Active Stillness (John 15:1-17)
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Ryan had that reaction to the book. If you are interested, you can find out more at edge of the inside.com.
Welcome to another episode of Rebuilding Faith. These are 10 minute Bible messages for people with questions and doubts.
Today, Jesus is talking [00:01:00] about wine. Yes, friends. This is one of my all time faves that we're gonna look at today. We are in John 15, but before we get there, I want to give you a little bit of setup that I think gives us the context for what Jesus is doing today.
Now, in the Old Testament, the vine was frequently used as a symbol for Israel, and this is the way that a lot of the Old Testament writers use this and an example would be Psalm chapter 80, verse eight. You transplanted a vine from Egypt. You drove out the nations and planted it, you cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land.
Here, Israel is the vine, and God is the gardener doing all this. Now, in particular, a lot of these passages referred to a disobedient Israel. It was not Israel doing the right thing. It was a vine that didn't grow the way it was supposed to. But God was the faithful gardener trying to get the vine to grow in all of [00:02:00] this.
Now, keep that understanding because this is what they likely had in mind. When Jesus began to use this kind of imagery, because this was what they knew up to that point. Then get to John chapter 15 verse one. Jesus says, I am the true grapevine and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn't produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.
You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in me and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. So here Jesus is turning a very familiar image on its head. Now notice in this version, God, the Father is still the gardener, but here Jesus is now the vine, not Israel, and he's the true vine, the vine that should have grown.[00:03:00]
All along, and now the disciples are represented as branches in this analogy. Now, if you were listening to Jesus say this, and you were there live, you would've realized, oh, he's doing something right. He's taking an image that we all know from the scriptures, and he's revamping it. He's doing something different with it.
He keeps going. Verse five, yes, I am the vine. You are the branches. Those who remain in me and I in them will bear much fruit for apart from me. You can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned. But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for whatever you want and it will be granted.
When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my father. So what does it mean for us to produce much fruit [00:04:00] today? Now the Greek word here is the word phero, which literally means to carry, which I think is interesting 'cause it's not what we tend to think of when we translate this as produce or create or bear much fruit.
We, we are not creating fruit, we are carrying the fruit. And then when you add in the fact that Jesus is using a grape vine to make this point. Things get interesting. I love the way that Gisela Craiger says it. She says, of all the plants that serve as a source of food, the grapevine like no other can grow and be productive in the most adverse agricultural context.
It thrives in stony soils and on the steepest hills and is most productive in places where little else can be grown. Christ's faithfulness comes to a climax in a place where seemingly no life can be found on the cross. So she's connecting how grape vines [00:05:00] grow in very tough conditions, and she's connecting that to Jesus.
And I love that Jesus is saying, look, I'm gonna teach you how to produce fruit, not just when all the conditions are perfect, but I'm gonna teach you to produce fruit like a grapevine. Produces fruit where you would think there is no way something can grow here and yet unbelievable beauty is possible.
And then we get to verse nine, I have loved you even as the father has loved me, remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love just as I obey my father's commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow.
This is my commandment. Love each other in the same way. I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one's life or one's friends, and you are my friends. If you do what I command, I no longer call you [00:06:00] slaves because a master doesn't confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends. Since I have told you everything the father told me.
You didn't choose me, I chose you, and I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit so that the father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name and this is my command. Love each other. I love, love this image that Jesus is using here. We are producing much fruit, a part of this big, huge vine that God is cultivating in Jesus.
And we are connected to it. We are branches and we're growing in places where most things don't grow and producing beautiful fruit. And if you do enjoy wine, I am a big wine guy. If you do enjoy wine, you know that this produces something incredible. That then later other people can enjoy as well. And so I love that this is the image that Jesus is using here to [00:07:00] describe the journey of following him, of what it means to be in right relationship with Jesus.
So how do we do this? How do we be fruitful? A healthy way. Well, the solution is subtle. It's only appeared eight times in the verses I just read to you. That's right. There's a word that was repeated eight different times. I'm not sure if you caught it. But this is the point that John is making as he recounts what Jesus said.
Here the word is remain. That word is used over and over again. In fact, go back and read the verses we just read and just notice or mark how many times you see the word remain on the vine. One of the phrases I've heard it described as is active stillness. Right. We are actively pursuing our connection to the vine.
But then once we're there, we're just still, we're not doing anything. We're not [00:08:00] creating anything. We're just choosing to be connected to the vine. A literal translation would be that we live on the vine, right? We don't visit the vine. We don't occasionally clinging to the vine. We live our lives connected to the vine.
This is the image. God is using here. Now I wanna close with something Robert Capone said. That is such a beautiful picture of creation, and I think this is a fitting end to this image here. He says, the world exists not for what it means, but for what it is. The purpose of mushrooms is to be mushrooms.
Wine is in order to wine. Things are precious before they are contributory. It is a false piety that walks through creation looking only for lessons which can be applied somewhere else. To be sure God remains the greatest good, but for all of that, the world is still good in itself. Indeed, since he does not [00:09:00] need it, its whole reason for being must lie in its own goodness.
He has no use for it. Only delight. It doesn't always have to be something you go and do that you just exist in the goodness in which God made you. And I love that image because that's what it looks like when we remain in the vine, when we remain connected to God. It's not about producing fruit and making fruit and wowing people.
It's about that active stillness and being connected to the source of life. And when we do that, great fruit is the result. I'll see you next week on Rebuilding Faith.
