This year’s theme for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is “Abide in my love and you shall bear much fruit” (Jn 15:5-9). Each contributor to our series has reflected on a daily verse from this Scripture passage, as indicated by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, for each day of the octave. 

Today, Day Two, Bishop Johann Schneider reflects on the verse “Abide in me as I abide in you” (Jn 15:4a).

Maturing Internally

By Johann Schneider

When New York Times bestselling author Andy Andrews signs a book, he usually writes “Persist” below his signature.

In this verse, “Abide in my love, and you shall bear much fruit” (Jn 15:5-9), Jesus does essentially the same. In the second farewell discourse in the Gospel of John, Jesus addresses his disciples with a very concise plea: “Remain in me, as I also remain in you” (15:4).

On the eve prior to his departure from earthly existence, he urges and encourages his startled disciples and students with the touching and intimate motif of the grapevine and its branches. Despite a parting and farewell, Jesus promises his disciples the close relationship of the grapevine with its branches — a lasting, life-preserving, and dynamic relationship. The branches of the grapevine are part of the grapevine; the grapevine sustains them in living.

Christ’s affirmation to be present in the community of his disciples who face challenges corresponds to the imperative, “Abide in me.” The relationship between Jesus and his disciples is transformed into a terrestrial/celestial one during the hour of his earthly farewell: the community of life persists.

The invitation to be the fruit of the grapevine talks about “becoming Christian” not of “being Christian.” How can we be spiritually transformed to be like Christ?

In Wittenberg, the interpreter of the Holy Scriptures and Augustinian priestmonk Martin Luther responded to circumstances posing fatal peril to him after being threatened with excommunication: “This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.”

Especially during these times of global pandemic, the promise of persisting in Christ is a process of becoming healthy, not one of being healthy, it is a source of comfort and assurance, because Christ himself will remain in us and heal us and the whole world.

Suggested listening: Jochen Kleppers “Die Nacht ist vorgedrungen/ The night will soon be ending.”  

Image courtesy Transylvanian Museum Gundelsheim - Christ the True Vine - Scheii Brasovului (second half of the 19th century.) Reverse glass painting. Description in photogallery below.

Bishop Johann Schneider (1993-1994) was elected in 2011 as regional bishop in the Lutheran Church in Central Germany (Evangelische Kirche in Mitteldeutschland) in the region of Halle-Wittenberg. Born in Romania, to a Transylvanian-Saxon-Lutheran family, they emigrated to Germany in 1985. Schneider studied theology and philosophy in Neuendettelsau, Tübingen, Munich, Erlangen and Rome. Ordained in 1997 in St. Nicholas and St. Ulrich Church in Nuremberg, he worked as Lutheran minister in Nuremberg, Erlangen, Stuttgart and Hannover. In 2017, he was awarded a Doctor honoris causa from the University Lucian Blaga in Sibiu/Romania. Bishop Schneider is married to Rev. Dr. Ariane Schneider. They have two sons.