This week we have reflected upon the importance of living vigilantly, in readiness for whenever it is we might meet our God face-to-face, either at His Second Coming or at our own deaths. We are told today of Galileans who were killed, and their blood mingled with pagan sacrifices; a terrible thing to happen to a Jew, even in death. We hear of eighteen people who died, suddenly, when a tower in Siloam fell on them. They were completely unprepared. Jesus, in His preaching, seeks always to warn and prepare us for the life to come; He has told us and taught us all we need to know to prepare for eternal life. Yet so many do not listen to Him, and their encounter with God comes suddenly, and they find themselves completely unprepared and afraid of the God they ought to encounter with awe and joy!
But God “…wills everyone to be saved…” (1 Timothy 2:4), and Jesus, our Savior, never ceases to work however He can to bring about our salvation. He illustrates this by means of a parable in which a person comes looking for fruit on a tree he planted; the tree was not prepared for this, and had no fruit to give the one who gave it life. This was not the first time; the man had come three years, frustrated by the same result. But the gardener begged for a little more time to work with the tree, that it might be spared; Jesus is that gardener, and you are that tree.
In John’s Gospel Jesus says to us “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and every one that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit… I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned… It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain…” (John 15:1-2, 5-6, 16). What if we currently are fruitless, living lives apart from the Vine that is Christ, living as trees heedless of the one who planted us, nourished us, and gave us new life? We must turn to the Gardener and let Him cultivate the ground around us, showing us what in our lives is tempting and distracting us from holiness. We must turn to Him and allow Him to fertilize our souls with the Sacraments, with His Word, with the teachings of His Church, that we might grow and be fruitful.
If we can submit to His tender work, then we can look forward to our death with eager anticipation and joy, for whenever it is that our Father comes looking for produce, He will find some and be pleased that we have lived for Him, rather than for ourselves. We will not be cut down and thrown into the fire, but transplanted into the eternal garden of His Kingdom, rooted no more in the perishable soils of the Earth but rooted rather in the very Heart of God. “But I tell you,” Jesus says,“if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!” Turn away from all that renders you fruitless, all that puts you in danger of being fruitless before your God when He comes to you, or you go to Him. Go to your Gardener in Confession and let Him pick the stones from your heart, pluck the weeds from your soul, that you might “…bear fruit that will remain.”