The Tragedy of Christmas Trees
Two Sundays ago, I spoke about my family’s Christmas tree – how it fell, shattered a bunch of prized ornaments, and dispersed irremovable blue glitter forever into my world…some of you have asked me how it’d doing – and I’m happy to report it is still standing, crooked, leaning backwards, a bit pathetic, but it’s there lighting up our living room!
But it is dying.
Christmas trees, from the moment they’re cut down, are either dead or dying (however you want to think about it). We water them to keep them ‘alive’. Someone told me this morning to put aspirin in the water to help it ‘stay alive’ (who knows if it works). But over time, the fact that they’re cut off from their roots in the ground – dying – becomes clear.
They droop, needles fall off, and they dry out as they slowly die, cut off from their source of life.
Today’s reading in the Gospel of John from our Central Reads bible reading plan is about this very same thing. Jesus portrays himself as the vine – the source of life – and we are the branches. Here’s what he says:
I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.
John 15:5
Our lives are dependent on him. We gain life – purpose, hope, energy, meaning, direction, love – from him, and if we are cut off, like a Christmas tree, we too slowly die. It’s why Jesus said, “Abide in me…” – meaning, ‘remain in me’, ‘stay in me’, ‘make your home in me’, ‘keep rooted in me’.
Once we are cut off from our source of life, we slowly wither away, dry up, droop, and die. Our needles fall off, and we make a mess.
Apart from him, Jesus says, we can do nothing. Why? Because we die apart from him. We don’t live apart from him, so how can we ‘do’ anything – really and truly and meaningfully – apart from him?
We can’t. And Jesus knows it.
What Jesus means for us though is to stay connected to him – to “abide in my love” – and he means to bear fruit – much fruit! – through us. Fruit – that most definitely looks like us loving our neighbors. Fruit – that others are given to eat! Apart from him, we don’t bear that fruit…we bear rotten fruit – or no fruit. With him, in him, by him, though him – we bear fruit for the world.
“You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last…”
John 15:16