects of His care” (Lutheran Worship 273:3).
As you might expect, people on the internet offer all sorts of un‑official explanations for why Google Maps at some-times and in some-places says to “continue straight” on the same route, though none of those explanations really seems to be correct. Easier for us to understand is why our Lord Jesus Christ tells us to abide in Him: so that we bear much fruit and prove to be His disciples. As we “Abide in Jesus”, in the words of today’s Psalm (Psalm 150; antiphon: v.6), we praise Him for His mighty deeds; we praise Him according to His excellent greatness!
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 + + +