Mrs. Pietsch taught botany. I spent a whole semester of my sophomore year in high school studying plants. To this day, it is one of my favorite courses. She gave me an award for my work that semester. To this day, my family grows weary of me identifying different types of trees in Hershey Park.
As Jesus and his disciples left the upper room, he identified himself as the true vine. Isaiah once compared Israel to a vine. Now Jesus fulfilled that identity. Not only did Jesus identify himself, but he identified his disciples as the branches which grow out of the vine. The disciples drew life from Jesus. He knew they would be tempted to flee by the event of his capture that night. So he told them to remain in the vine. In vital relationship with Jesus, the disciples would bear fruit. Apart from him, they could do nothing.
Also during my sophomore year, I was teaching a Bible study at lunchtime to fellow students in the park near our high school in Frankfurt, Germany. I was becoming a disciple and making other disciples. God was teaching me to abide in him so that I could bear fruit. One day the inclement weather forced us to bring our Bible Study inside. Mrs. Pietsch saw me reading the Bible to my fellow students and she asked, “What in the world are you doing?” She knew me as a student but not as a follower of Jesus. The fruit of my life has not been in the study of botany but in the leadership of God’s people.
Some years ago, Stuart Briscoe was preaching from this passage to students in Poland, when the lights went out. They urged him to continue to preach. When the lights came on, he found the congregation on their knees. The next morning, he discovered that some of the students had stayed on their knees all night praying. When he asked them why, they answered, “We had never heard this teaching. We wanted to make sure we were abiding in Christ.” Are we abiding? It is good to be sure. Apart from Jesus, we can do nothing. But with him, we will bear much fruit that lasts.
