Gospel for April 28, 2024

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
John 15:1-8
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OBSERVE:

This is another of the powerful “I Am” statements of Jesus that identifies him as one with the Father, and yet distinct as the Son. On multiple occasions in the Gospel of John, Jesus uses the phrase I am in such a way that clearly connects to the encounter between God and Moses in Exodus 3:14, when God reveals his identity:

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

This image of the vine would have been familiar to Jesus’ Jewish disciples.  Israel was frequently described as a vine.  Jesus is declaring he is the true vine.   The Father cultivates and cares for the vine, and in this organic metaphor those who follow Jesus are incorporated into the vine as well.

Jesus shows familiarity with the husbandry of a vineyard.  It was said that for the Israelite true prosperity and peace (shalom) could be found when they were able to sit under their own vine (Micah 4:4).

However, Jesus understands that the unpruned vine will bear no fruit. The branch that bears no fruit is cut off, but even the branch that bore fruit last season must be cut back in order to bear grapes in the next season.  That seems paradoxical and counter-intuitive, but it is true.

Jesus tells the disciples that they have already been pruned clean, because they have listened to his teachings.  But he also tells them that in order for them to bear fruit they must remain connected to the vine, which is Jesus himself.  Jesus says:

Remain in me, and I in you. As the branch can’t bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me.

The disciple is to maintain connection with Jesus, and by doing so continues to receive the sustenance that comes from the vine.  The two become one.

Jesus reiterates this to make it perfectly clear:

 I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.  If a man doesn’t remain in me, he is thrown out as a branch, and is withered; and they gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

He then makes the astounding promise:

If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, you will ask whatever you desire, and it will be done for you.

Again, the premise is that they must remain connected to him, and then and only then will their requests be accomplished.

Finally, he tells the disciples that their productivity and fruitfulness will glorify God:

In this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; and so you will be my disciples.

This is reminiscent of Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:16:

Even so, let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

APPLY:  

This is an encouraging picture for us as disciples. As we remain connected to Christ, the true vine, he abides in us and we abide in him.  Then our work cannot be in vain, because it is his work in us.

The converse of that is also true, however.  If we do not remain connected to him, we will not bear fruit.  Without him we can do nothing.

We do well to remember also that all will experience times of pruning, of being “cut back.”  Those who bear no fruit will be cut off.  But even those who are fruitful will experience times of pruning in order to bear more fruit later.

It may well be that when we consider the current “recession” in much of Western Christianity that what we are seeing is a kind pruning.  Perhaps this pruning of the branches will result in even more fruitful ministry for the sake of the Gospel.

And in our own lives as well, adversity may serve to prune away dead habits and unfruitful aspects of our lives so that we can be more productive.

RESPOND: 

When I think of remaining connected to Christ as the true vine, my mind turns naturally to what we call in my tradition the means of grace.  These are the spiritual disciplines that provide the channels for God to reach me — prayer, Bible study, corporate worship and Christian fellowship, fasting, the Lord’s Supper.

However, I’m also reminded that the power that flows toward me from staying attached to the vine is also to flow outward as I bear fruit.  That’s when I begin to wonder what that fruit is to be like — sharing my faith with someone; giving food to someone who is hungry; visiting a widow; reaching out to someone in jail; generosity.

It seems to me that the flow of this power is inward from the vine and then outward toward others.

Our Lord, my hope and my goal is to stay connected with you.  In you alone is found life and meaning and purpose.  May I be so connected to you that any fruit I bear is obviously your fruit, and you receive the glory.  And when the times of pruning come, help me bear that patiently and hopefully.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
The photo in the “Pruning is NOT optional” poster:  “Vineyard Pruning” by Cortes de Cima is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.

Epistle for April 28, 2024

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
1 John 4:7-21
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

John declares the central theme of his epistle, which is also the central theme of the message of the Gospel — love.  The word love is used at least 26 times in this passage alone!

What is most fascinating is how this love is defined.  I will not seek to discriminate between the nuances of the word love in the Greek language.  Word studies can be found elsewhere in C.S. Lewis’ and William Barclay’s writings, among many others. But we can identify the various traits of the love of which John speaks.

First and foremost, love comes from God, and is expressed most clearly among those who know God.  The concept of the new birth and the knowledge of God, so important in Johannine writings, is directly related to this notion of love:

Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

Therefore the reverse is also true:

He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love.

The very message of the cross itself is defined by love.  The cross for John isn’t measured merely in terms of justice or satisfaction, although he doesn’t negate those concepts. For John, the very incarnation of Jesus and his death on the cross is supremely an expression of sacrificial love:

By this God’s love was revealed in us, that God has sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

For John, God is always the first initiator of love; and those who are touched by that love themselves invariably express love towards others. Love becomes the clear manifestation that God is living in and through them.  Though God may be spiritual and invisible, his love expressed through those who are born again is very visible:

No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God remains in us, and his love has been perfected in us.

John returns to one of the motifs that appears throughout this epistle — the assurance that believers can know God.  As Paul says in Romans 8:14-17 and Galatians 4:6-7, this knowledge is conveyed through the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit.  John declares that:

 By this we know that we remain in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

Because of this Spirit, there is a knowledge of God the Father and the Son, and an acknowledgement that Jesus is the Son of God.  Moreover, the believer lives in God and God in the life of the believer.

Finally, John makes his definition of God’s nature perfectly clear — his very nature is love.  And from that definition he works out all that this means in the life of believers:

• Those who love God are born of God and know God.
• Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God remains in God and God in them.
• Love removes fear.
• Love precludes hypocrisy: If a man says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who doesn’t love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?
• Love is a proactive positive force: This commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should also love his brother.

APPLY:  

This passage is so rich and full of meaning it is almost inexhaustible.

We find here the doctrine of the Trinity, although the word is never used.  God’s love is expressed in the sacrificial death of the Son, and made known to us in and through the Spirit.  And through God’s Spirit, we know that God lives in us and we live in God.

St. Augustine once defined the Trinity as “Lover, Beloved, and Love” as a way of describing the different qualities of God’s love.  But all three are vital to an understanding of what love is as it flows from God the Father (Lover) to God the Son (the Beloved, in whose divine/human nature God loves us for Christ’s sake) and working always through the Spirit (Love, which is love as a verb, always manifesting himself in action on our behalf and in our lives).

There is also the highest, best definition of love:

God is love.

Notice, though, that this statement does not have commutative properties.  By that I mean — unlike the mathematical formula — we can’t say “If God is love, therefore love is God.”  That would make love itself a kind of deity, instead of the definition of God’s nature. Rather, God’s character is the purest and most perfect definition and description of love.

But what is most challenging to us as believers is the convicting word that if we say we love God, whom we have not seen, and do not love our neighbor, whom we have seen, we are liars and the truth is not in us.  In other words, our love of God and neighbor is expressed in the Great Commandment to:

‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  This is the first and great commandment. A second likewise is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  (Matthew 22:37-39).

What this means is that our love for God and neighbor is in some sense commutative!  If we love God, we will love our neighbor; and if we love our neighbor we will love God.

RESPOND: 

I love (pardon the pun) to dwell on these lofty thoughts of the Divine Nature of Love, Beloved and Lover.  But this becomes challenging when I really begin to take the Scripture seriously.  Do I really know and love God in such a way, in such depth, that I am able to love those whom God loves?

And am I willing to concede that when such love is missing that I am not in true fellowship with God? I am reminded yet again that I cannot love like God or live like Jesus (as John says I must) unless the Holy Spirit is doing in me what I cannot do myself.

Lord, I cannot hope to scale these heights of love unless you are in me empowering me to do so. But I know that if love is missing from my life that I am compelled to repent, because that is a sure sign that I am not living in you nor you in me.  Fill me with your love, and make my life an expression of love for others.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
"love candies” by tomatokisses is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license.

Psalm Reading for April 28, 2024

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Psalm 22:25-31
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

These verses of exultation and praise are a little misleading when taken out of context.  Psalm 22, which is usually read in relation to the Passion of Christ, begins with the famous line which Jesus uttered from the cross:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Clearly this Psalm begins as a cry of dereliction and lamentation, but there is a complete reversal in tone as the Psalmist considers the glorious future of God’s people.

The positive reversal of fortune for the poor, which is a frequent theme in Scripture, reminds us of the social justice issues lifted up by the prophets and in Mary’s Magnificat in the Gospel of Luke.

The Lord, who has dominion over all the earth, is also recognized not only as the Lord of Israel but of all nations:

All the relatives of the nations shall worship before you.

The rich also will feast. But the real kicker of this passage is that the Psalmist addresses the specter of death that was raised by the first verses of the Psalm:

All those who go down to the dust shall bow before him,
even he who can’t keep his soul alive.

Death is answered with life, and those who die shall kneel before the living God!

And the one who was near death is also promised a glorious future:

Posterity shall serve him.
Future generations shall be told about the Lord.
They shall come and shall declare his righteousness to a people that shall be born,
for he has done it.

APPLY:  

If the first half of Psalm 22 from verse 1 to 24 is appropriate for Lent and the Passion of the Christ, these verses from 25 to 31 are perfect for the Easter season!

We see here the great eschatological themes that run through the most hopeful passages of Scripture:

• The poor are lifted up.
• All nations come to worship the Lord of all creation.
• The dead are raised.
• Generations to come will continue to glorify God.

This is the cycle of redemptive suffering and glorious renewal that is so consummately fulfilled in Jesus Christ.  There is never a crucifixion without a resurrection because of him!

RESPOND: 

While the Scriptures are always realistic about the sorrows of suffering, they are also unfailingly hopeful about the promise of God’s renewal and future promises.

Therefore whatever I may go through that seems a setback, a sorrow, a suffering can always be turned into celebration by a Resurrection God!

Lord, turn all our sorrows into joy, all our tears into laughter, all our hungers into true fulfillment in you.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
“...Hope...” by Darren Tunnicliff is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.

Reading from Acts for April 28, 2024

“Saint Philip Baptising the Ethiopian Eunuch” by Aelbert Cuyp

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Acts 8:26-40
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This is one of the early examples of the expansion of Christianity beyond the first Jewish believers in Jerusalem. Philip obeys the angel of the Lord, and intercepts an influential Ethiopian eunuch in a chariot on a desert road who just happens to be the treasurer of the Ethiopian queen.

The Ethiopian eunuch is returning back to Africa from Jerusalem where he had gone to worship the Lord. This raises several questions.  Is he a Jew? Or is he one of the group of Gentiles known as God-fearers who were sympathetic to the Jewish faith but had not been fully initiated into Judaism?  Of course we know he was literate because he was reading from the Messianic passage of Scripture in Isaiah 53 that is associated with the Suffering Servant. But was he reading the text in its original Hebrew or from the Greek translation known as the Septuagint?

In any event, he is puzzled by what he reads about the one who is:

led as a sheep to the slaughter.

And there, in the middle of the desert between Jerusalem and Gaza, there is an apostle who can interpret the Scriptures to him!

Philip explains that the passage from Isaiah 53 is fulfilled in the crucified and risen Jesus; and as a good evangelist Philip then closes the deal.  Interestingly, though, it is the eunuch who actually takes the initiative after the Gospel is explained to him:

Behold, here is water. What is keeping me from being baptized?

The chariot in which they were riding is stopped, and Philip takes him down into the nearby water to be baptized.

Philip is miraculously transported from the scene:

the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, and the eunuch didn’t see him any more, for he went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found at Azotus. Passing through, he preached the Good News to all the cities, until he came to Caesarea.

Thus begins the fulfillment of the Great Commission, to make disciples of all nations. 

APPLY:  

The church is beginning to be transformed, from a local sub-sect of Jews following a crucified carpenter, into a world-wide movement.  Philip is the first Apostle to reach out beyond the confines of Jerusalem.

What is fascinating about this account is the questions it raises about the Ethiopian eunuch.  We know that the Ethiopian Christian church claims its origins begin in the first century after Christ, so it would seem obvious that this eunuch became an evangelist for his new-found faith.

This episode also reminds us that this new faith transcends racial distinctions as well.  Every tribe, nation and race will be represented in the Christian church.

But what does this tell us about our role as Christians? Two things come to mind:

• First — like Philip we must be obedient to God’s guidance and look for opportunities to share our faith with others, especially among those who already seem to express an interest in spiritual matters.
• Second — we do well to study the Scriptures ourselves so that we can make the connection between our faith and the Word of God.

RESPOND: 

We live in a pluralistic society, and that makes us reluctant to be too bold about witnessing to others.  Many folks have had unpleasant experiences with overly aggressive evangelists who can sometimes be a little offensive.

However, that doesn’t take us “off the hook” when it comes to evangelism.  At the very least we can invite others to church.  And, as in the case of Philip, we can listen to the Holy Spirit and learn to be sensitive to opportunities that may come along to talk to someone who may be genuinely searching for spiritual answers.

Lord, open my eyes to the people around me who are spiritually hungry, genuinely looking for answers, and who desire to know the truth.  And give me the courage and the wisdom to tell them about you.  Amen. 

 
PHOTOS:
"Saint Philip Baptising the Ethiopian Eunuch" by Aelbert Cuyp is in the Public Domain.