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Crushed Fruit
Constance Hastings April 22, 2024
The Trouble with Jesus is only by witnessing a power often misunderstood, not a parade, might people enter a new reality.
Hey, Mister Messiah, finally you got the right angle on all of this. Get the people excited for a big party. After all, it’s spring break time. Use the right props, send out an advance team, let Jerusalem know you are on the way. It will be the parade of all parades, taking you to right where you were meant to be.
Appearance vs. Reality:
Commonly thought to be a literary device or a philosophical question. What you “see” points to something greater, that is, what is not necessarily visible or experienced with the usual senses. You can read up on and/or play a mind game with it if that’s your thing. What’s required is an awareness that the concept is more frequent in our perceptions than generally considered. This day was one of them. Cheer from the sidelines or join in the parade. But store your expectations for another day.
Parade vs. Protest
All accounts record it. It must have been quite the procession. Everyone came out to see the spectacle of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a young donkey. People spread their coats on the ground, and the road was strewn with leafy branches, all to make the ride smoother and keep down the dust. Clamorous voices called him a king, the one who would establish a new kingdom on the level of their greatest hero, King David. Best yet, he came “in the name of the Lord,” fulfilling what the ancient prophets had promised. Not lost on anyone was the celebration of Passover only days away, the commemoration of the Israelite deliverance from slavery and oppression by the Egyptians. Part parade, part protest, however you see it, God was on the move and doing it again!
When you heard what had happened in Bethany, a small town outside Jerusalem, you couldn’t help get even more excited and believe now was the time. Life was going to change in a big way for the Jews. The story went that Jesus actually had raised a man from the dead. Dead not just for a few minutes and revived, but four-days-dead. They even had to open up the tomb, and in a loud voice Jesus had shouted for him to come out. And the guy did, grave clothes and all! If Jesus could do this, those Romans might as well pack up and run for the hills. Hope was so big you could taste it.
Now that we have our forks in hand, bet we know what’s coming. What this looks like isn’t what it is. Tell us then, what’s really going on?
It may not have been noticed by everyone, but when Jesus got there, the guy’s sisters sort of put the blame for their brother’s death on Jesus. “Lord, if you had been here…,” they kept saying. Grief over the death of a loved one, and likely a young guy, too, is understandable. People like to think Jesus understood, and his compassionate love spilled over. He “wept” is what is said. But in reality, if you look behind what you see to what is real, there’s more to the story.
Truth is, Jesus cried, but his tears were mixed with anger. Not the five-stages-of-grief kind of anger, but anger out of how those closest to him, after all this time, just didn’t get it, just couldn’t see what all the preaching, teaching, healing, even raising someone from the dead was really about. Frustrated to the point of tears, he was.
Reality vs. Reversal
When the parade was over, when the shouting had quieted, when the people were gone finally, Jesus went into the Temple in Jerusalem and looked around carefully at everything. After the day he just had, maybe he cried again. The most significant week of his life was before him. People wanted so much from him, but what they wanted was not that for him to give. When they watched him, heard his words, put their hopes in him, they saw only what they wanted to see, wanted to hear, not what God was offering them for their souls.
“Hosanna,” they had shouted. Their cry is not as it seems, what we want it to be, even what we have been told it is. Hosanna, lifted in word and song, hymn and liturgy, is not so much a praise but a plea. What the crowd called out for but did not know in truth was, “Save us!”
He would. He would be their king, more so though of their hearts than their country. He would bring about a new kingdom, in fact, through him it was already beginning, the kingdom of God. Raising someone from the dead was only a sign of the new reality he would establish. He would make that reality full, answering their plea to save by turning it into their salvation.
Appearance vs. Reality may have been the toughest fight Jesus had, reversing how things look into what God means for them to be. Before the week was out, those to whom he had the most to give would reject him, betray him, destroy it all.
That is, if you accept how it appears to be…
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The Trouble with Jesus: His words grow like a vine,
thin trails of thought getting thicker with meaning.
Jesus kept talking. He’d just said it was time to go. But he kept talking. The tension in the room was a weighty blend of grief, some denial, maybe even suppressed anger at what he was saying held in place by the exhaustion of the week. Tonight was not how it had started, an exhilarating parade with the crowd calling him the new king, a king who would save. (Mark 11:1-11)
Deviating Thoughts
But he kept saying things like being lifted on a cross even as he almost desperately called to the people to believe he was sent from God. Those gathered in the city for the Passover festival had heard about his miracle of bringing a friend back to life after four days dead. (John 11:1-44) But most were not buying much more of his message than that. Still, he just kept talking.
Earlier in the evening, he had done something weird, uncharacteristic for one who would be king. He’d dressed like a servant and washed their dirty feet, calling upon them to serve others likewise. (John 13:1-17)
Then he’d said the unthinkable, that one of them, these who had followed and learned of him for three years, would betray him. Maybe that’s why he’d said to Judas, “Hurry. Do it now.” Judas was the treasurer who paid for their meals and gave money to the poor. (John 13:27-30) Do you think he left to pay off any threat to their Rabbi and themselves? Jesus kept talking.
In all the confusion, Peter had declared he’d die for his Lord. Jesus silenced the room when he stated Peter would do go so far as to three times deny he even knew Jesus before that very night was over. (John 13:38) Next came some kind of talk about going away somewhere and how he would send a Counselor to teach and remind them of what he had said. (John 14:26)
Restless, Weaving Thoughts
It was too much, how he kept talking even when he said they should be going. It was as if Jesus knew when they left that room he never would have again the chance to tell them all he wanted. So he weaved in his thoughts, let them creep out and hold on where they would, seemingly just talk but growing into so much more.
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.” Jesus kept talking but hold on to that thought. A vine. The image is one similar to what he is doing now. It grows, spreads out, weaves up into and among places to which it can grasp, wrap itself, become stable-tight, and then move out again. His words have been like that all night, thin trails of thought getting thicker with meaning.
Jesus fleshes it out. His Father, the one from whom he comes, is the gardener. The work of this Gardener-God is made clear from the beginning: to produce fruit. The gardener trains the branches on the vine, how to grow so light is available to all parts of it. The parts that impede ability to produce fruit are removed, pruned.
Such it has been with these friends of Jesus. The message he has given them has cut away at their ambitions, desires, misconceptions of God’s purpose in them. It’s pruning that can be severe but necessary for the fruit of the vine. Not all will accept being part of the vine. The separation leaves a wound on the vine like something nailed deep into flesh.
Severe, sometimes necessary pruning can also be a cleansing, yielding process, as if having feet or hands washed. The health of the vine and the expected fruit must be protected from disease. Yielding to the Gardener-God’s work maintains the well-being of the branches.
Roving, Winding Thoughts
From the True Vine come branches, and from the yielding of the branches is fruit. There is an interconnectedness in the image that belies the translations. Eight times Jesus states the importance of remaining, abiding, being joined to him. “Apart from me, you can do nothing.”
You won’t know growth. You can’t be effective. You won’t have life in the abundance the Gardener-God would have for you. You won’t last because you won’t produce fruit. Abide, remain in, and be joined to the message Jesus brings.
To abide is to be not just a branch, an extra appendage, but an integral part of the vine. By an intimate conjoining of Love the True Vine connects with its branches. In this Christ-likeness, the branch is identified with The True Vine. Yet, this metaphor is not limited to individualism.
“You may ask any request you like, and it will be granted.” Not a blanket give-a-way is this. Throughout Jesus’ words the plural form of “you” is stated. You entails the interconnected, gathered believers who remain in, are joined to, and abide in the True Vine. In the altogether growing, cleansing, pruning of the branches is God’s desire in producing fruit.
Meandering, Heavy Thoughts
Jesus kept talking. His message is understood as the tenuous wisps of leaves sprouted from the tips of the branch connected to the True Vine. His discourse is cloudy in its first vision, requiring multiple re-examinations as the vine sends out more branches.
Jesus kept talking. Fruit is the desire of his Gardener-God. Fruit will be taken from the vine of Love and crushed into a cup from which Jesus soon will pour out his life. The True Vine stared into his fate.
He kept talking.
