This past week, I got to do one of my favorite things: plant my garden. Last year, my husband built me this amazing, self-watering, raised garden bed. I was able to grow several plants last year. Since the fall when I got my last few tomatoes out of the garden, I’ve been looking forward to planting again. It just brings me so much pleasure to plan and care for my garden. Of course, the best part is the fruit, getting to eat something that you grew yourself.
Gardens as a Metaphor
One of the reasons I like gardening is because the Bible often uses metaphors that are based around plants. Gardening in my backyard is the closest I’m probably ever going to get to the agricultural society Jesus lived in, so it helps me understand the Scriptures better. In John chapter 15, Jesus uses a plant-based metaphor to teach us something about life with him. He compares his followers to branches on vines in a vineyard.
Jesus says that he is the true vine. We have to be connected to him in order to bear any fruit. Over and over again in this passage, Jesus urges us to “remain” in him. If we don’t remain in him, he says we can’t do anything. In fact, we’ll be thrown away. If we want to bear fruit, we simply need to remain in him.
Our Role in “Remaining”
The funny thing about this teaching is that it seems very passive. Remaining isn’t an action-oriented word. It actually makes us think about just sitting still. To remain somewhere isn’t hard. We just have to not leave. That’s the thing about gardening though. The plants don’t have to do anything. They don’t have to strive. They just have to remain where they are, soak in the sun and the water, and then they’ll grow. A plant’s success or failure doesn’t say as much about the plant as it says about the gardener.
The same is true for us. To remain with Jesus, we just have to soak him in. We have to stay connected to him. There’s not a lot of striving involved in that process. We just have to be with him and not leave. Jesus says that we should remain in Jesus and his words should remain in us too. That’s not a big ask.
The Fruit of Remaining
If we remain with Jesus, he says good fruit will grow as a natural consequence of our being with him. Jesus identifies two specific types of fruit in this passage that are intricately tied together. You can’t have one without the other. The first is obedience. We obey out of love, as a natural reaction to being with Jesus. That doesn’t mean obedience will always be easy. It can still be pretty tough. It does mean that we should, at some level, want to obey his commands. We should love and trust Jesus enough that even though obedience might not be natural to us and we might fail on occasion, we should have the desire to obey because of our love for Jesus.
The second type of fruit Jesus mentions is loving others. The type of love we’re talking about is a giving, sacrificial, grace-filled type of love. We’re to love one another and those around us just as Jesus loves us.
The Hard Parts of Remaining
Before you start thinking the Christian life is all rainbows and butterflies, Jesus tells his disciples that they’re going to meet with opposition.
First, Jesus says that if you remain in him, God is going to prune you so you’ll be more fruitful. Pruning is a weird and seemingly paradoxical process. When you prune a plant, you cut off or cut back some of its branches. You actually kill parts of the plant, but ultimately, this process helps the plant to produce more and better fruit. Jesus says that God does this to us.
Secondly, Jesus says that the world is going to hate us. If we remain in Jesus, we’re not going to be the most popular people out there. Because Jesus wasn’t popular and people were constantly trying to stop him and even kill him. If we follow him we should expect similar treatment.
So what does all this mean for us today?
Figure out how to connect to Jesus.
Jesus says that remaining with him is really important, so we need to figure out how to make that happen. Again, this isn’t about striving or checking things off a list. It’s about finding ways that make you feel connected to Jesus, things you enjoy, things that bring you closer to him. This could look like reading your Bible and praying. It could also look like sitting in silence before God, going on a walk and enjoying nature, listening to worship music or just beautiful music that speaks to your soul, painting, journaling, playing an instrument, having spiritual conversations with friends, any number of things. Think outside the box and find ways that help keep you rooted in Jesus and His Word.
Look for your fruit.
Are you producing the type of fruit that Jesus said you should: love and obedience? If not, why? This isn’t legalistic. Self-examination is a necessary practice. If we’re not seeing fruit in our lives, it’s a sign to us that something is wrong. Maybe we’re not actually connecting to Jesus in a meaningful way. Perhaps we haven’t really allowed the truth of the Gospel to soak into our lives. Maybe we’re just going through a pruning season and there’s not as much fruit to show right now.
Don’t be surprised by the opposition.
As Christians, we should never be surprised when things don’t go as we planned. Jesus tells us to expect it. There are times when God will prune us, when he’ll remove things from our lives to help us grow. There will be other times when the world will conspire against us, when people do hateful things because they despise the God we love and follow. In both cases, the answer is not to try harder or get revenge or anything of the sort. The answer is simply to remain in Jesus. He is our gardener. He will provide us with the things we need. We just have to soak them in a grow.
Photo by Jonathan Hanna on Unsplash