We were sweating and fighting off mosquitos, but we were determined to get the fence rebuilt in the back corner of my yard. First we had to clear a nasty looking quagmire of various vines, including sawbriars, poison oak, and poison ivy. My Dad had on long pants, a long sleeved shirt, a dust mask, gloves and protective goggles. I was wearing the same, minus the long sleeves. Dad warned me. I told him I knew the difference between the sawbriars and poison ivy and that I would be all right.
You can probably guess what happened. I ended up with severe poison ivy stripes on my arms where the vines had wrapped as I had pulled them up. My trunk was covered in welts. I was scratching and taking ibuprofen for weeks.
This week in our teaching series at Crossroads, we come to John 15 where Jesus says, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardner...you are the branches, if a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit....apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:1, 5)
When Jesus announced he was the "true vine," the disciples understood immediately that they were the "not-so-true vine." They understood that Jesus was fullfilling one of the great promises of Old Testament scripture.
In the Old Testament, God repeatedly called his people Israel a vine. In Psalm 80 he calls them a grapevine that he uprooted from Egypt and replanted in the promise land. Isaiah 5, Ezekiel 15, and Hosea 10 each show how God's vine was meant to bear fruit, to be a blessing the nations.
However, in each instance the people became untrue to the Lord by trusting in other things, and ultimately just trusting in themselves. So, when the disciples heard Jesus say I am the true Vine - they would have thought of the terrible judgment their people had suffered because they had been untrue vines.
Next Jesus taught them that the whole Christian life comes down to this. Forget trying to be your own succussful vine. HE is the vine. Abide in Him. Apart from Christ, the disciples could do, and surely we today can do, nothing.
But being our own religious vine is not the only danger.
How might we abide in other vines? Maybe our roots are tapping into our career success in order to nourish our identity? Maybe we are abiding in a lifestyle of comforts or control in ways that we should be depending on Christ?
This is one reason I am burdened for Georgia Tech students. These students are bright and capable, which often supports the notion that is okay to do a lot things apart from Christ. Jesus shows us that fruit apart from him will not last. In fact, any branches that are not in Him will be thrown into the fire. That is stark.
The lesson of the vine is also a powerful portrait of the Gospel. Jesus, the only truly fruitful vine to ever live, was cut off by the Gardner and thrown into the fire. Now, the branches that had been abiding in other vines can be grafted into the true vine and experience a new fruitful, eternal life.
Recently, the students in our ministry here at Tech are learning to abide in Christ. On their own they have organized two weekly prayer meetings on campus. They are reaching out to their friends and are beginning to see fruit in these relationships.
I am confident that upcoming posts will include stories of evangelistic fruit as our students and staff seek to uproot themselves from false vines so they can remain more fully in Jesus the true vine.
And, after a few more Saturdays working in our backyard, my Dad and I finished rebuilding our fence. I thought my poison ivy would never heal fully - thankfully it did.
