Friday, March 13

Scripture: John 15:5-7
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. 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. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

THE VINE
The vinedresser selected his stock: choice stock for a special vineyard to be planted on a hillside with rich soil. He turned over the earth with care, removing stones both small and large; he built a watchtower over it to guard from marauders, whether man or beast; he even readied a wine vat in the midst of it, anticipating the joys of the fruit to come. He planted the vine he had chosen in the place he had prepared, and he waited.

But in the prophet Isaiah's story of this vine (Isaiah 5:1-7), all this tending was rewarded with sour fruit, fruit that savored like it had been produced by a wild vine that sprung up on its own without a vinedresser's skill. Isaiah tells us that this vineyard, this "pleasant planting" or "garden of delight" is Israel, the Lord the vinedresser who looked to it for fruit and got only bitterness:

"He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed!
For righteousness, but behold, an outcry!" (Is. 5:7)

And so this choice vine, over which so much care had been lavished, was then exposed to the elements, just as a wild vine would have been: hedge removed, unpruned and unweeded, it is ravaged by the appetites of passers-by and the beasts of the field alike. As it is here in Isaiah, the vine of Israel in the Old Testament is often an image of failure, of fruitlessness, of faithlessness, and, finally, of wrath. And this is not a failure of the vinedresser, or of the environment, or of the seed, but of the vine itself as it wended its way through the world.

So when Jesus proclaims, "I am the Vine", he places his own person at the heart of God's work with Israel, claiming utter victory where there had only been a record of defeat. Of the same chosen seed, planted in the same soil, tended by the same vinedresser, Jesus is the True Vine in whose fruit the vinedresser takes pleasure. When the Father looks to Jesus for justice, for righteousness, he receives fruit that has been as yet unseen on the earth: perfect goodness, righteous all the way down, without caveat or qualification, without pause or cessation. For the first time since man's fall, a son of man is wholly delightful to the Father.

But one such son is not enough for this Father, for the vine of the LORD, as Psalm 80 tells us in a startling word picture, was meant to spread abundantly: to fill the land, to cover mountains with its shade, mighty cedars with its branches, branches meant to stretch from the great River Euphrates to the very sea.

"I am the vine, and you are the branches." In this I am, Jesus connects his disciples to himself. He is starkly exclusive—"apart from me you can do nothing”—because he is radically inclusive: “whoever abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit". Jesus points to himself as the sole source of the kind of life that the Father desires in men and women. Only the Son of God could extend his life to us in such a way; only the Son made like us could enable us to bear fruit like him: righteous all the way down, justice instead of bloodshed, goodness unmistakably from God. And bearing abundant fruit like this glorifies the Father! (John 15:8)

Israel's history proved that outside the True Vine is only sour grapes and withered branches useful for nothing, no matter how good the seed or the land or how ardent the desire for fruit. Actually, I often find my own desires for fruit too meager, and therefore my own devices seem almost capable of producing the kind of fruit that will please God. I find my tastes too easily pleased with my own little cluster that at times looks good enough to eat, when God's vision is for the whole land to be entwined with life and sweetness. How laughable my own devices seem in that light! And how much more then should we his disciples long to be wrapped up in the words and love of Christ so that His Spirit will produce in us a rich harvest of what delights the Father, and so delights us as well.

Arvo Part's I Am the True Vine offers you today an opportunity to have Christ's words abide in you. He has set the text for meditation, not for melody; the voices enter and exit in the middle of words and phrases, the melody passing from part to part within merely a couple of notes, for Christ’s words are everything, here. May abiding so in the words of Christ whet your desire to live the life and bear the fruit that only he can produce in you.

PRAYER
Our Father,
Teach us that Israel's past failure is all that awaits
those who try to create on their own
The kind of life that delights You.
Expand our vision of abundant life,
And make sour to our taste our own devices,
That we may bear fruit by abiding in Christ,
And so share his joy in glorifying You.
Amen.

Diane Vincent, Professor of Torrey Honors Institute