B, Easter 5 - John 15:1–5, 1 John 4:11–17 "Branches of God's Love"

John 15:1–5 (ESV) “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.  Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.  Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.  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. 

1 John 4:11–17 (ESV) Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.  By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.  And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world.  Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.  So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.  By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.

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Getting liquid into cells with thick membranes can be near impossible if the membranes are too tough.  Even if one finds a way to get the liquid in, if the membrane is not pliable enough to grow, the membrane can break, and the life-liquid within is lost.

The science of cells receiving liquid is known as osmosis.  A cell with a thick solution within, naturally attracts a thinner solution through its outer membrane to dilute the thicker within.  The results of this dissolution, the breaking up of the thicker solution, is the hydration of the cell.  Plant and animal cells work this way by containing a thicker salty solution, and water is the solvent that breaks down the salt and hydrates the cells in the object.

If the source of the hydration is hindered, the life of the branches suffers.  If the membranes of the cells become thick and clogged, the cells choke themselves.   If the source stops providing, everything downstream dies.  If the nutrient supply is changed at the source, then the cells can be poisoned.  And if an external action physically separates a branch from the source, then understandably what is cut cannot live.

Jesus calls himself the vine, and our Father as the vinedresser.  God is our gardener, and we are the branches of Jesus Christ.  Elsewhere in God’s word we’re told we have been grafted into God through Jesus Christ. 

“For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, (the Israelites) be grafted back into their own olive tree.” (Romans 11:24 ESV)

Jesus Christ is now the vine shoot from the stump into which God’s branches are grafted.  Both us and the Israelites get spiritual growth from the new Israel, our Saviour Jesus Christ.  Apart from Jesus Christ we can do nothing; we cannot grow or bear any fruit! 

Remaining in Christ, abiding in him, we produce fruit!  What is this fruit?  What does your fruit look like?  Does it look like Jesus Christ?  Does it point to him or to something else?  How do I remain in Christ, so that his solvent can work its dissolution of sin within every cell of my being? 

Ask yourself, “If God can cut out the cultivated olive branch, what can he do to me, a wild olive branch that’s been grafted into him?”

So, what is it that allows a person to remain grafted into him?    In what do I trust?  Does it allow God to abide in me, so I can receive the holiness and cleanliness of God?   Despite the dirtiness of my deeds and desires that hardens my being to his cleanliness and holiness!

Ponder how this looks to God!   If you were God, how would you deal with one who hardens itself to the faithful softening nutrients of forgiveness?

Well, this is how God deals with it!  God places an electrolyte within our being, to draw in the nutrients from his word and his sacraments.  Without this electrolyte the cells of our spirituality would become so hardened, from the salinity of the self’s desires, that we would lose the energy we need to exist and eventually self-destruct.  We would spiritually collapse and die.  

This electrolyte is the activity of the Holy Spirit!  It comes from nutrients in God’s word and sacraments, and it draws God’s word and sacraments through the branches of the vine, into every living cell of our being.

This activity, of the Holy Spirit within us, gives us spiritual growth.  This electrolyte seasons us with the salt of salvation, and it creates a new desire within us.  This is the desire to be loved by God. 

However, the electrolyte of the Holy Spirit working within us, is already God’s love working.  We desire the love of God because God has been loving us with his word and sacraments.  The spiritual growth occurring here does a number of things.

First, the Holy Spirit reveals to us the hardness of our being and our resistance to God’s electrolytes of love.  We’re shown how our desires of love to love, negates our need to be loved by God, in the way that he needs to love us.

We hear the great love text of the bible, such as the first John text today and Jesus’ summary of the Old Testament, on how to inherit eternal life, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.” (Luke 10:27 ESV)

We learn very quickly the way God so loved the world, is so different to the way, we so love the world.  Jesus says, “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” (John 12:25 ESV)

Secondly, the Spirit having revealed this leads us to cry out, “How do I love the Lord my God with all my heart and with all my strength and with all my mind, and my neighbour as myself?”  

Thirdly, one of three scenarios then occurs!  Only one grows us with the electrolytes of God’s love in the Holy Spirit.  The other two continue to shut out the love of God with the hardness of the human spirit of love.

In these other two scenarios, one cries out “How do I love?” and then decides to climb up to God and love him with one’s good works and obedience.  Unfortunately, these works are filthy rags in the sight of God, because they disobey God and his word. 

The other of these two scenarios, one sees the hopelessness of their spiritual health, knowing that no amount of their works will fix their failure to love God, and they walk away from God, usually hating God, or hating themselves, or both!

In both of these ways, climbing up to God or walking away from him, the effects of humanity’s negative spiritual electrolytes are working within, hardening us to the will of God. 

But the third scenario is God’s way.  In crying out, “How does one love God?” One learns in God’s word, it’s God’s love that has carried them so far!  Therefore, it will be God’s love that continues to energise them with all his gifts of love for salvation and eternal life!

It may not be immediately obvious, but God’s word and sacraments have been flowing from the vine into the branches to give life and vitality.  Our love for God and others is revealed in events we would usually deem ordinary rather than extraordinary!  

These are in desires like: Being still and letting God be God in our circumstances.  Waiting on God with patience.  Opening one’s heart to God’s word to reveal sin, to willingly repent and believe our forgiveness.  One is also shown in their enemies a need for God’s grafting gift, so there’s a willing desire to forgive as one has been forgiven. 

So, in summary, first the Holy Spirit shows us our shortfall.  Second, the Holy Spirit elicits the desire to cry out to God for help.  And third, we are quietened with a revelation of God’s work in and through his word and sacraments, where we continue to abide in these works of love, to confess sin, and live in peace with God and those with whom God has placed us.

Knowing that God’s love flows to us through the vine that is Jesus Christ, and our life now comes from the work of the Holy Spirit within, we know we ought to love one another.  With this debt to love, our faith returns us to the cycle of life where we continue to receive nutrient from Jesus Christ, our vine,  in the electrolytic empowering work of the Holy Spirit, given in and through God’s word and sacraments.

God the Father is the vinedresser, Jesus Christ is the vine, and the Holy Spirit seeks to hydrate the health of every spiritual cell in the vine’s branches, which is God’s church! 

Let God abide and remain within, so his love can be perfected in us and keep us healthy in Jesus Christ.  Amen.

B, Easter 4, Good Shepherd Sunday - John 10:11,17-18 "The Good Shepherd's Power"

John 10:11, 17–18 (ESV)  "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.  For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.  No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father."

The kingdom and the power and the glory are God the Father’s.  In Jesus’ victory over death in his death and resurrection, God the Father has given Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, the kingdom, the power, and the glory.  The Father did this, “when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places”. (Ephesians 1:20 ESV)

Here in the Good Shepherd narrative, Jesus refers to the power he has, as a result of the “command”(literally in the Greek), or “charge” he has received from God the Father. 

As we just heard in Ephesians chapter one, Jesus’ resurrection is usually referred to as passive.  In all but a couple of instances, we’re told Jesus “was raised” from the dead by God the Father or God the Holy Spirit.

Here in John ten, Jesus tells us he has authority to lay his life down and to take it up.  Also, in John chapter two, after he clears the temple and confronts the Jews, he says of his own body, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  (John 2:19 ESV)

Humanity has the power to lay down its life but taking it up again is somewhat problematic!

Many valiant individuals have thrown themselves in harm’s way, to save the life of another.  Many parents or spouses have given their lives for each other or their children.  Soldiers in active combat, in service to our country, have laid down their lives on the battlefield, some even taking their own lives to protect national secrets from the enemy.  Others, blinded by hopelessness, lay down their lives through suicide.

None of these though, who have laid down their lives, honourably or otherwise,  have been able to take their lives back up again!  Once you’re dead, you’re dead!

Jesus’ authority is different.  He has the authority to lay down in death, and he has the authority to take life back up.  He has the power to give himself unto death, and he has the power to return from the dead.  Having been commanded by God, he had the right to die on the cross, and having died a sinless death, pleasing the Father, he had the right to take his sinless life back up!

As a human being, it might seem Jesus’ power to take back his life, as being on an unequal footing with us.  After all, the great claim of Jesus being our Saviour, is that he became like us in every way.  If Jesus is like me, how is it that he can raise himself from death, and I can’t!  Since when I die, despite how noble a cause my death might serve, I still can’t raise myself back to life.

We know that the majority of biblical sources tell us that Jesus “was” raised, and he did not raise himself!  Even in John chapter two after Jesus says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  (John 2:19 ESV)  John notes in verse twenty-two, “When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.”  (John 2:22 ESV)  They don’t remember Jesus as raising himself but rather that he “was raised”, and they believe!

How do we reconcile Jesus being raised and Jesus raising up himself?  And in understanding this anomaly, what is God’s word to us who live in our Good Shepherd’s resurrection power and authority?

The Gospel of John takes up the new commandment of God in the work of Jesus Christ his Son.  This work was done with authority and power, and he had the  right to do so. 

Be reminded of what we’re told in John chapter one.  “He [The Word who was God] …came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.  But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God”. (John 1:11–12 ESV)

This right to become children of God is the power or the authority to become children of God.  Just as Jesus had the right to take up his life, we have the right to take up our Christian life as the children of God.  In fact, just as Jesus was commanded by our Father, Jesus commands us, saying, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12 ESV)

So how Jesus takes up his life, has a very real bearing, on how we too are to take up the commandment to love as Jesus has loved us!

Jesus laid down his life and took it back up again.  But what was this life, and from where did its power come?

Jesus’ authority, power, or right, comes from the Holy Spirit who proceeds from God the Father and God the Son. 

In love, the Father and the Holy Spirit, work through the Son’s vulnerability in the flesh of a human body susceptible of sin.  He was made incarnate in the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit was caused to be seen resting on Jesus when he was baptised in the Jordan River. He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness throughout his ministry, where angelic messengers from God ministered to him.

Commanded by God, Jesus willingly, and for the joy set before him, walked the way of the cross, laying down his life. 

When Jesus lay down his life, he lay it right down into the lowest depths on Holy Saturday, the depths of hell!  We hear in First Peter, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,  in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison”.  (1 Peter 3:18–19 ESV)

The Holy Spirit gave Jesus Christ life within his spirit.  So, even in death and descent into hell, the light of his life, shone in hell’s darkness, exposing sin.  Jesus Christ’s sinless life shone in hell!  Not for salvation!  But, as reminder to those who chose not to receive God, that they no longer have access to a Redeemer or redemption.

Jesus lay his life down and took it up again.  Jesus has the power and authority within himself, of himself, but not for himself.  This is no selfish or individualistic whim!  No!  This is Jesus’ freedom in obedience to the command and will of the Father.  He has the power to raise himself, yet he allows the Holy Spirit to raise him, despite having the authority and power to do it himself.

The Spirit gives Jesus’ life; and Jesus takes up this life once again at his resurrection.  Our Good Shepherd’s servanthood in power and authority continues today having been raised.   Jesus our Good Shepherd actively became passive so that passively he became, and now is, active.

Because this is so contrary to who we are, and how we think and work, let me say that again! Jesus actively became passive, so that passively he became, and now is, active.

You now live in the life that Jesus has picked up in power and authority.  You now have the right to be children of God.  The Holy Spirit, who brings you to Jesus in his word and sacraments, authorises you and empowers you to live in the life of Jesus.  To serve as he serves, to love as he loves, and to forgive as he forgives!

You no longer can be condemned, as Paul reminds us in Romans, “Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”  (Romans 8:34 ESV)

Jesus now eternally serves and shepherds us with life.   In his power and authority, by faith, see him interceding for you before our Heavenly Father. 

But Jesus, our Good and Risen Shepherd, is not only before the Father in heaven, but he’s amongst and within us, his body.  He serves and shepherds us!  So, through us, he might serve and shepherd others with his power and authority!

It is now our right as Christians in the power and authority of Jesus Christ, to serve others as he and the Father continually send the Holy Spirit, to raise us up in newness of life in him, our Good Shepherd.  Amen.

B, Easter 3 - Acts 3:14-16, 1 John 3:2-3, Luke 24:45-49 "The Author of Life"

Acts 3:14–16 (ESV)  But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you,  and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.  And his name—by faith in his name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.

1 John 3:2–3 (ESV)  Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.  And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

Luke 24:45–49 (ESV)  Then Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,  and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead,  and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of these things.  And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

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The Author of life is raised by God from death.  The Author of life opens the minds of those who are gathered before him.  And he calls those gathered to wait;  to wait to be clothed with power from on high.

The power with which the church is clothed is the power of life!  This life-power is the authority of Jesus’ resurrection.  The promise of God is this: we are made his children.  Life is authored within us by the resurrected Author of life, Jesus Christ, the Son of God!

God has placed us in a holding pattern of life.  Although we experience the corruption of dying and death in our daily existence, we are called to expect the revelation of being like Jesus.  But this will only be realised when we see him as he is, at his return, at our eternal resurrection.   Until then, we are dying in this existence!  But we’re dying to live! 

The holding pattern is revealed within us as faith, having been clothed with power from on high.  Faith is not a feeling, although faith can make us feel good at times, for which we are thankful!  But faith gives each of us an expectation of being made like Jesus, despite what our experiences and feelings tell us in this world.

As we age, we experience, the effects of sin on our bodies.  Some of the things we suffer might have come as a result of sinful deeds.  From the sinful things we’ve done!  But the reality is, even if we did nothing wrong, if we did not sin, we would still suffer from our human being, being human, that in its very nature is sinful.

The nature of our being; its feelings, its thoughts, its works, the mechanics of our physical bodies, our senses of sight, touch, taste, smell, and hearing, exist and fail in the deconstruction that’s death.  Therefore, we all suffer!   

Jesus came into his own dying creation to reinject it with life, lost when humanity was separated from the tree of life.  For Jesus to fix his creation, he suffered in his creation, suffering that led to death.  The Creator died in his very own creation, so life could be recreated within a creation existing in death.

After Jesus was raised and ascended into heaven, and was hidden from our sight, it may have seemed that all returned to what it was before.  After all, death still exists!  People are still given to following the deadliness of their human nature and hide their sin.  But the reality of true life is now a reality of faith, that exposes the truth about us and the truth about Jesus Christ!

Peter and John are in the temple after the first Pentecost.  The apostles’ minds had been opened by Jesus as he appeared amongst them after the resurrection.  They no longer cowered and hid from the Jews.  In fact, at Pentecost they proclaimed the risen Lord to the Jews, and many became believers.

A man, lame from birth, begging at the temple, walks as a result of Peter’s  proclamation.   They who had their minds opened by Jesus, now open the minds of others.  This was not an act of Peter or John, but rather an act of the Holy Spirit, working with and through the apostles, and within the man who having been healed, “entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.” (Acts 3:8 ESV)

The irony of this first healing event should not ever be lost on us!  Here the man whose sinful nature prevented him from entering the temple, now enters the temple.  His inability to enter was not from any sin that he had done, but rather it was the consequences of the nature he received at birth. 

Like him we are lame in every way before God and have no earthly way of entering into his presence.  But now like the lame man who walked and leapt his way into the temple, praising God, we can praise God in his presence too!

But the temple curtain has been torn, and God is no longer found at his mercy seat in the Holy of Holies.  Where is God if he is not in the temple sanctuary? 

Well, God is in his sanctuary!  However, the sanctuary has changed!  God now lives within his children.  He tabernacles within!  God now enters the Jerusalem temple, as Peter and John enter the temple, as the dancing praising healed man enters, and also enters in those who had received the Holy Spirit, as a result of that first Pentecost.

We know that the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in seventy AD.  From Good Friday, God no longer sits on his mercy seat in the Jerusalem temple.  In mercy he now rests in the hearts of those who believe.  God now covers the sinful nature of believers, despite the sin that still comes from believers.   By 70 AD, the believers had long been dispersed by persecution from the Jerusalem temple.  God’s mercy now sat in the hearts of the dispersed, and the temple was sacked.   It no longer had a purpose in God’s plan of salvation!

Today, God gathers us as church in Jesus’ resurrection victory.  He gathers us by the power of the Holy Spirit and will continue to do so as he has promised!  The promise we have is that we are God’s children now, called together in power from on high.  Faith in the name of Jesus has made you strong.  Jesus sees and knows you!  The faith that’s received from Jesus, by the Spirit, gives you the perfection of Jesus, for life eternal as we die. 

So, God authors holy life in you now, through his holy word and holy sacraments.  Repentance and forgiveness of sin, confessed, received, believed, and seen only through faith, enlivens and enlightens you, despite the corruption you see working within.

As God opens your mind in his word, he shows you two things, which matures faith within. 

First, he enlightens us with an ever-increasing sight of the sinful nature and its deadliness.  This would drive us to despair and eternal death if he did not graciously and mercifully reveal it to us in a timely manner.  God does not expose us to more than we can bear.

The second thing he does after revealing an ever-increasing sight of our sin is an ever-increasing sight of his merciful presence in his word and sacrament.  This occurs when we are gathered, being forgiven, and fed, so he might continue to tabernacle within us as church.  We then disperse, taking the mercy of God out into the dispersion where others have an opportunity to see Jesus working within us, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to confess him and to confess his forgiveness of our sin.

The maturing of faith allows you to witness what Jesus Christ works within your being, despite being sinful.  You clearly see your sin and inability to work your way out of it.  But through knowledge of Jesus, his death and resurrection, and the acts of the Holy Spirit, mature faith finds it’s completion in hope. 

Therefore, everyone who hopes in Jesus Christ is purified as he is pure.  The Holy Spirit works this deposit of the pure holy of holies within you, where the Father sits enthroned on his mercy seat.  Jesus is the mercy seat of God, the Author of life within. 

So, as forgiven and covered sinners, we trust less and less in ourselves, and wait more and more, for the Author of life and his eternal lifegiving goodness. 

Amen.