FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER. YR B. -Br Simeon

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

  Homily preached by Br. Simeon     Sunday 3^rd May 2015:  

FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER. YR B.

Gospel:  John 15: 1-8

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower . . . I am the vine, you are the branches.”
“Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”

In the Name of the one God, +Father, +Son and +Holy Spirit. Amen.

From the music of the psalms to the engravings on the temple pediments, vines were a symbol of Yahweh’s many blessings to Israel.  In his Last Supper discourse (from which today’s Gospel is taken), Jesus appropriates the image of the vine to explain his eternal connectedness to his disciples, their connectedness through him to God, and their connectedness to one another.

In this today being the Fifth Sunday of Easter, we have today's Gospel reading of the vine and the branches. The gospel reading for this weekend records for us, perhaps, one of the best known and best loved sections in all of scripture. Jesus calls Himself the “vine” and us His “branches.” “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing. 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.” (John 15: 5-6)

Jesus, the vine, rooted and grounded in His relationship with God the Father, supports and gives life to us, His branches. Without being connected to Jesus by faith, we would perish eternally, just like a branch cut off from its vine, plant or tree eventually dies!

Jesus tells us that the “Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in Me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit He trims clean so that it will be even more fruitful.” (John 15: 1-2) Out of His love for us and His desire that we be “fruitful,” the Father occasionally “prunes” us by disciplining us or by allowing distress and difficulty to come into our lives. God is not an angry, vindictive tyrant when such things happen to us; rather, “He trims [us] clean so that [we] will be even more fruitful.” (John 15: 2)

In Christ, we are “grafted” to God and to one another. The Risen One calls us to community, to be branches on the same vine, to realise our life in Christ is also life in one another.

We cannot live our faith in a vacuum: Unless Jesus becomes the centre of our lives, the faith we profess is doomed to wither and die in emptiness.

Our power, strength and life come from Jesus. He promises, “Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me.” Through our worship together, Bible study, scripture reading, private devotions, reception of the sacraments and our service to those around us, we remain in Jesus and He remains in us. We bear fruit and grow strong and healthy in the whole life of Christian discipleship

The Easter season speaks to us of the eternal presence of Christ in our midst, present to us in the Word we have heard and has taken root in our hearts.  Our faithfulness to the call to discipleship demands that we work to enable that Word within us to produce a “yield” of compassion, forgiveness, justice and reconciliation.  In the “fruit” we bear as "branches" of Christ do we glorify God the “vine grower.”

Amen.

Sermon Extra 4 - Did Christ have to die for our sins?

Sacrifice_of_Isaac-Caravaggio_(Uffizi)

The theology around Christ being sacrificed for our sins, is, I think as old as the faith.

There is another slant on this, which when I first heard it, made a light come on. It’s all about an ancient blood covenant.

You will recall that when God made the blood covenant with Abraham, that the people would inherit the land, God instructed the patriarch to slaughter animals and then divide them so that there was a path between the carcasses.  That night a smoking pot and a torch was seen to pass along the path. (Genesis 15).  As I understand the rules around covenant at that time, each person had to pass between the slain animals. Thereby each person was pledging that they would keep their part of the covenant. And the only way to break the covenant was the death of one of the parties. However in this passage Abraham does not pass between the animals, God does – twice.  Meaning that God was making a covenant with both Abraham and himself.  So if the covenant was broken then God has to honour his pledge, not Abraham.  God eventually did this, when he had Moses bring the people out of Egypt.

 Later on God told Abraham the sign of the covenant was circumcision – which again is a blood covenant.

After Moses read the law to the people in the desert and when they accepted the law, Moses then sprinkled blood from a sacrifice on them. (Exodus 24) – another covenant sealed with blood.

At the last supper Jesus said of the wine: this is my blood which will be poured out for many, so he was again initiating a blood covenant (albeit with a substitute substance) for the disciples and through them, us.  

The physical part of the blood covenant was his death on the cross. So it’s not so much that he dies for our sins, but rather that he was making a blood covenant with God for us.  As he was both human and divine he, like the old covenant with Abraham, was making a pledge, both as God and as man.

  His physical blood sealed the new covenant and thereby opened for us, our part of the covenant, which is salvation, forgiveness of sins and eternal life.  Hence the idea, that he died to save us.