Jesus – right before the horror.
Guest post by Rachel P. Scott
In “the Passion Week story right after the last supper, Jesus and his disciples are likely on their way to the garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus knows he will be betrayed by one friend and abandoned by the rest. Into this heavy context, He speaks final commands, final wisdom to his disciples.
What will He say?
Our hearts and ears are open, Lord.
“Abide in me… Abide in my love.”
That’s the message? He’s about to die!
And yet His charge to His disciples, to us, is to abide in His love. To abide; to make one’s home in. He speaks of fruit too, but only to say that we are powerless to produce it without Him. He also speaks of obedience to commands that He knows will result in our fullness of joy.
Both of these things, producing fruit and obeying commands, tend to bring out the part in each of us that wants to earn love.
And yet these two are immersed in, surrounded by, the much stronger thrust of the whole passage – to remain in His love. If we don’t want to be like branches that are “thrown away and burned”, the answer is NOT working harder to produce more!
We hear Him speaking to our hearts, “Let your heart feel at home in my love. Let my love be your security; let my love be your resting place. This is the work you must do. Yes, there will be fruit, much fruit, abiding fruit! But the fruit is my responsibility. You cannot do it. You remain connected to my love; I will produce the fruit.” As Jesus was the True Servant that Israel could not be, He is the True Vine, producing the fruit that we cannot. And yet He still wants us to be a part! We cannot do it, but He made a way. Connected to Him, branches to the vine, we get to be fruitful participants in His Garden.
Incredible love. Jesus is taking steps, passing buildings and trees, each of which brings him closer to the greatest pain a human has ever borne – the full weight of eternity’s suffering, sorrow, ugliness, evil – and all of this faced alone. He could have sought comfort, or rebuked the disciples for their upcoming abandonment, or frantically explained his Messiah-ship again, hoping the disciples would finally get it.
He didn’t.
Instead, He urged them to remain, abide, not WITH Him as they had been doing for the last 3 years, but IN Him. He urges us to do the same. We have no insecurity in His love – He chose us, we didn’t choose Him! As we walk through this Holy Week, may our hearts be broken and overjoyed by the love of Christ, that His greatest pain and His greatest sacrifice offer a home and a hope for us.”
How are you learning to abide in this Love?