Text: John 15:5a
"I am the vine, you are the branches."

Scripture Reading:
John 15:1-8

Singing: (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Psalm 84:3,4
Psalm 1:2
Ps 89:1 - After Baptism
Ps 92:6 - After Sermon

Lord’s Supper:
To Table
Hymn 44
At Table:
John 15:9,10        Psalm 116:1
John 15:11-17      Psalm 16:1
John 15:18-21      Psalm 42:5

Ps 52:5,6 - After Offertory

Beloved Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ!

John 15 is part of the so-called Farewell Discourse which Jesus spoke to His disciples. Shortly He’ll be betrayed by Judas Iscariot, arrested by the chief priests and the scribes, presented to Pilate for sentencing, and condemned to death on the cross.

In that kind of a scenario, how shall the disciples survive? How can they remain standing in the face of attacks from hell, attacks so severe that Christ will be torn from them and nailed to the cross? The answer is given in the words of our text: "I am the Vine, you are the branches."

For the sake of clarity, we may picture Jesus walking with His disciples through a vineyard (cf Jn 14:31; Godet). He stops, looks at a vine, sees there a picture of the relationship between His disciples and Himself, a picture that can give comfort to His disciples. Jesus draws His disciples’ attention to that illustration. ‘See that vine? That’s symbolic of Me. And those shoots coming out of the vine, those branches, well, that’s a picture of you.’ The point? Those branches are dependent on the vine for nourishment – as everybody knows. Branches laying on the ground, separated from the vine, die; apart from the vine, they can do nothing. So it is with the disciples; without Christ they will survive in a hostile world no longer than those branches clipped from the vine by the vine-dresser’s sicatures.

Come to think of it, congregation, what Jesus says here is most remarkable. He typifies Himself as the vine, and the disciples as the branches. And He gives this instruction to the disciples, the branches: "Abide in Me" (vs 4). But He knows it Himself, He has even told His disciples that it will happen: He is going to be crucified, to be put to death! And His disciples are to abide in Him? Surely they can abide in Him only as long as He remains with them! What good does it do a branch to remain in a vine that’s died!

Yet Jesus speaks of the need for the branches to abide in the vine. Why He does that? That’s because He will not stay dead. Jesus knows it: He shall triumph over sin and Satan such that death cannot hold Him. He shall die, but shall also arise from the dead again, never to die any more. So He’ll be the source of Life always. And as source of Life, it shall become His privilege to distribute life to whomever He wills. And it’s His will to distribute life to those who remain in Him.

This reality implies for the disciples two things. There is first the mandate to remain in the vine. The disciples receive a responsibility, and the consequence of failing to live up to this responsibility is death, is lack of life in the full sense of the word. A branch cut off from the tree can remain green for a time, but quickly enough it shows itself to be what it is: dead.

Besides the mandate, there is for the disciples here also a very rich comfort. Their vine shall die, but not for good. He shall come alive again and live forever, and therefore the branches growing on that vine shall also live forever. Here is then the assurance that the Prince of Death shall never cause them to die; they shall never be swept along in the tide of the devil’s evil. Here is the assurance of life without end, a life they can be sure of even when all seems impossible and all is against them. Even in greatest adversity and satanic attack, of this they could be sure: the Vine will supply us with everything needed to live fully, to survive the storms. And so to bear rich fruit even in the face of adversity.

By God’s grace, we are today branches of the Vine; God has grafted us into Jesus Christ. That we are grafted into Christ – that’s the message God would impress upon us through His instruction to sit with Him at His table. He the head, we the body; He the vine, we the branches. In the trials of life, He at His table would nourish us with sap from the vine, so that we may live abundantly, fully – and bear rich fruit in His kingdom.  Amen.