Advent Midweek 2 2022

 Wednesday of Populus Zion
John 15:1-11
 
 
There are two things necessary to be a Christian.  First, you must be a fruitful branch connected to Jesus the Christ, the Vine.  Second, you must be pruned by the Father, the Vinedresser.  If you are a branch bearing no fruit, you are cut off.  If you are a branch bearing fruit, you are pruned.  There is no life apart from God.
 
No branch has life unless it is connected to the vine. It may appear to be alive lying on the ground after a storm, but it is a dead branch because  it no longer has the sap of life flowing to its tiniest twig or leaf.  So it is for us as Christians.  How many claim to be members but are lying on the ground, very much looking alive, but are disconnected from the Vine?  How many have, by their own actions, chosen to allow themselves to be broken off, to allow their leaves to wither and their twigs to become dried out because the sap of life, Word and Sacrament are no longer flowing into them?  They may look alive, but like our Christmas tree, which despite its beauty and vibrant color, is dying a slow death? 
 
But that paragraph is not aimed at those not here tonight to let ourselves off the hook, the preacher included.  It’s directed even at us, even at me.  It’s tempting to cut ourselves off from the Sap of Christ.  It’s easy to say that one feeding a week is perfectly fine.  It’s better than nothing because I’m busy or tired, but when the food is available daily and in so many ways that even the disciples themselves couldn’t have dreamt of, isn’t it better to be fed daily?  You wouldn’t go without eating daily, so why keep faith from eating daily?
 
But to us who are hungry and even for those broken off, there is hope.  None of us rightfully belong to the vine.  None of us are natural branches.  Every one of us have been grafted into the Vine.  To graft in a branch, the vine is cut, the branch inserted into the cut, and then bound to the vine.  Jesus, the vine, was cut, His side pierced.  You are grafted into that pierced side by the Blood and Water, the sacraments that flowed from it.  Now you, the dead vine, are made alive through the death of the vine, the death that gave you life.  With His life coursing through you, now you who were once cut off by sin produce fruit, the fruits of love, patience, gentleness, and the rest. 
 
Which means the vinedresser prunes you to cause you fruit to increase.  Pruning is not fun.  It involves pain as parts of you are affected by God, who allows cross and trial to grieve you as a way of making your faith stronger.  Every time a branch is pruned it allows more sap to flow through it, increasing its strength and fruitfulness.  So it is with your pruning, your trials from God.  They cause your faith to become stronger as it calls for more of the sap of Jesus Christ.  When you bear the weight of your crosses, be it temptation to a particular sin, temptation to walk away from the faith, temptation to despair, come to the sap that feeds you, that reinvigorates and heals you.  Without that nutrition you waste away, but with it you thrive. 
 
This is a particularly appropriate message for Advent.  While we are prepared by the Spirit for Christ’s final Advent, we are called to receive Him in this second Advent in Word and absolution and Supper.  Tonight He has poured His joyed into you that He may remain in you ad that you joy may be full until your final day.