“I am the vine, you are the
branches. Those who abide in me and I in
them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5
Years ago there was a section of the beltway I traveled
regularly where the sound-blocking walls had just been completed. There had
been some small plantings put in place for landscaping,
but as yet the walls were rather stark in appearance. Then one day I noticed a small slip of a vine
that obviously was growing on the other
side of the wall where I could not see it.
But a small branch had found an opening in the wall and was growing
through. Over the months that followed
it got bigger and longer, at last spreading out to give some green and some
grace to the walls’ appearance. I was glad
that no one on either side of the wall had chopped the vine or the branch
off. It was doing on the highway side of
the wall what the vine was meant to do on the opposite side where it had been
planted—give the kind of character to that bland, brown wall that only living
things can do.
How like that branch of that vine our lives are! Jesus said as much: “I am the vine, you are the branches”, he
said. When we are in relationship with
Christ, our lives are energized to love and care as he did; even when we find
ourselves having broken through a hole in one of life’s walls, we can grow and
flourish with the love of God in Christ.
And if the connection with Christ is broken and we stop
abiding in him, we are like a vine branch broken off from the vine’s main
stem. We cannot do what we are meant to
do as God’s people in Christ.
Lord, let me so abide this day in your life giving
presence that I may know the joy of your love shared with the world around
me. Amen
Read John 15:1-12
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