Restoring the link
JN 15:1 - 10
Some of you will have seen actor Christopher Reeves play the part of Superman in the movies.
In May of 1995, it was during the cross-country portion of a horse jumping event in Culpeper, Virginia, that Reeve’s Throughbred, Eastern Express, balked at a rail jump, pitching his rider forward. Reeve’s hands were tangled in the horse’s bridle and he landed head first, fracturing the uppermost vertebrae in his spine. Reeve was instantly paralyzed from the neck down and unable to breathe. Prompt medical attention saved his life and delicate surgery stabilized the shattered C1-C2 vertebrae and literally reattached Reeve’s head to his spine.
Damage to his spine meant that Reeve was paralized for the rest of his life despite state of the art medical care and he sadly passed away this year 2004.
However great advances are being made in medical science and it seems that the possibilities of reconnecting the spinal cord are real although no where yet a reality.
Spinal cord researchers have accomplished what was previously thought impossible: tricking central nervous system cells into regeneration.
The inability of central nervous system cells to regenerate has been one of the most religiously defended dogmas in neurobiology. But Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University researchers have shown that by damaging the sciatic nerve -- the main sensory nerve to the leg -- they can activate growth signals in cells in the central nervous systems of laboratory rats.
If this restoration was effected it would fade into insignificance compared to the miraculous reconnection that is exposed in Johns gospel this morning.
Hildegard of Bingen, one of the great Christian mystics from ages past once said "If I go to bed tonight, my soul still lonely. It is Father, by my own choice. Your invitation is present in every moment, your nourishing life is just below the surface of every good and every bad thing in my life."
You see we are in advent.
Advent does not anticipate a birth it celebrates a birth that happenned about 2000 years ago more or less.
It celebrates a fusion that reconnects us to God.
If you were a quadraplegic and you couldn’t move anything below your neck and I effected a restoration for you then you would be incredibly grateful. You would thank me. If I was coming to town you would want to see me – perhaps you would want to meet with other people I had healed to celebrate.
What Jesus effected for us spiritually as Christians is of far greater moment than effecting a perfect spinal repair for a quaraplegic.
In John chapter 15 we read these words:-
JN 15:5 "I am the vine; you are the branches.
There it is you see – the baby Jesus is the vehicle of reconnecting us with God. A man called Kristen Philipkoski says:Spinal cord researchers have accomplished what was previously thought impossible: tricking central nervous system cells into regeneration
But with us there is no trickery involved. Steps have been taken to move towards restoring sinful man to union with a Holy God. But it says much more than that when Jesus says I am the vine you are the branches he alludes to the fact that the character, the type of person you are when you have availed yourself to the means of salvation gifted to you in Jesus Christ is of the same character and nature as God himself. All of this is possible because – before the damage before our relationship with God was severed through Adam and Eve’s disobedience. Before that. God says - GE 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
The fall was the severing of our relationship with God – it imobilised us and prevented us from living the life that God intended us to live. When Jesus says in verse 5 then, I am the vine and you are the branches – then he is saying something so profound so earth shatteringly significant that it’s moment – it’s significance exceeds the significance of the most memorable of human speeches that have ever been made.
Yet that is not all that Jesus is saying in John chapter 15.
If you are having a hard time maintaining your spiritual passion your relationship with God and effectiveness in the Christian life then this passage has good news for you.
Good news because it gives vital clues just as to how you can mjaitain a vital – vigorous Christia life with the sap of the Holy Spirit flowing through your life.
Here is the How to prepare yoursel;f for the advent – the coming of Christ that we can glean from John chapter 15.
The first thing is “Yield to the Father.”
JN 15:1 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.
God wants to prune and effect changes in our lives.
How do you know you are yielding to God?
You will yield more fruit.
Your fruitfulness will be on the increase.
Now fruitfulness is not always defined by the worlds criterea. But you will know if you are being more fruitful now than you formally were. You will know.
If you are not then there will be signs of stagnation and you will be distracted by other things.
When this is the case we are in a perilous situation.
But God will prune us by raising up issues and matters in our life that we need to deal with.
This week a situation came up for me that I found difficult.
I was troubled and it cost me some sleep.
Then I realised what I must do – I did what the bible says in the situation – I found it difficult but I did it and the situation was resolved for me.
It was a pruning – it meant I had to take what the world would call a risk.
But the cost of not doing this would be to allow a little rot into the vine. We can’t afford that.
Let me give you an example.
The following story is a great parable - it is not about a vine but is transferable for the person with a reasonable imagination.
The little bits of damage are like normal Christian challanges - the laswt though is like seriousw deviations from the purposes of God.
James 1:13-18
It was at 5:30 a.m. on March 13, 1933 that a giant, vigorous redwood tree crashed to the floor of a california forest. Its fall ended a life of more than 1200 years. A section of the stump was removed and studied through the science of tree ring chronology and the life of the tree was reconstructed.
It sprouted as a seedling that fell to the ground near 700 a.d. In 1147, evidenced by a ring shake in the trunk of the tree, there was an earthquake that separated bark from the rest of the trunk. Stringy white rot set in. But the tree was strong and it isolated this rot and snuffed it out. The tree grew, rather than weaker, stronger from this shaking.
Years marched past. Some good years of rapid growth and other years of near stagnation. At one point, 112 years added only 8 inches. At another point, 100 years added 36 inches to the tree. In 1595, when Shakespeare was a young traveling actor, a forest fire raged through the forest. The burn that attacked this tree left behind a fungus that grew beneath the bark. But because of its roots that descended to the depths of the soil, and its branches climbing over 300 feet to the sunlight, the tree grew new bark and killed the fungus. For over 200 more years, the tree grew stronger in the forest.
Whether it was accident, lightning, or careless campfire, in 1789 there was another forest fire; and then another in 1806 and again the most serious of all in 1820. This last fire left a 13 foot scar that marred forever the beauty of the tree; but far worse than the scar, it burned completely away the root system on the north side of the tree. But slowly, at first imperceptibly, but inevitably, the tree began to lean toward the side of those missing roots.
It was just now in its prime of life. 320 feet tall weighing more than 500 tons crippled by fire it struggled against this wound that would not heal for more than a century. So it was on that quiet spring morning almost 70 years ago, a point of critical mass was reached. It may have been a tiny bird landing on a northern branch, or a light southern breeze, warm, hardly felt. And the tree came crashing down.
{14} but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. by his own evil desire Rom 7:18-23
When we don’t submit our lives to God’s pruning we are like that tree – we are a little lopsided – we might get away with it for a while but eventually that tree will topple. If we don’t submit to God’s pruning – if we think I can miss praying this morning – I can ignore the scriptures – I can allow that resentment to fester in my life. I am no longer submitting myself to the pruning of God – is God wanting to prune in your life
6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
The second is to remain in Jesus.
What does it mean to remain in Jesus. The thing is to look at your address – Where are you living in the purposes of God or are you living in your own purposes?
Writer & speaker Joni Erickson Tada was paralyzed from the neck down in a diving accident. In her book Secret Strength, Joni wrote about facing temptation.
"I was in my late 20’s, single, and with every prospect of remaining so. Sometimes lust or a bit of fantasizing would seem so inviting and so easy to justify. After all, hadn’t I already given up more than most Christians just by being disabled? Didn’t my wheelchair entitle me to a little slack now and then?"
Joni went on the ask her readers;
"When God allows you to suffer, do you have tendency to use your trials as an excuse for sinning? Or do you feel that since you’ve given God a little extra lately by taking abuse, that He owes you a "day off?"
Hard times can often lead to temptation... In our suffering the evil one is quick to come to our aid and offer one of his solutions; pursuing pleasure to numb the pain, coping an attitude, becoming bitter, getting even, feeding anger...
Where are you living?
In Christ?
If you are there will be struggles – there will be troubles and there will be fruit.
The fruit will reveal the fact that you are in Christ.
Thirdly Not only “be in Christ” but Jesus goes on:-
JN 15:9 "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
Remain in His love.
When you read the scriptures God’s love is revealed as quite different.
It is this very different love that we are called to live in.
To abide in the vine we:-
“Yield to the Father.”
remain in Jesus.
