Pruned and Fruitful Branches

Jesu Juva

St. John 15:1-8                                                  

April 28, 2024

Easter 5B                        

 Dear saints of our Savior~

        Jesus is the vine.  You are the branches.  The Father is the vinedresser (or gardener).  That’s today’s image of your union with Jesus through faith.  Joined to Jesus in faith you are alive and fruitful, as living branches joined to a living vine.  Apart from Jesus you are dead.  Apart from Jesus you are fruitless.  Apart from Jesus you can do nothing.

        With that in mind, let me take you to my backyard, where last August I planted two Hydrangeas—Annabelle Hydrangeas—the kind that produce big, white, round blossoms.  This was a big investment—of both money and sweat.  It was a lot of work for an old guy like me to plant these in just the right place, at just the right depth, in just the right organic matter—not to mention all the watering, because everyone knows Hydrangeas love water.

        But last October I had to do something to those shrubs that went against my every instinct.  On the advice and recommendation of all my master gardener friends, I had to prune those Hydrangeas down to two inches.  I had worked so hard to keep them alive and help them to grow and flourish, it seemed counter-intuitive to cut them down to practically nothing.  I didn’t want to do it; but I did. 

        I should have read the words of Jesus in John 15 first.  Jesus tells us that dead branches get pruned by the Father—and even branches that are fruitful He snips, nips, and trims back in order that they might produce even more fruit.  The importance of pruning is especially true when it comes to grape vines and fruit trees.  Dead wood needs to be cut off.  Living wood needs to be pruned back in order to produce wood that’s even more fruitful.

        What does this all mean for you—for your life as a branch of Jesus?  It means that your heavenly Father is pruning you—not with fancy pruning shears—but with something much sharper.  God prunes you with His Law.  With the Law, He prunes away at the Old Adam, our sinful nature. 

        We all wonder sometimes just what God is up to.  Why does He allow hardship and misfortune and persecution to happen to believers?  Why do bad things happen to faithful people?  Today’s answer:  He’s pruning away the dead branches and trimming the living branches so that we produce even more fruit—so that He can accomplish even more good in this world through you.

        We don’t have many vineyards in Wisconsin, and the Napa Valley photos you normally see are of lush, green vines, loaded with big bunches of grapes.  What you don’t often see is what the vineyards look like after the harvest.  The grapevines are pruned back severely, leaving just a few branches coming off of an old, gnarled trunk.  To Midwestern eyes those pruned vines look like they’ll never sprout leaves again, much less fruit.  There are barely any branches.  But when spring growth gives way to summer fruit, the results are undeniable—much fruit, abundant fruit.

        It’s the same with fruit trees.  They may be pretty when they’re blossoming or loaded with fruit.  But if you take a close look at a commercial fruit tree, it’s not a pretty sight.  That’s because these trees are not pruned for appearance, but for fruit.  The main branches are usually topped-off to limit the height of the tree for the sake of the pickers.  Side branches and shoots are trimmed off to keep the branches from breaking under the weight of the fruit.  Some branches are actually tied with support lines to keep them from sagging.  It’s not the kind of thing you want growing in your front yard; but it’s exactly what you want if what you want is lots of fruit.

        If we’re honest, the life of a Christian—your life in particular—may not be a very pretty sight.  In our struggle against sin we have our good days and our bad days.  We have more than our fair share of failures and struggles and hardships.  It’s not victory after victory and success after success.  Often life is messy; sometimes downright ugly.  But know this:  Fruit trees and grape vines are not pruned to be pretty, but to be fruitful.  Your heavenly Father does not prune His children so that the world can admire how religious you are and aim to be just like you; He prunes for fruit.  He cuts away the deadwood that has succumbed to sin; and He prunes the living branches to make them even more fruitful.  He doesn’t prune your life to be pretty, to be successful, or to be powerful.  He prunes your life to be fruitful—filled with the fruit of good works.

        The Old Adam, our sinful nature, would prefer to grow wild, like an unpruned vine or an untrimmed tree.  “Keep those pruning shears away from me, thank you very much; I prefer to be wild and do my own thing.”  I’m sure you’ve seen what happens when a tree or vine goes untended and is allowed to grow all over the place.  Sure, there’s lots of green on the outside, but there’s lots of dead wood on the inside, and very little fruit.  That’s how Jesus described the super-duper religious types of His day—He called them whitewashes tombs.  They were pure and holy on the outside, but dead on the inside.  But you, dear believer, you are exactly the opposite—dying on the outside, but alive to God on the inside.

        The word of the day is “abide.”  Abide in me and I in you.  As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.  What happens when a branch is severed?  It dies.  Not right away, perhaps, but it slowly dries up and certainly bears no fruit.  What happens to a believer when he or she is cut off from the Word, or from the Body and Blood of Jesus?  Same thing.  Faith doesn’t necessarily die right away.  It kind of dries up and shrivels.

        We take our life in Christ (our abiding in Him) far too much for granted.  Whether it’s our lackadaisical attitudes about church, or the casual way we listen the Word, or the complaints we silently mutter during the Divine Service.  We seem to take the attitude that we’re just fine on our own; and all we need is a little booster shot of Jesus now and then to keep us going.  And that, right there, is the devil’s trick.  Convince the branch that it can do without the Vine—or that all the branch needs is to be reasonably close to the Vine.  But “reasonably close” doesn’t cut it.  A severed, dying branch placed right next to a living tree is still severed and dying.  You must be connected to the living Christ!

        That’s why Jesus invites us to “abide.”  To abide is to dwell, to reside, to have your home someplace and somewhere.  To abide in Christ is to live in Him through faith.  Christ is your life and there is no life apart from Him.  To “abide” is not something that happens once a week for 75 minutes.  That’s not abiding.  It’s not a “Gee, I’d really like to go to church but we were out late last night and I’ve got tickets to the ball game, and the kids have soccer games and parties to attend and my allergies are acting up this morning so I’ll be skipping church today” kind of thing.  That’s not abiding.  Abiding isn’t dipping your toe in the water; it’s diving into the deep end head first.  The reason Christians in general, and we in particular, aren’t living more fruitful lives is that we cut ourselves off from Jesus—the living Vine.  Don’t blame Jesus for the lack of faith and love in your life.  Blame yourself.  Blame your Old Adam.  Blame sin at work in you.

        And don’t gripe and complain when He applies His pruning shears to your life and cuts away some of the idols that prevent you from abiding in Jesus.  Don’t say, “Why is this happening to me?  What did I do to deserve this?”  But look at it this way:  Every loss in our life is just another dead branch being pruned away, another idol being kicked over, another distraction being eliminated, until there’s nothing left but Jesus—and Jesus is everything.  We want to be happy; but God wants us to be fruitful.  We want to be comfortable; but God wants us to be comforted.  We want to be pruned for pretty; God prunes for fruit—for good works which no one on earth may notice, but which cause angels to rejoice in heaven.

        In Galatians this fruit is named and listed:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.  You can’t produce that fruit on your own.  It’s the fruit of the Spirit.  It’s the Holy Spirit who flows from the Vine to the branches to make them fruitful. 

        You can summarize that long list of fruit with one little word:  Love.  Love is the fruit of faith.  This isn’t love “the feeling,” but love “the action,” love that lays down its life, love that gives with no regard for receiving, love as in God sending His Son into the world to be the atoning sacrifice for our sin.  God is love.  This is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sin.  Jesus is our true Vine, and He withholds nothing from His branches.  He gives us everything:  faith, forgiveness of all sin, life that lasts forever. 

        God is love; we are not.  In order for us to love, we must be joined to God in Christ.  And being joined to Jesus, we in turn love one another as God in Christ has loved us.  And this love only happens when you abide in Jesus and Jesus abides in you.  It’s kind of a mystery really.  Just like you can’t see the sap that runs from the vine to the branches.  All you can only see the fruit.  In the same way, you can’t see Christ or faith.  You can only see the fruit of faith.  The Father is glorified that you bear much fruit.  Jesus is the Vine.  You are the branches.  Abide in Him, as He abides in you.  This is the Christian life:  It’s not pruned to be pretty; it’s pruned to be fruitful.

        Oh, and by the way, my pruned Hydrangeas are going great guns.  There’s green growth all over the place.  I’m starting to believe that the pruning advice I received was good advice—Biblical advice.  And on a warm summer day I hope you’ll be able to look out one of these windows, and see those big, beautiful white flowers gracing the garden in my backyard.

        In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.