In the fall of 1970, as freshmen at Syracuse University, my best friend Kenny and I became Christians. A couple of guys from Campus Crusade for Christ knocked on my dorm room door, asked me to take a survey, and read a little yellow gospel booklet to me. It was called “Have You Heard of the Four Spiritual Laws?” They left the booklet and a couple of nights later, alone in my room, I asked Jesus Christ to come into my heart and take control of my life. It wasn’t a hard decision. I didn’t want my life anymore. If Jesus was going to come in and take control and make me like Him, that was fine with me. After a couple of weeks, a combination of my badgering and seeing such radical changes in me caused Kenny to likewise put his faith in Jesus.
During the summer of 1971, the “Jesus movement” was at its height out on the west coast. Hippies and surfers were coming to Christ and being born again in droves. They were called “Jesus people”, with some of the more edgy ones known as “Jesus freaks.” It was a truly beautiful and gracious movement of the Holy Spirit in the hearts and minds of virtual delinquents.
Always up for an adventure, Kenny and I decided to go see it for ourselves. Some day in June or July we boarded a plane for San Diego. We landed and somehow found our way to a Baptist church right on Pacific Beach. The church had taken an old school bus, removed all the seats and replaced them with bunks. The bus was in the church parking lot and was available free of charge to tired travelers, whoever and whatever they might be. Kenny and I stayed for two or three nights.
Come Wednesday night, the church had their “Wednesday 7” meeting. It was a weekly worship and teaching service. At around 7pm, the ground level meeting room was crowded with about 100 hippies, surfers and street kids, some carrying Bibles, some just curious. After a little while, a quiet middle-aged man carrying a Bible and a bunch of grapes came walking in and it got quiet. The pastor smiled shyly and nodded at some as he walked by, but he didn’t speak. The aroma of Christ was almost perceptible. Gentleness and authenticity emanated from him as one indwelt by and filled up with the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He struck me as someone who was refreshingly free to just be himself. He was out to impress no one. He was one of those rare persons who can just live without any thought of himself or how he is appearing to others. It wasn’t that he didn’t care what people thought, it was just that, for some reason, he no longer had to be concerned about it.
He held up the grapes and began to speak. “Let’s look at this bunch of grapes. There’s a main stem, which I’m holding, then there’s these little crooked branches, and then there’s the grapes. The grapes are on the ends of the branches, so it looks like the branches produced the grapes. But what’s really going on? Now we don’t have a whole grapevine here. All I could get at the grocery store was this bunch of grapes, but the lesson is the same. So, let’s just call this main stem the vine. What really happens to produce the grapes is that the life-giving sap flows through the vine and out through the branches, and the grapes come out on the end of the branches. It looks like the branches made the grapes. But all the branches do is abide in or remain attached to the vine. The grapes come out on the end of the branches simply and only because they are joined to the vine. They do no work of their own. The whole and only reason they produce fruit is because they are one with the vine. In your Bibles, in John 15:5, Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” My friends, Jesus is the Vine, you are the branches, and the Holy Spirit is the sap that fills and flows through you and causes fruit to come out in your life. It is not by much striving and effort that you will bear fruit. You will only get in the way if you do so. It is by simply counting upon and yielding to this oneness you now have with Jesus, like this branch joined to this vine, that you will bear much fruit. What fruit? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, and seeing others come to believe in Jesus as He Himself lives through you.” I have never forgotten this message. I have lived counting upon it for some 54 years now. Whatever lasting fruit I produce and whoever I affect for Jesus is only and always because of this reality. Living in the truth of the vine and branches is at the same time great freedom, great rest and great fruitfulness, along with pruning.
Thanks for reading,
Bruce
