It’s late September in southwest Michigan, and almost harvest time in the vineyard that hugs my backyard. It’s this time of year that the moist evenings hold the perfume of sweet, ripe grapes close to the earth. I often wonder if it’s heaven pushing this redolent scent as a tease of a promised land.
This past summer I watched and witnessed the painstaking investment the farmer made in some of his spindlier plants. One scrawny, barren branch at the property line was tied up with twine, stretching it higher than it wanted to go. It seemed futile to me, kind of hopeless. Yet today on this early autumn morning it bursts with vibrant blue and purple clusters.
Which left me wrestling over Scripture in John 15 with this living illustration at my back door. Because I know God desires for all to bear healthy, good fruit, I couldn’t quite reconcile what John 15:2 said:
He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit…
Digging deeper I discovered “He cuts off” from the Greek text comes from word αἴρω (airo), which yes, could mean taken, pulled away, cut off. But my witness challenged me to consider more of the context: αἴρω also means “raise, elevate, lift up”. Airo is found over 100 times in the New Testament, and often in context means to raise up from the ground (as in Matthew 9:6 when Jesus healed a paralyzed man and told him to ‘lift up’ his mat and head home.) For additional context, when the gospels were written, vineyards didn’t have posts and wire with elevated branches like our established vineyards today. The plants grew trailing on the ground where the branches, if not lifted up on a rock or forked stick, rested in the damp dirt. The fruit was then more susceptible to insects and fungus. So wouldn’t it make sense for the gardener to ‘lift up’ before doing anything else? A caring gardener tends to every individual branch in his vineyard.
So going back to that that gangly little branch on our property line, if it was taken away, it couldn’t possibly be bearing fruit today. But it is–abundantly!
John 15 affirms metaphorically, God is the gardener, Jesus the vine, and if you believe in him, you are a branch. It’s also clear that Jesus wants you to “bear fruit”, that’s not his role. In the practical sense of your own life though, is it as easy as just a connection? There’s a lot of life that can heavy your heart and push you down into the dirt, even when you’re trying your hardest to hold on to the vine. Hurt, frustration, grief, addictions, broken relationships, loneliness–each and all possess a gravitational pull to stunt your growth, rot your fruit. No branch is immune.
But the vineyard is tended by a loving gardener who will not leave you on the ground. “Remain in me” says verse 4, and allow the caretaker to lift you back into the light to burn away what threatens to destroy the fruit of your soul. He doesn’t want to cut you off–he desires instead to lift you away from the shadowy leaves. Yes there may be pruning to follow, but those are things in your life that are sucking your energy, they are not you.
So imagine with me, if we as followers of Jesus fully embraced the love of the Father to understand the care he takes in each of us, particularly not to cut us off, but to lift us up? The fragrance of the garden might be intoxicating.
Join me today and ask the gardener to lift you up.