Good Gardeners and Their Grapes

At the house where I grew up, our backyard sported a Concord grape vine. On many a summer evening, we'd pluck the clusters from their vines, and squeeze the grapes from their skins directly into our mouths as we savored the sweet taste. My mom made grape pies occasionally from the fruit, but the best was grape tapioca -- a jello-y, jiggly dark purple bowl of goodness with a dollop of whipped cream on it. Yum!

Once I left home, I no longer had access to the yearly grape harvest, so once my husband and I bought our house and seemed fairly settled, I decided it was time to open my vineyard for business. I went to Walmart (in hindsight, that might have been my first mistake) and bought myself a Concord grape vine, already fairly well started. I also bought a trellis that would hold the trailing vines, and I enthusiastically returned home to proudly tell my family of my investment in their future: grape tapioca until the cows came home.

(We don't have cows, and we have no intentions of purchasing bovines).

However, my efforts to become a vineyard owner died a quick and glorious death. Despite careful tending, watering, nursing, and culturing the soil around the roots... that vine sat in resplendent glory for the entire season without once showing an ounce of life. 

What was I doing wrong? 

Google provided an answer. I was not pruning! Grape vines need to be pruned! Get out there, good woman, and prune!

I betook myself to my shed where I found an ancient set of pruners, and I set my face to the backyard where the vine was. With determination, I hooked the shears around the branches and cut most of them free from the vine.

Stepping back and surveying my work with satisfaction, I cleaned up my mess and returned the shears to the shed. By the end of the week, the leaves the vine had managed to keep after my brutal genocide of its branches were gone. All that was left was a bare, brown stick that I'd twisted around the trellis after my original purchase.

I'm still not completely sure I know what I did wrong (and those of you who successfully maintain grape vines are judging me, I can feel it). ;) But one thing seemed abundantly clear: I didn't know how to take care of the product.

What. a. contrast. to our Heavenly Father! In John 15:1-17, Jesus gives us a clear and vivid picture of His Father, the Gardener. "I am the True Vine, and My Father is the Gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful."

Already, there seems to be a contrast between "cutting off" and "pruning." One is a total removal, one is a refining adjustment. The Gardener, with His expert eye, has surveyed His beloved Vine, has found the fruit-bearing limbs, and has identified the limbs that bear no fruit. The fruit-bearing limbs, He trims, modifies, cuts off anything unhealthy. The ones that don't bear fruit, He cuts off entirely. He knows His Vine completely, and He is thoroughly acquainted with every branch that attaches to that Vine. He can see the healthy and the unhealthy, and He tends His vineyard with precision and expertise. 

The fruit-bearing limbs are well-integrated with the Vine: "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."

The fruitless branches have lost their flow of nutrients from the Vine. They are cut off, so as to strengthen the remaining 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."

Church, we've come to a point where we are in desperate need of pruning, and our Father, the Gardener, is inspecting His vineyard. I'm going to keep this post short and to the point: There is a True Vine, but the fruit has been sparse in the vineyard of late. While many circumstances have rooted some branches even more closely into the Vine, other branches have loosened their hold. 

The Lord has shown me His bride many times recently in my quiet times. In all the pictures, there is a wafting away of ashes as parts of her are burned away. It's graphic and painful, but the common theme is, the parts that are burned are the parts that have already broken loose from her, like dead, calloused skin sloughing off.

Whatever pruning needs to happen so that we are the radiant bride, the overcomer "clothed in white" according to Revelation 3:5 -- let's make sure we allow to happen. We need to let go of the unhealthy and embrace the healthy, root ourselves in the Vine, not in each other.

I don't like pain, whether it's physical, emotional, or spiritual. But I recognize that antiseptic, properly applied to an open wound, brings about healing without infection. And so I pray this for the church, the Bride, that as the Son prepares us for the wedding feast, that we not be found infected, diseased, and dying.

Rather, look at the description of the Bride in Revelation 19:7: "'Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.' (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.)"