[Sermon Archive] - [Weekly Devotional Guide]

This Week's Sermon THE FIFTH SUNDAY of EASTER 10 May 2009 "No Christ, No Fruit, No Life" John 15:1-8 LSB Series B Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

Last Sunday was to be the Rite of Confirmation but Peter was ill, and so, that sermon about the Good Shepherd had to be revised and the references to Peter and the Rite had to be removed. Fortunately, this text also makes a good text for such an occasion, and it makes a good text for our "First Fruits Sunday," the day that the fruit of Christian giving is produced in our lives for the renovation of our sanctuary.

The fifty day Easter season is all about life, eternal life, which is found only in Jesus Christ, risen from the dead. Apart from him there is no life, and if one is not in Christ, then one will produce none of the fruit of good works that God the Holy Spirit wants to produce in our lives. If one does not have Christ, he does not have life and he does not have the fruit of good works.

Jesus used a metaphor that everyone could understand-a grapevine. Grapes grow on vines. I found this interesting definition in Wikipedia:

The quality of the grapes determines the quality of the wine more than any other factor. Grape quality is affected by variety as well as weather during the growing season, soil minerals and acidity, time of harvest, and pruning method. The combination of these effects is often referred to as the grape's terroir.

To maximize crop yield, grapevines are trained to a specific system. The most common training systems used by home gardeners are the fourcane Kniffin and six-cane Kniffin. [Iowa State University Extension]

The branch has no life apart from the vine. Any gardener knows that. Cut the branch off the vine and it dies. The vine doesn't die, the branch does. Christians confess that they have no life apart from Jesus Christ. He is the true vine which nourishes us and sustains us. Without Christ there is no life, only death, eternal death. Jesus says here:

"I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:5, ESV)

The very first thing for you all to remember is that you can't live without being attached to Christ. Apart from him you are dead. It was in Holy Baptism that the Christian is made alive and attached to Christ. When Jesus says "Already you are clean," he is referring to your Baptism. In Holy Baptism you were washed with the blood of Jesus, cleansing you from all sin, and you were grafted into Christ who is the living vine, the true vine. Only in him is life, and in no one else.

Peter, you've learned to know where to find this Christ who has made you alive and keeps you alive. It is here in the Divine Service. Do you remember the question from the Explanation of the Small Catechism, "And where is Jesus Christ?" You should because it was a starred question! For the rest of you, the answer reads like this:

Christ is present wherever his Word is preached and his Sacraments administered, and wherever any one, through his grace, believes his Word [the Marks of the Church]; there he lives, as Jesus says in John 14.23: "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him."

The goal of God the Holy Spirit is to bring you to heaven, but he also makes you good for something in this life; he produces fruit in your life. You don't exist for yourself, but for the glory of God and the good of your neighbor. God has made you his own in Holy Baptism for a purpose. If we speak in this context, it is all about the production of fruit. Back to the vine and the branches.

Every year the bushes at our house get a pruning from the nurseryman. I used to do it but I really don't know how to produce the most beautiful plant. I cut in the wrong places, but the nurseryman knows exactly where to cut. The dead branches are cut off and others are removed to stimulate better growth. Deep into my hedges the nurseryman cuts, leaving holes in the hedges. The holes aren't meant to be permanent, but opportunities for new growth.

God does that in our lives, too. Sometimes God puts "holes" in our lives so that we may have new growth, and thus, produce new and better fruit. It might be some burden that you have to bear, an illness, the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, a personal crisis of some sort. A "hole" in your life. We can call this discipline, like that definition about training branches according to the Kniffen method. While it looks like God may be cutting too deeply, he's not. He's opening up new areas for growth. Whenever God prunes you he has something better in mind for you. Pruning is not punishment but the work of the loving vintner who wants his vine to produce more luscious fruit. And God makes no mistakes because he is the master vinedresser. He knows exactly where to prune and what to take away and what to leave.

Branches cannot live without attachment to the vine. Christians mistake their faith when they believe it to be merely an intellectual assent. Your faith is not an "it," but a living thing created by God the Holy Spirit. If you are not receiving sustenance, that is the life-giving "juice" [sap] of Word and Sacrament, that is, the very life of Christ, then you are dying and will be dead. It's what has been called "cut-flower religion." All show, often very bright, but rather dead after all. You cannot live without Christ. Those who absent themselves from the Divine Service absent themselves from Christ. They die. They become dead wood. They may even still call themselves Christians, and most often, "members of the Church," but no other earthly organization operates that way. If you join a club and don't come to meetings or pay your dues, you will be dropped from membership. Maybe these people believe themselves "alumnae" of the Church, that is, always entitled to the perks of once having attended, like being an alumnus of ISU or Rose Hulman or some other school.

One of our hymns says it pretty well [LSB 611.1]:

1 Chief of sinners though I be,
Jesus shed His blood for me,
Died that I might live on high,
Lives that I might never die.
As the branch is to the vine,
I am His, and He is mine.

Text and Music: Public domain
Created by Lutheran Service Builder © 2006 Concordia Publishing House.

There you have Christ, life, and fruit.

Grape branches are to bear fruit, the more the better, but for whom? God doesn't need the fruit of good works that he produces in you, but your neighbor does. Immediately after our reading Jesus goes on to say:

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love." (John 15:9, ESV)

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:12-13, ESV)

The branches are extensions of the vines. Christians are extensions of Christ. You are to be a "little Christ" to your neighbor, Luther says. You are to give yourself to your neighbor in love. You actually share the life that you are now receiving from Christ. That sap flows from Christ to you and through you to your neighbor in his need.

If you aren't receiving the life of Christ in Word and Sacrament, then you aren't passing on life to your neighbor, but death. This incurs the judgment of God. A pruning takes place because you become a dead branch which mars the vine by stunting further growth. Dead branches are ugly. They produce nothing and are good for nothing. Only God the Holy Spirit produces fruit in you because he brings you the life of Christ. You don't produce it, he does. And he does it through Word and Sacrament because through these he gives you his life.

To be in Christ is to receive his gifts regularly in Word and Sacrament, especially the body and blood of Christ as he teaches how to love him and our neighbor. Without Christ there is no life and no fruit, but with him is life and the fruits of faith.

And this, Peter, as well as the rest of you, is what receiving the gifts of God is all about. Here today you are admitted to the Sacrament for the first time. You receive Christ so that you learn to love God and your neighbor. That's what we are celebrating today in your life. And that goes on every week as we receive Christ, live in him, and bear fruit for him.

3 Christ, the shoot that springs triumphant
From the stump of Jesse's tree;
Christ, true vine, You nurture branches
To bear fruit abundantly.
Graft us into You, O Savior;
Prune our hearts so we remain
Fruitful branches in Your vineyard
Till eternal life we gain.

540 Christ, the Word of God Incarnate
Text: © 2001 Steven P. Mueller Used by permission: LSB Hymn License .NET, number 100010193.
Created by Lutheran Service Builder © 2006 Concordia Publishing House.