Fruit Bearing Hall of Fame

It has been well said that the Christian army is the only one which shoots its own wounded.  I suppose we think that the importance of success in our mission justifies using the Law to pummel our hurting brethren.  Probably nothing has been used to create as much guilt and shame among Christians as the idea of bearing fruit, which we are told is the hallmark of all true Christians and how we can be sure that we really are.

Our Lord has an unmistakable love for agricultural imagery.  More of His parables are set on a farm than perhaps anywhere else.  And this is where we usually go to talk about bearing fruit.  But I do not think that this is the only, or perhaps even primary scriptural picture that we should use to understand what is meant by being fruitful and how it happens.  Perhaps a few examples will serve better than much explanation, so without more delay, The Fruit Bearing Hall of Fame.

The first fruit bearer in human history is none other than Eve.  Yes Eve.  What fruit did Eve bear?  The fruit of the knowledge of good and evil obviously.  This was Eve's master plan to be more like God, closer to Jesus in our terminology.  She took the fruit in her hand and she bore it over to her husband and they ate.  The fruit of her religion was sin.  The fruit in fact of all religion is sin.  The harder we try the worse we fail.  The more determined we are to succeed the more we find ourselves in the miry clay of failure.  The fruit of Eve's plan to be like God is death.  But out of our first parents' death comes the human race.  How can sin create the human race?  Only because where sin abounds grace abounds more.  God doesn't respond to any merit in us; He responds to our need.  The more wicked we are, the better must be that which saves us.  So, Eve's religion bore the fruit of death, but Eve's death bore the fruit of life.  In the day that she sinned she died.  And in that death she received the promise of Messiah.  But before Eve could bear any fruit she had to die.

The next fruit bearer in our Hall of Fame is the very picture of the New Jerusalem, Sarah herself.   

²³ But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, ²⁴ which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar— ²⁵ for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children— ²⁶ but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all. ²⁷ For it is written:

“Rejoice, O barren, You who do not bear!
Break forth and shout, You who are not in labor!
For the desolate has many more children Than she who has a husband.”

²⁸ Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. ²⁹ But, as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now. ³⁰ Nevertheless what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.” ³¹ So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free. Galatians 4

Sarah didn't get it.  Her attempts to bear fruit through Hagar must have come near to wrecking her marriage,  as our efforts would if Our Divine Husband was such as to let that happen.  When it was finally time for her to bear fruit she didn't believe it.  It sounded like a joke to her, and if the day ever comes that I bear any fruit I think we will all be laughing.  Nobody believed Sarah would ever bear fruit.  Her womb is described by the Apostle as "dead".  And it is this in Sarah that we shall imitate, whether we like it or not.  The religious, like Hagar, have plenty of fruit to show.  They can produce fruit at the drop of a hat.  But the children of Sarah, bear little fruit and that very late after everyone has stopped looking for such a thing.  It will come without any effort or intention on our part, as I guarantee you that Abraham and Sarah were not trying to have a baby on their diamond anniversary.  We must be dead, like Sarah's womb, beyond all hope of success, off of life's hamster wheel, not even trying anymore at all before we receive the promise.  It is to the poor that the Gospel is preached, and it is to the least, the lost, and the last that Christ comes.  It is only the people who walk in darkness that will see a great light .

Which brings us to our Champion Fruit Bearer, Mary, mother of Jesus. And what did Mary do to bear such wonderful fruit?  She didn't do the one thing that she could do to bear fruit; she was a virgin.  The only thing that could ever cause her to bear fruit, she has conspicuously abstained from(not intentionally as she was planning marriage but I am concerned with the facts of the case not her intentions).  Virginity is literally the way of death.  It is the way of no fruit at all.  I need not point out that in traditional cultures, such as first century Galilee, bearing children was absolutely the measure of success of a woman, just as we have made bearing fruit the Christian's measure of worth.  Mary's passivity cannot be a cause of anything.  So what is the cause of Mary's fruitfulness?  Simply that she is, in the angel's words, "highly favored".  The cause of Mary's fruitfulness is not found in herself.  It is found in God's love for her.

I have tried to be very clear that death is the necessary precondition for bearing fruit.  I think that this is the point of Christ's resurrection, His acted out, last parable.  Jesus famously referred to the Pharisee's as painted up graves, full of dead men's bones, such is all of our religion and effort.  Accept it.  You are a tomb.  But in the mystery of the Gospel a tomb is a womb.  And that is our last entry in the Fruit Bearing Hall of Fame, the Garden Tomb.  I have called Sarah dead and Mary passive, but the Tomb excels them both.  We have exactly as much in us as a cause of fruit bearing as a tomb has as a cause of resurrection.

But if we repose our hearts upon the faith that he works in our death, we cannot lose. The astonishing graciousness of grace is that it takes the one thing you and I will never lack - the one thing, furthermore, that no one will ever want to beg, borrow, or steal from us - and makes it the only thing any of us will ever need.-Robert Capon Kingdom, Grace, and Judgment