John’s Gospel is all about relationships – the relationship between Jesus and the Father, and our relationship with both of them. When talking about these relationships, John often uses the phrase “remain in me” – we hear it repeated many times today in both the gospel and John’s letter. To us this is an odd phrase and not one we are likely to use when talking about relationships, or much else.
John of course was writing in Greek, not English, and we should not be surprised that there isn’t an exact translation for the idea he is expressing. As best I can understand, “remain in me” has the sense of “stay connected to”. We might think “keep in touch” – but not in the casual sense that friends might use the phrase, but rather as lovers might say “write to me (often)” (in days when that was still a thing…)
If we have ever been in love then we know that deep need to stay connected with the other – it’s not just desirable, it really is necessary – we feel it with our bodies not just our minds. And in tragic cases, if the connection cannot be maintained, the love dies – which is the stuff of many, many stories. Jesus uses a simple metaphor to explain when he says “Remain in me, as I remain in you” – he says the connection I’m taking about is a close as that between a plant and its branches. Obviously a branch cannot exist without the plant to which it is connected – that’s how close we are to him, and he is to us. And if a branch is disconnected, as when a vine is pruned, then the branch is useless, dead, worthless.
What perhaps causes us a bit more trouble in this discussion is the idea that branches that don’t bear fruit get pruned away. Add some burning and John’s explanation in his letter: “Those who keep his commandments remain in him”, and we can very easily drift sideways into seeing this as some sort of threat – keep the commandments or you’ll get cut off and burned.
But this is backwards. Jesus is simply pointing out that branches that get cut off don’t survive – lovers that don’t stay in touch fall out of love. John says we have to “believe in the name of Jesus Christ, and love one another” – i.e. stay in love (with Jesus and each other). And branches that stay connected bear fruit i.e. good things happen. There are no threats, there is no coercion here, no “do as I say or face the consequences”. If we start from the perspective that we are talking about love, and nothing could be clearer in John’s perspective, then what we are being told is kinda obvious, and completely in line with what we know about relationships and how they work, or fail to work.
In the context of this particular relationship the result is amazing. As Jesus said: “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you”. This is a relationship worth working at. This is a love to outlast all loves.