A Devotion for Easter 5: The Vine

Okay, honesty time. It’s only now, almost five months into the year, that I’m finally getting around to making good on my New Year’s resolutions to 1. Drink more water, 2. Get more exercise, particularly a structured program of weights and cardio. What can I say? I can procrastinate with the best of them. But I’m making it happen, if a little later than intended.

One of the great gifts of scheduled, set-aside time to exercise, is that it gives me time to listen to music, podcasts, and audiobooks that have been long neglected. More than just catching a few songs in the car to and from school pick up and drop off, I’ve been able to listen to whole albums, entire chapters, and full podcast episodes. And that has impacted me in a way I did not expect.

There’s something about exercise that allows me to focus on music particularly. Maybe it’s because when I find myself huffing and puffing on the treadmill or elliptical, my mind is searching for any distraction (other than looking at my measly speed or distance traveled), but regardless, during this time, I am able to truly focus and listen to lyrics and think about their meaning.

Leave it to God to know this. As I hit shuffle on my Itunes Library this Monday, “Awake My Soul” by Mumford and Sons popped up. And the lyrics hit me. Hard.

“In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die.

Where you invest your love, you invest your life.”

I’ve listened to this song and these lyrics hundreds of times. But I heard them clearly, and freshly this day. I heard God reminding me “Amy, I care about what you do with your time and your body. Spend your days and your love wisely.”

The body that I had often neglected, the one that paced on that treadmill, needs care and attention. And so does my soul, the one that God has loved and tended to.

In the Gospel lectionary for this week, Jesus describes himself and the Father as the vine and vinegrower. We, as followers of Christ, are the branches of the vine of Christ. Without him, we wither and die.

Jesus says: “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” – John 15: 4-5.

Our days can easily be filled tending to physical needs: drywall, paint, hammers. Damaged roofs and flooded floors. And those physical things, like our own bodies, matter to God. Treating them well, tending to broken structures and strengthening muscles – these are holy practices that God calls us to.

Where we invest our love, the physical acts of service, compassion, and love, we invest our lives. In doing so, we abide in the love that God has shown to us. In these holy practices of caring for our bodies and lives, the lives and bodies of others, and for the earth, we are co-workers with God. They are holy practices because, we, as God’s children and creation, have been made holy.

God calls our souls to be awakened. To look up, to pay attention to the world around us and to our lives before us. To tend to brokenness, invest in good work, and abide in love,

This week, I encourage you to take an honest look at your days. Your working hours, and the hours of rest and home life.

Do your days speak of a life invested in love? How are you abiding and remaining in God, and God in you?

Christ is Risen! Christ is risen indeed!

In Easter promise,

Chaplain Amy