The Fifth Sunday in Easter, Year B
John 15:1-8
Nick reads the one-minute Firestarter. Click on the image.
Jesus gives his seventh and last “I AM” name: “I am the True Vine.” There echoes in the hearts of the disciples this ancient symbol used by Isaiah (5:1-7), Jeremiah (2:21) and Ezekiel (19:10-12), among others. “Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard” (Isaiah 5:1). Jesus is the one who embraces the New Vine. The only Son of God is the place to find the New Community. We are to be branches of the vine, which is Jesus. The life force is the Holy Spirit.
Pruning increases our fruit-producing power. Suffering is the passage, unique to each person that can move us from death to self, to life in Jesus.
Abide in Jesus. Rest in him. As you sit, stand or kneel in prayer, let your imagination, illumined and made real by faith, engraft you onto this wondrous vine.
The Revised Common Lectionary.
The Bible Through the Seasons 
I had a visual flash when reading this passage of myself an injured, pruned branch wrapped lovingly and protected deep in the twists and turns of the true vine. What a safe, warm place to be. How wonderful to be in a place where you can both love and be loved, be held close yet reach out and produce fruit. Nothing but a vine could allow all of these things.
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What a creative way to further the powerful image of the vine and the branches!
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