The Long Walk - Communion (part seven) ...

How does creation work?  Perhaps of more interest, how does re-creation work?  When once I have made such a wreck of my life; how can my life ever become something else, something better, something worth living?   This is the essence of the question, how does salvation work.  Despite our repeated attempts at making ourselves “better”, trying to “do good”, trying “not to sin”, we find ourselves back on our knees again, defeated not by the devil, but by our own desires we are unable to change, diminish, or overcome.  If this pattern is ever to change, it must come from a source outside of ourselves, as we have demonstrated again and again our own ineptitude at accomplishing it.  So perhaps the most important question the lost must find an answer to, is “how can we be truly saved, truly transformed, truly remade?”  Jesus knew our need in this regard.  With time winding down, He takes a slow pace with His disciples walking to the Garden of Gethsemane.  He must answer this question for His disciples, and for us.  Time was so short by then; it may be the outskirts of the Garden were already near enough to see.

John remembers in great detail the words of Christ on the long walk to the Garden.  There was so little time left.  But in chapter 15 he remembers the words of Christ, the answer to the question, “how” do we become remade as in verse one Jesus continues … “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. [verse 2] Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.”  First Jesus identifies Himself as the “true vine”.  In this analogy Jesus would be the source of life.  Nothing would live without a connection with Him.  To reject the source of life is to find that bearing fruit is simply not possible.  But perhaps the next most interesting concept is that in this analogy Jesus identifies His Father as the Gardener.  In times past Jesus has said that it is His Father who brings people to Him, draws people to Him, gives people to Him.  It is the will of His Father that ALL mankind would choose to accept the vine and the life that it brings and be saved.  But for those who refuse to accept the source of their salvation is Christ, for those who believe it can be done through their own power, or through some other way that is not founded on a connection with the vine, the Father removes those branches.  But then an even more interesting phenomenon occurs, for those who do accept that salvation comes not from themselves but from Christ alone, the Father prunes them.

Pieces of the branches that do accept the vine and are bearing fruit are STILL pruned.  Parts of them are removed, but the parts that are removed, cause them to grow even more and bear even more fruit.  Remember it is Christ who “is” the true vine.  Our ability to bear fruit at all comes from a submission to the vine, not because we try to take root on our own.  But even when we do accept and bear fruit, the work of perfecting us, is STILL not our own.  It is the work of God the Father.  And for us to reach the perfection He intends, there are pieces of ourselves that NEED to be removed.  Most of us as plants would be perfectly contented to be bearing fruit at all, and believe we need the parts we have in order to do so.  But here is Christ teaching us we are mistaken.  To be perfected, we must trust the Gardener.  We must allow the Gardener to remove even the parts we thought we needed or wanted or liked, and let the Gardener decide those things.  Here is the world’s anthem of “be true to yourself” turned on its head.  It is not “self” we must be true to, for “self” is to be wholly remade into something else.  It is the “vine” and the connection to the Vine we need to be true to; and to the Gardener who alone knows how we must be remade.  It becomes our goal to see the destruction of the “self” we have made, and watch as the Gardener creates a new “self” He intended us to be.

With the garden ever closer Jesus continues in verse 3 … “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. [verse 4] Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.”  We are clean, ONLY when we abide in Christ.  It is our connection to the source of life, that brings life to us.  It is our connection only to Christ that can see us transformed from who we were.  Branches without a connection to the vine simply do not bear fruit, they are not alive, they are dead.  Branches who try to do it themselves produce nothing.  This is something even the Christian community is reluctant to accept: That we do nothing in this process, except maintain a connection to the Vine, and even that work is done by the Gardener (God the Father) on our behalf.  Our only function is to choose to allow it occur; not to facilitate its occurrence.  Christ provides the life, the Father removes and prunes from us what must be taken, and the fruit that grows is a result of our transformation, not a prerequisite to it, or a result of anything we have done.  The work is simply not our own.

Jesus continues in verse 5 … “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. [verse 6] If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.”  When we seek to abide in Christ, when we look not to ourselves and instead trust in Him to save us from ourselves, we bear much fruit.  It is the natural consequence of embracing Christ and the salvation He offers.  But when we look away from Christ, trusting to ourselves, our own ideas about salvation and the interpretation of scripture and doctrine, when we replace Christ with self-reliance, we die.  Our spiritual strength is not determined by self, or any actions we take.  It is determined by how much we embrace the Vine of Christ, the life He offers, and the salvation His Father the Gardener is allowed to perform upon us.  We can “try” to do good works on our own, we can “try” to control our actions, but we do not change who we are inside, and without a connection to the source of life we dry up and die; all of our self-efforts amounting to nothing.  At that point we are only good for kindling.  Our vitality, our spiritual vitality, is determined by being connected to Christ, and allowing our Gardener to do His work within us.

Jesus continues the analogy in verse 7 … “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. [verse 8] Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.”  When we are transformed by the love and power of Christ, we become someone else, someone new, someone different than who we were.  We want different things.  We love others differently than we did.  We value different things.  What we ask for is now different than it was before, because we are no longer as interested in winning the PowerBall lottery and having a life of ease, as we are in winning one single precious soul into the kingdom of heaven.  That one life will be worth more to us than the hundreds of millions of dollars we once put so much value in.  The illusions of doing good with our wealth, are replaced with the reality of doing good for another of an eternal variety.  Pointing a soul to Christ, to the connection to the Vine, and KNOWING that Christ will save that soul no matter what it looks like to you and me; is worth more than winning every lottery since the history of lotteries were invented.  This is how God values people.  We are priceless to Him.  Money is meaningless to Him.  That kind of abandonment of self-interest is not natural to us in our carnal state.  It can only be achieved when we allow Him to prune our lives and hearts and minds and replace our self-focus, with a focus on loving others.  When we allow Him this work, we begin to bear REAL fruit.  We lose interest in great wealth of financial means, and find great wealth in the salvation of even a single soul.  It is not just all of us who are precious to Him, but each of us.

Jesus now reveals the core of who He is, and who the Father is in verse 9 He continues … “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.”  The essence of who God the Father is, is love.  It is the continuation of love, the expression of love, the connection to love, the abounding of love that defines the life of Christ, and the will of God His Father.  God reveals to us that He does not love Himself, but rather He loves others.  God the Father loves His Son and us, not Himself.  He does not spend His energy trying to please Himself, but instead spends His energy saving us.  Jesus while walking to the Garden, with the full knowledge He will be betrayed there by one He loved, does not think to love Himself, but only still to love us.  It is a love that seeks the best interests of its objects, not of itself that Christ has so clearly defined by His life, actions, words, motives, and example to us.  Christ and God the Father are love incarnate, and love defined.  It is then love above all else, that Christ wishes for us to participate and continue in.

Jesus continues in verse 10 … “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.”  Love is what commandments are all about.  Love is what salvation is all about.  Love is what God is all about.  Love for others is how we connect with God.  It is impossible to truly love someone else and then seek to do them harm.  It is impossible to love others greater than yourself and then choose to take actions to please yourself while knowing those actions will displease another.  When you love someone else with all your heart and mind, you seek their best interests ahead of your own no matter what the personal consequences.  Sacrifice is not even deemed sacrifice when it is done for the object of your love.  This was the mind of Christ, and heart of God.  Love for others was the embodiment of His life’s example, and was supposed to be defined in His commandments to us.  Somehow it has become easier for Christians to focus on a list of do’s and don’ts and attempt to prescribe detailed behaviors that can comply with the letter of the law, than to embrace the love behind the law that would radically alter not just what we do, but how we think.

Jesus tells us then why love is so important to us in verse 11 … “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.”  When a life is based on love for others, not for self, that life becomes one of great joy.  This is why the life of God is one worth living, He finds His own joy in loving us.  We find His joy within us, as we love others.  Lucifer’s perversion of turning love inwards and focusing on self, turned love into evil, and life into death.  If we are to escape evil, pain, and death, we must learn what it really means to love, and love is not defined inwardly, but only as it is expressed outwardly to another, to someone else.  It is that kind of power love has, to turn an enemy into the closest of friends.  It is that kind of power love has, to redeem and forgive we who were lost, because He loved us all just that much.

Jesus then re-summarizes all of scripture, all commandments, the point of all the stories, the point of life itself and expresses again to His disciples in verse 12 … “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.”  Notice the absolute absence of doctrine in this summarization of what Christ asks of us.  Notice the absolute lack of judgment on His part, or required of us on each other, in what Christ asks of us.  He does not specify the conditions under which we should love each other, i.e. only after we are pure, forgiven, living under a certain set of expectations, with a pure doctrinal understanding of scripture.  These men before Him were still under the misguided belief that He was there to setup an anti-Roman earthly kingdom that would never die.  They were all still mistaken about the most fundamental doctrine of the Jewish faith, and still planning to profit personally from Jesus fulfilling the misguided expectations.  Their lack of doctrinal understanding was mind-blowing, and yet fully unimportant to Christ with respect to what was truly important – that they love each other.  He did not give them a list of things to do or not do.  But instead He gave them a principle, or a value, or an action that would exceed any list of do’s or don’ts.  There would be no limit to how much we could love each other.

In contrast to lists that can barely scratch at the surface of what it means to love another Christ offers a scale by which love could be measured in verse 13 … “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”  Christ is telling them that even life itself is not so precious as love for others.  If it comes down to a choice of life or of love, Christ will choose love.  This is the measure by which love for us was measured out.  And even with the conscious choice that Christ will lay down His life for them, He is still ceaselessly looking to their interests, their comfort, their concerns, despite the long walk to the Garden of Gethsemane.  It is perhaps ironic that the first temptation and test of trust was made in a garden, and now the last one, the last struggle will occur in a garden as well.  But even in this dire situation, with time running out, Christ is still focused on the needs of his faithful few.  He now begins to break with rabbinical traditions, and societal expectations.  As he continues with them in verse 14 … “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. [verse 15] Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.”

Even though He is our Lord, and rightfully so, He elevates us from the status of servants to the status of friends.  “Friends” implies community, equality, and peer participation.  Though we will never be equal to Christ in any way, shape, or form, in spite of this fact, He still thinks of us in the manner of being His friends.  When we allow His love to bear fruit within us, when we become part of the vine, He does not just consider us branches that bear fruit, but instead, friends that are united in purpose with the vine itself.  Christ is still the source of life in the vine, yet now, He thinks of us as His friends; for while we love others as greatly as He loves us, we are more than we used to be.  We are more than mere servants who follow blindly, instead He reveals to us our shared goals, the secrets of how our goals will be achieved, the truths of motives of our Father God.  Christ offers us, His friends, the full revelation of WHO we serve, and what it means to participate in service, and why service is joy.  The revelation He offers us is stunning.  And the status with which He thinks of us is more stunning.  To be thought of as friends of God, despite who we really are, is yet another measure of the power of love, His love.

But communion was not over just yet …