“I am the vine; 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”
“I am the vine.” Imagine that you are a Jew living at the time of Jesus. You go to the Temple for worship. Do you know what you see as you enter the Temple area? You see a hand-made vine made of gold wi…th grape clusters as tall as a man. Imagine, too, that you go to a shop to buy something. As you hand the shop-keeper a coin you admire the outline of a vine and branches engraved on the face of the coin. Why is there a vine by the Temple, and why is a vine engraved upon the currency? Both of these are reminders to you that Israel is the vine of the Lord.
This imagery of Israel as the vine of God is to be found over and over again in the pages of the Old Testament. In Isaiah 5, Isaiah sings “The Song of the Vineyard,” a song the Lord put in his heart. Ezekiel also uses this image of Israel as the vine of the Lord. In Ezekiel 15 the Lord compares the people to a vine, speaking of it as a low creeping woody plant, useful for nothing but burning. Israel has reached this sad state because of unfaithfulness. The message of the vine is the same, Israel was an imperfect vine.The vine of Israel was not producing as it should. When the Lord, the divine Gardener, walked through His vineyard, He found only bad fruit.
Some 700 years after Isaiah, this is what Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.” Everyone listening to Jesus knows exactly what He is saying because they know what the Old Testament says about the vine. First, Jesus is saying He is the branch, the shoot, the choice vine that Isaiah and the other prophets saw coming. Second, Jesus is contrasting Himself to Israel. Jesus says He succeeds where Israel fails. Jesus says He takes Israel’s place as the vine of the Lord. Jesus says He bears the fruit Israel never did or could. Jesus says He fulfills the Father’s expectations so that the Father is never disappointed when He looks for fruit on the vine of His Son.
What is the fruit Jesus produces, fruit that makes the divine Gardener happy? We have been put on the earth to glorify God and to live for Him forever. Israel did not do that and neither do we. But Jesus, He came to give God the glory. Remember what Jesus said on Palm Sunday. He said, (Jn 12:28) “Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.”
“I am the vine; you are the branches.” Let’s make sure we properly understand this as Christian. Often we have the wrong idea here and think of Jesus as the stock or the trunk and of ourselves as the branches that grow on and get their nourishment from and through the stock or trunk. But Christ does not say, “I am the stock, I am the trunk.” Rather, He says “I am the vine.” What is the vine? The vine is the whole plant – stock, roots, branches, leaves, and all. “I am the vine; you are the branches.” Do you realize what Jesus is saying about us here?
He is saying we are part of Him. The vine/branch imagery means that we are “in Christ,” “with Christ,” “united to Christ,” “one with Christ.” Between the Savior and His people there is a unity, a bond of fellowship and love and life. It also means that we, in and with and through Christ, replace Israel as the vine of the Lord. It means that when Christ, the vine, produces the fruit Israel never did, Christ produces fruit through us. This is a very important point, in other words, when we bear fruit, it is Christ’s fruit we are bearing and it is Christ Who is bearing fruit in us. So, when the divine Gardener walks through His vineyard looking for fruit, He looks for it in your life and my life and in the lives of all those who are part of Christ.
“I am the vine; you are the branches.” Christ bears the fruit Israel never did. And, it is our job to bear Christ’s fruit. But, we can bear fruit only if we remain in Christ. Being in Christ, ours is the joy and responsibility of bearing fruit, visible fruit, fruit that all the world can see….and want!