Remain

Jesus' last night before the cross. The upper room. Twelve had become eleven — Judas had left to do what he was going to do. The disciples were anxious, confused, on the edge of something they couldn't yet see. And in those final, intensive hours of teaching, Jesus reaches for one of his most familiar pictures: a vine.

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. Most of his hearers would have known vines well. Most would also have heard the Old Testament use the picture before — Israel as God's vine, transplanted out of Egypt, planted, tended. But also Israel as a failed vine. Walls trampled. Branches burned. A nation that did not bear the fruit it was meant to bear. Where Israel failed, Jesus says, I am the true vine. The one who succeeds where the nation didn't. And his Father is the gardener. Then he says something his disciples desperately need to hear, and we do too: Remain in me.

The word he keeps repeating

Sometimes Jesus' main point is hard to nail down. Not here. He says it again and again. Remain. If you have an ESV it says abide. Other translations say dwell. The idea is making your home with him. Living with. Staying with. Not leaving.

Remain in me, as I also 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. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me, you'll bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. It sounds simple — and it is. But it's clearly important enough for Jesus to repeat it ten times in seventeen verses. Because the danger of not remaining is real. Even there in the upper room, twelve had become eleven. People fall away. We see it in our own time too. People who once seemed all in with Jesus, no longer there. The transition through high school. The move to a new city. Work and family squeezing out faith. The post-COVID drift that never reversed. The disillusioned, the deconstructed, the distracted. Jesus knew it was coming. So he says: remain.

You're already clean

There's a moment in this passage that's easy to miss in English. Jesus says the Father prunes every fruitful branch to make it more fruitful. Then he says, You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. It looks confusing — until you realise the Greek word for prune and the word for clean are essentially the same. Pruning a vine was cleaning it. So Jesus is saying to his disciples: You are already clean. You are already the fruitful branches. Not because you've earned it. Because of my word. Because of what I'm about to do as I go to the cross. This matters enormously. Because if we miss this, we go down a destructive rabbit hole. We start asking: Am I a fruitful branch? Have I been fruitful enough? Have I served enough, loved enough, told enough people about Jesus to avoid being cut off? That's not the gospel. Some faiths teach that at the end your good deeds get weighed against your bad, and if good outweighs bad, you're OK. But how can you ever tell? That's living in fear. Jesus says: I am the way, the truth and the life — not your works or efforts. I wash you clean. You don't wash yourself. The command in John 15 is never go be productive. It's remain in me. Stay connected to the vine. The fruit will follow.

What fruitfulness actually looks like

Fruitfulness in this passage is broader than we sometimes think. It's the good things that come naturally from a life connected to Jesus. Internal transformation, first — what Paul later calls the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. That internal change naturally overflows into how we treat others. Fruitfulness is also about reproducing — more and more people finding life in the vine. As Jesus calls his disciples to make more disciples, the fruit grows outward. But notice: you can do nothing without Jesus. Apart from him, no fruit. Connected to him, much fruit.

What power. What an ally. What a privilege. What foolishness to go it on our own.

Not servants — friends

Then comes one of the most staggering shifts in the whole Bible. Jesus turns from the vine imagery to the heart of what holds it together: love.

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. My command is this: love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends. If anyone else said this, it would sound wrong. I'll only love you if you obey me. We can only be friends if you do what I say. It would empty a church in ten minutes. But this is Jesus. The God of all things. He has every right to call us creatures and servants. Instead he calls us friends. This isn't a harsh command. It's an invitation. An invitation to be drawn into the most whole, pure, satisfying love available — the love between the Father and the Son. As the Father loves me, so I love you. Remain in this love. And he's not asking us to do anything he isn't doing himself. His own obedience to the Father runs all the way to the cross. Not built on duty. Built on love.

Two branches

Here's something to notice. We often try to judge whether someone is "remaining" by how they look on the outside. But you can't always tell. Imagine two branches. One was cut from the vine weeks ago — dry, withered, obviously dead. The other was cut this morning — still green, still fresh, looking just fine. Both are equally cut off from life. Judas, by all appearances, looked like a faithful disciple right to the end. But his home and heart had not been with Jesus for some time. The drift away from Jesus is rarely sudden. It's almost imperceptibly slow. A teenager doesn't leave home in a day — they leave gradually, through a thousand small choices: travelling further, missing the family meal, choosing different priorities. Eventually the leaving is complete. The same is often true of leaving the vine. Which Jesus says here is not natural or good — because it is walking away from life itself.

A thousand crossroads a week

So what about you? Are you abiding with Jesus? Making your home with him? Or looking for life elsewhere? Hard to tell sometimes. Even from the inside. But there are signs. Are you seeing the fruit of the Spirit growing in you? Love, joy, peace, patience? We face a thousand crossroads every week — small choices that show where we're really making our home. What wins the battle between reading your Bible and scrolling something else on your phone? Between prayer and just pushing through? When do you take a step toward God's people, and when do you avoid it? Jesus singles out one command above all: love each other. To abide with Jesus is to abide with his family too. So here's the simple call in all the complexity: Will I make my home in Jesus? Will I find my life in him? We are the branches. We are the ones Jesus calls friends. The invitation is to stay — to remain in the vine, in his love, in the household of God. Stay connected. The fruit will follow.

This post is adapted from a sermon preached by Murray Colville at St Hilda's Anglican Church Katoomba on John 15:1-17, as part of our Come and See series through John's Gospel. Visit us at www.katoomba.church.