4th Easter
John 15: 1-27
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| 16th-century icon, Athens |
I AM the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he trims clean so that it will be even more fruitful. You have already been purified by the power of the word that I have spoken to you.
Abide in me and I in you.
Just as the branch cannot bear fruit out of itself unless it is given life by the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you stay united with me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains united with me so that I can work in him, bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not remain united with me withers like a branch that is cut off. Such branches are gathered up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me, and my words live on in you, pray for that which you also will, and it shall come about for you. By this my Father is revealed, that you bear rich spiritual fruit and become ever more truly my disciples.
As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Ground your being in my love, just as I have taken the aims of my Father into my will and live on in his love.
These words I have spoken to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is the task I put before you: that you love one another as I have loved you.
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| Washing of the Feet, Woloschina |
No man can have greater love than this, than that he offer up his life for his friends. You are my friends if you follow the task I have given you. No longer can I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing. But I call you my friends because I have made known to you all that I have heard from my Father.
You did not choose me, but I have chosen you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruits should live on after you, so that what you ask the Father in my name he should give it to you. I say to you out of the fullness of my power: Love one another.
If the world hates you with hatred, remember that they hated me first. If you belonged to people in general, they would love you as belonging to them; but you do not belong to them because I have chosen you out of mankind. That is why people hate you.
Remember the word I spoke to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master’. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have held on to my word, they will hold on to yours also. Everything that they do to you they will do as though they did it to me, for they do not know Him who sent me.
If I had not come and had not spoken to them, they would be without sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who turns in hatred against me turns in hatred against my Father also. If I had not done deeds among them, deeds which no one else has ever done, they would be without guilt. But now they have seen me and have still hated both me and my Father.
But it was to fulfill what is written in their law: ‘They hated me without a cause.’
But when the Comforter comes, the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bring knowledge of me and will be my witness. And you also will be my witnesses because you have been united with me from the very beginning.
4th Easter
April 17, 2016
John 15: 1-27
Within a seed, there is the potential for all parts of a new plant – its roots and shoots, its blossoms and seeds. The potential is there because the seed is alive. And one way to tell whether a seed is alive is alive or not is to test whether it germinates. If not, it has lost its potential for further development. It is dead.
Our lives, too, are full of seed-potential. We have brought with us the possibility to become many things on many different levels. Perhaps the most important seed-potential in us is the Christ-Seed; for with His death, Resurrection, and Ascension, Christ has laid the Sun-Seed of his living being into each and every human being. This Sun-Seed is our capacity to grow and develop toward the heavenly realms, and at the same time to also more deeply and lovingly ground and root ourselves in the earth He created. For at her core, the earth, like us, contains a potent Sun-Seed of Christ. For her, it is the living potential to gradually become in the future a new, radiant sun. Together with Christ, we are creating a new world.
Christ is the life of the seed, the true living, developing vining life in which we all live and move and have our being, as Paul says*. Christ keeps us alive so that we can germinate our potential and live into the future with him. Connected with his life, we blossom forth as spiritual beings. Connected with his life we are helping the earth to gradually become a radiant new star.
*Acts 17:28
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