“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. 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 15:4-5).
The disciples need important guidance to move forward, and Jesus is intentionally providing it.
The setting is so important. Remember, in a few hours, Jesus will be forcefully separated from the disciples, and then hours later, they will see him publicly crucified. Their world is about to be shattered in ways they can’t imagine, and they will have to make some important decisions about following Jesus.
In a few hours, Jesus’s command to abide/remain in him will be difficult to understand. How can they abide in one who is going away? How can we abide in one whom we have never seen? Jesus’s next statement escalates the value of abiding: “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (5)
According to Jesus, the disciples will not be able to bear fruit without abiding in Jesus. This is so counterintuitive. The natural mind will suggest that we don’t need Jesus to bear good fruit. A few years ago, a Harvard Divinity School graduate published Good Without God. In this apologetic for humanism, he argued that humans do not need a belief in God to do good. Notice that Jesus’s statement is much narrower. Jesus isn’t arguing for generic deism; he is talking about exclusively abiding in him. Apart from him, the disciples will not be able to produce fruit.
Jesus challenged the innate belief that in ourselves we are good enough. But on whose scale? How do we measure “good enough”? Whatever natural abilities the disciples had – and, like us, they must have had some – Jesus said they were not enough to produce the fruit Jesus is referencing.
This lesson may need to percolate in our souls before we can embrace it.
Father, please help me realize that I can not produce fruit on my own. Help me to get over my self-appreciation and abide in Jesus. Amen.
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