Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Easter
Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches. The Father prunes those who bear fruit, but he throws out those who do not bear fruit. There are few images of our life in Christ more familiar than this one. It is so familiar that we may fail to notice that it’s a hard lesson. Whether we are bearing fruit or not, the cutting is coming. Indeed, the branch that is pruned and the branch that is thrown out are the same branch. Once united, they’re now separated.
We to place our identity in the parts of us that lie far from Jesus. The Father wants to trim away every such thing. The cutting hurts either way, but if we value whatever distinguishes us from the Lord—things such as total self-determination, comforts, luxuries, complacency, or egoism—then that cutting serves to sever us totally from the source of life. The loss of worldly goods brings some people a sense of real despair and dread. If, however, we value our likeness to the vine, the Father’s pruning cuts away dead weight. Perhaps it makes us smaller, simpler, less externally impressive, but it brings us closer to the Spirit that flows out from the life-giving vine.