John 15.5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in them, they will bear much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.”
The older translation was “Abide in me.” Like when we ask, “Where do you bide?” That lovely Scots word is about being at home, the familiar place where we do our living, where we belong. That’s what Jesus means. We are at home in Jesus, belong with him, like a branch that’s part of the vine tree, nourished, fruitful, exactly where we should be.
So much has changed, rapidly, radically and frighteningly, in these past four months. It is part of our humanity that we are social beings, but we are forcibly separated from others for our own and their safety. What we have come to rely on and assume as our way of life has been suddnely and disturbingly upended. Routines and relationships, careers and family, holidays and parties, conversations and crowded gatherings, all disrupted.
So what remains? We have had to learn with shocking speed, nothing stays the same when a pandemic strikes. Our way of life has changed, and will have to change going into the future. Change in itself is a good thing, a sign of growth and development, new ideas and ways of doing things. But managed and planned change is one thing; rapid and enforced change is something else, and comes at a cost.
Jesus knew that the disciples were facing the catastrophe of losing him. The crucifixion and death of Jesus would come as a shock from which the disciples might not recover. So he made a promise. He would come to them. He made another promise, the Spirit of counsel and comfort would come and be with them. Then he made a third promise, “Whoever remains in me and I in them, they will bear much fruit.”
And there it is. The still point in a whirling world. “Abide in me and I in you.” Whatever else changes the love of God in Christ remains, as a constant in a changing world. Whatever else passes and becomes history, the contemporary Christ stays with us, and within us. We are at home in Christ, and he makes His home in us; we live, yet not us, but “Christ lives in us and the life we now live we live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for our sins.”
Reflection: John Wesley asked God, “Lord let me not live to be useless.” Whatever these next weeks and months hold, Christ dares us to be open to the presence of the living Lord, and invites us to abide in him and him in us. Our usefulness, and fruitfulness in the service of Christ requires that stable relationship of trusting love. Even if everything else around us is perplexing and uncertain, we are in the right place, near to the heart of God, whose love abides, and in whose love we abide.
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