Restoring The Link On The Advent Of Christ. Series

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.