(Hum opening bars of “Pomp and Circumstance” — move hands like a conductor.)
It is almost the season for graduation exercises. I’ve seen the signs. I’ve been in the Hallmark Store.
Part of commencement is to have a speaker. Someone with a “name” is brought in to challenge the grads before they enter the real world. The speakers change but the speeches are almost interchangeable. They are mass produced by a computer.
The topic is human potential -- what you can do if you set your mind to it; limitless possibilities for the determined; confidence that the graduating class will change the world; coupled with a challenge to fix all the problems.
That’s not the message Jesus would give. Jesus’ words to His disciples on the night before His death are a graduation talk. But the content has little to do with human potential.
Jesus’ message starts in the Upper Room after the Lord’s Supper. In John 14:31, Jesus tells His disciples that it’s time to leave the Upper Room. At the beginning of chapter 18 they cross the Kidron Valley to the garden of Gethsemane. So everything in chapters 15-17 take place during the walk through the darkened streets of Jerusalem.
As John 15 opens, we find that the route from the Upper Room to Gethsemane has brought Jesus and His disciples to the grounds of the Temple. That’s the natural path for them to take.
Several times Jesus has used the imagery of the temple and its ceremonies as the opportunity to teach about Himself -- “I am the light of the world, I am the living water.” Now He uses the temple a final time.
One of the gates of the temple was faced with a beautiful golden sculpture of a vine - higher than a man - bearing large clusters of golden grapes. The historian Josephus describes it for us in his history. This sculpture represented the people of Israel.
As they pass this sculpture Jesus turns to the men walking beside Him and says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-dresser.” With those words He begins to teach them and us what it means to belong to Him.
The grape vine was grown all over Israel. It still is. It is a plant that needs a great deal of attention if the best fruit is to be gotten out of it. A young vine in Israel was not allowed to fruit for the first three years. Each year it was severely cut back to develop and conserve its life and energy. When mature, it cannot produce its best crop without pruning. Jesus’ disciples know that.
So Jesus tells them, “Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, My Father takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it that it may bear more fruit.”
The only function of a branch of a vine is to bear fruit. The wood is too soft for any other purpose. You cannot build a house with it. You can’t make furniture from it. You can‘t even use it as fuel because when you throw it onto the fire it flames up for a moment or two and then disappears. All it was good for was to be thrown into a bonfire and burned. This is the image that Jesus draws in verse 6.
Now some people interpret Jesus words in verse two, “Every branch in me that does not bear fruit the Father takes away..” as indicating that God will remove us from His Kingdom if we are not bearing sufficient and appropriate fruit. But this is not a correct understanding of this verse for two reasons.
First, Jesus says that the people in verse two are “in me”. This is not the same as the “ones who do not abide in me” in verse 6 who dry up and are thrown into the fire. The phrase “in me” in verse 2 lets us know that Jesus is talking here about genuine believers.
Second, the Greek word airo which lies behind the phrase “takes away” has the primary meaning of “to lift or pick up.” So the verse properly reads “Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he lifts up.”
Grapes are not like squash or pumpkins which develop quite well while lying on the ground. They must hang free. So the vine dresser lifts the branches on the ground up onto the trellis into the sun and air.
Jesus is not saying that God will remove us if we are not productive -- even if we are genuinely ‘in Him.” He is saying that God will give us the care we need to become productive. He will move us into the sunshine where we will be nurtured and fed.
There is a lesson here for our lives as God’s people -- for that is what Jesus is talking about. The lesson is that God has a desire for our lives and, as a good vine-dresser, God will do whatever is needed to make that plan happen. The fruit we bear as a Christian is not the result of us being allowed to run riot according to our own natural inclinations and energies. It is, instead, the result of a loving, divine plan.
If the grapevines I have had in my yard could talk, I wonder what they would say about me to each other. Sometimes I would been seen as being very loving. Those would be the times in the hot summer when I give them water. But what about when I came to spray them with some poisonous solution? Do they know that I am killing insects that would harm them or do they think that I’m trying to hurt them? “Oh, no,” they might say, “It’s all over now. What a terrible person -- he’s getting horrible stuff all over me.” And then what about during the winter when they see me coming with my shears? Do they understand that I am acting for their good or do they think that I am making them suffer because I am a grape hater?
A question we need to ask when it seems like God is after us with the shears is, “Is He doing this because He’s cruel and angry and doesn’t love me, or is this an experience in pruning that is necessary for my strength and growth?” We often need to remember, as Hebrews 12:6 tells us, “the Lord disciplines the one He loves.” This is the same thing as Jesus is saying here.
Now all this would not be a popular graduation speech today. This is not what contemporary people want to hear -- even many Christians. What they want to hear is that God only wants us to have pleasant circumstances in life. They want to hear that “God wants to bless us”.
And the thing is, God does want to bless us. The problem comes when we try to define “blessing”. To contemporary society, “blessing” is synonymous with ease and enjoyment -- a right to be happy. However, God’s definition of “blessing” is anything that moves us toward Christlikeness. So, for the Christian, a hard experience can indeed be a blessing from God.
Then, in verse three, Jesus says to His disciples, “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” The word that is used for “clean” is the same word that is translated in verse two as “pruned”. What Jesus is saying is that His disciples have been pruned by hearing and receiving the Word. They are not Judas whom Jesus will later call “the son of perdition.” Even Peter who will deny Him is clean. He is not perfect, but he is “pruned”.
The root of this cleanliness is that Peter, like the other disciples, is “abiding in Christ.” For the fruit we bear, Jesus tells us in verse 4, cannot be the result of our own abilities or drives. It is a result of abiding in Him. “Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.”
Now obviously, this would get people’s attention at graduation -- which would at least be a switch from the usual apathetic response to what is proclaimed from the podium.
It would get people’s attention but they wouldn’t like it. They came to hear how we can “do anything if we set our mind to it” and “all we have to do is believe in ourselves.” But that is definitely not the message Jesus gives. He says, “No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in Me and I in you, you will bear much fruit -- but apart from Me you can do nothing.”
Jesus says that by ourselves we can do nothing. We must all remember as we hear that, that “nothing” is not “ a little something”. It is nothing.
But what does Jesus mean? Now how can He say we can do nothing when it is obvious that people are achieving great things without giving any attention to Him all the time? Look at Microsoft. Look at the New York Yankees. How much do Bill Gates or George Steinbrenner build their lives on prayer? And look at what they’ve built.
But the question is what is ultimately worthwhile. Patrick Morley says it well in Seven Seasons of a Man’s Life. He writes: “The problem for many men is not so much that they are failing. Rather, the problem is that they are achieving their goals, but they are the wrong goals. Failure means to succeed in a way that doesn’t really matter.”
For a branch to abide in a vine means for the branch to depend totally on the vine, not only for its food but for its very meaning.
What this means to you as an individual is this: You can’t make it on you own. Not only can you not accomplish anything ultimately worthwhile apart from Christ but, apart from Christ, you cannot even dare to stand before God.
A vine, like a church, is a very complex thing. It is possible for a branch to appear to be a part of the vine because it is interlaced with the other branches and is being supported by them. It is only when it turns brown and dies that it becomes evident that there is no actual connection to the tap root. In the same way, there are people in the organization called “the church,” who are not a part of the vine -- just as Judas was a part of the apostolic band without being a part of the vine.
Being a part of the vine is not the same thing as being involved in an organization. Now I believe that if you are part of the vine, you will be part of the visible church and express that by membership in a local community of faith. But it doesn’t necessarily work the other way. Hanging out with the other branches doesn’t necessarily connect you to the trunk.
Being a part of the vine can only come from a personal attitude of trust in Jesus Christ -- not trusting your own perfection but trusting completely in His perfection working in you.
It’s also about power. Jesus tells us that we cannot do anything without Him. But we are also told that we can do “incredible things” in Him. In Philippians 4:13 Paul says, “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” He know that the future is an endless possibility for the child of God!
We are told that when God is moving through us we can overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. We can see entire communities changed. We can see the hardest heart softened. We can see the most hopeless situation turned around
But these things don’t happen because of our techniques. They happen because of Jesus’ life working through us! So, the first thing to keep in mind is this: if you want to make a difference in the world - a real difference - you must let Christ build His life into you.
The message from Jesus is not a popular one today. But, in truth, there is no better speaker for commencement exercises or any other occasion than Jesus. What those entering and those living in the “dog eat dog” world need to hear more than anything else is the truth.
I pray you have not only heard the truth but are also willing to build your life on it. He is the vine. You are the branches. Apart from Him you can do nothing — or at least nothing that matters.