I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. (Jn 15:1-4, NIV)
Just a few years ago a friend of mine bought for me a little olive tree sapling. He told me that trees are great teachers about patience because they take time to bear fruit. Now he wasn’t so much interested in the fruit that the tree would one day give me, but hoping for me to see that good things can take some time to grow. And boy he was not wrong. This tree has sat outside my study window at home for years now and though I have watered it and made sure that no insects have tried to destroy it, it is only been this year that beautiful big olives have started to grow. What’s the lesson in all of this? Well that fruit sometimes takes a good amount of time to see.
And I suppose nature has many lessons for us like this, for example weeds come up over night and aren’t good for anything and pine grows fast but is cheap and flimsy and somewhat unreliable over time. Nature tends to lean that way right? It shows us that anything worth anything takes time to grow into something beautiful. For example our new pulpit that has been wonderfully built by Matthew Vander Velde is made from old Jarrah trees that have grown strong and sturdy over years and years. Before it became our pulpit by this great craftsman, it was used as shelves and building material. But that’s the thing about this wood that is so amazing, it took years and years to grow sturdy and even years later after being used as different things, it is still as strong and sturdy as it was the day it was cut down. It didn’t become like that over night.
Throughout the earthly mission of Jesus, we see many examples of Christ taking every day things and creating spiritual lessons for us so that we can grasp the mysterious in a greater way (Mk 4 for one example). This is the beauty of creation, it isn’t just a neutral object, no it literally pours fourth speech to tell us something about the one who created it so that we are without excuse in this world. Namely, that there is a creator and that we are his creation and accountable to him (Ps 8, Rom 1).
And that’s what Jesus is showing us here in John 15, He is giving us a lesson from nature that we can all see and understand when it comes to spiritual growth. The first thing that we need to take note of is that we are the branches that are grafted into the vine in this picture. Meaning that we are passive branches that would have rotted if we were not taken and grafted in by the gardener. And that’s important to note, because we need to understand that there is no life, no growth without us being grafted to the one who gives us such things. The second thing that we need to take note of is that the father is the gardener, which means it is he that does all the work in protecting and nurturing us so that fruit might come to blossom one day. That’s the picture that we get in just that first sentence, we are passive branches grafted into a life-giving vine and looked after by a caring gardener.
Now I don’t know about you, but every gardener that I have ever met is in the business of making their trees as beautiful as they can be. I have never met a gardener who spends all their time destroying their trees rather than labouring in making them as beautiful as they can be. Though you might not see it and thought it might take time, I want to encourage you that we have a gardener who has grafted us to His precious Son and who is labouring in our life to see that fruit come to fruition to the glory of God.