Juxtaposition is meant to be jarring. Tossing two unlike things together sharpens the distinction of each. Jesus employed this literary tool often: the greatest will be the least, to live you must die, to lose your life is to save it. My favorite: Abide or die.
If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned
John 15:6 (ESV)
Abiding is a tricky word, particularly for a nation as ours blessed with the Puritain work ethic. It doesn’t fit into the vernacular of can-do American knowhow. Here it is only wispy branches which can help us understand.
Grapes – the berries involved here – grow on the branch, not the vine. Yet it is the vine that works hauling sap and soil. The branch’s work is to not work, but to make its business the node where it connects to the vine. It is not its job to plump or paint the purple fruit or fill the skins with sweetness, but only to sit and receive the sap of the vine and allow it to freely course through its twiggy limbs.
Jesus calls the work of a branch abiding. That means it stays, it remains, it looks backwards towards the vine. Abiding is the only option for a branch to live, and to live means to bear fruit. Abiding is easy. If you are a grape branch, abiding is the best; its the cat’s pijamas. If a branch does not abide, it will not fruit, which is to say it is dead.
No one builds with branches. Grape branches had two uses, fruit or fire. If not one, the other. Dead branches are clipped, burned and crackle under the cauldron. Living branches are pruned to bring forth more fruit.
The juxtaposition here is wonderful. Do the most restful thing, or die. This is the choice of all branches. To abide is to rest, to receive and to not work or worry or be un-peaced. It is the easiest thing to do because it requires one to not do, but to receive vine juice. If we don’t do this most placid of activities then we will shrivel, wither, and die. Abide or die.
Thought Butter 