The Vine. Part 2 – The Branches
John 15:5 I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
Jesus’ metaphor/parable of himself as the vine and his Church as the branches is a powerful demonstration of teaching that is visual, every day, contextual, Scriptural, ethical and profound. A parable is like a Tardis, bigger on the inside than it first appears, and John 15:5 is a gift that keeps on giving.
The fruit is ethical
In the Old Testament, the fruit of the metaphorical vine was understood to be ethical. For example, Isaiah 5:7
For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!
In Matt 21.43, a parable about a vineyard, Jesus declares to the Jewish leaders that the kingdom will be taken away from them and given to a people who will produce its fruit. Yohanna Katanacho recognises that in the wider passage the fruit is is peace (14.27), love (15.9) and joy (15.11). The people of God ought to produce kingdom fruit which changes society.
Fruit production requires much water
Vines are thirsty plants. Grape production requires lots of water – the succulence of grapes arises from the large quantity of fluid contained within them.
In the same way, Christians are thirsty. We need lots of the Holy Spirit in order to produce kingdom fruit. The more Holy Spirit, the more fruit. Within this picture of the church, there is a correlation between the thirst of the vine and the bearing of fruit.
Crushing makes wine
The primary purpose of grapes is wine. To get from grapes to wine there is crushing and waiting. Traditionally, grapes are crushed by foot (not by a millstone like flour or a press like olives) because sensitivity is required – the skin of the fruit must be burst but the seeds themselves must be preserved.
Indeed, both elements of the Lord’s supper (bread and wine) require crushing and waiting/re-purposing. In John, Christ calls himself a grain of wheat (12:24), the bread of life (6:35) – and he feeds 5,000 hungry people with miracle bread. In the same way, he calls himself the true vine (15:1) and also produces miracle wine for people to drink (2:10). John alone of the four gospels does not have a scene where the Eucharist is taught to the disciples. However, the whole book is Eucharistic. Christ’s death the crushing, his resurrection the repurposing, bread and wine the gifts of life in himself.
Such crushing in the winepress of God’s wrath (Revelation 14:19-20) was Christ’s experience, and yet is the church’s shared experience too. Our “fellowship of his sufferings” (Philippians 3:19) is an experience both of crushing and also of resurrection/vindication.
The more the Church is crushed, the sweeter her wine.
