When Jesus Wept - By Bodie Page 0,38

my Father is honored and glorified, and you show and prove yourselves to be true followers of mine.”3

From that time, though I doubted at first, I came to admire and love Jesus of Nazareth. And I knew he loved me. He connected my heart to his. Like the morning of bud break, when the first new green foliage breaks forth from the vine, I was far from bearing fruit. My faith was small, about the size of my thumbnail, like the tiny clusters in early spring. All the promise of fullness and quality exists within the cluster from its beginning. But everything depends on the branch remaining united to the nourishment of the vine. I could not say if I would be among the few who matured to the full richness of life in Jesus. Yet I clung to every word he spoke. I was thirsty for his truth, drinking it in.

My understanding of who Jesus was became clearer as the weeks passed. The light of his life among us was like sun shining on the new berries. His teachings were the water, nourishing thirsty clusters, making my faith grow and ripen.

I came to understand why Jesus, the True Vine, turned plain water into the most extraordinary wine that has ever been made. As a vineyard owner and winemaker, I could comprehend the powerful significance of Jesus’ first miracle at the wedding in Cana. In the wine that Jesus created, I had tasted for myself the glory of what a life could become if it remained connected to the True Vine.

Later I witnessed with my own eyes the miracles, signs, and wonders that are written about by many others. Lepers healed. The lame dancing. Deaf mutes singing. The blind rejoicing in the sunrise and counting the stars. The greatest miracle of all was the day the twelve-year-old daughter of Jairus of Capernaum died. Jesus, with a word, raised the little girl from the dead and returned her to her joyful parents.

I once heard Jesus ask before he cured a paralyzed man, “Is it easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Rise up and walk’?”

My heart echoed the question as I looked at the crippled man on the mat before Jesus and listened to the Pharisees object to forgiveness. I said to myself, “How very difficult it is to say to anyone, your sins are forgiven. Go and sin no more. Jesus must prune away the dead wood, the showy green leaves that produce nothing. He must break off the excess, expose the fruit to the light!”

I remembered how Jesus stooped in the dust beside my sister on the day of her condemnation. Jesus had no sin in his life, yet the men who condemned my sister also condemned Jesus for his righteousness. He had placed himself in danger to save her from the consequences of her sin. And after all the stones had dropped from angry fists and Mary’s accusers had slunk away, Jesus told her she was forgiven, not condemned. The only Son of God had bridged the gap between the penalty of the law and the true love and mercy of the heavenly Father. Forgiveness! Bud break! Jesus called it being “born again”!

The great miracle for me was the reconciliation and restoration of Mary to me and to my sister Martha. I asked Mary’s forgiveness for my sins of omission. I had not loved her. Had not forgiven her. Had not protected her. I had rejected her utterly in my own self-right eousness. Yet my right eousness had been nothing but showy green foliage that blocked the sun and was incapable of bearing fruit.

When at last we embraced and all things were made new by love, Mary’s eyes were clear and bright. Her words were without fear and bitterness when she spoke to me and Martha.

The healing of a broken heart, I thought, was very much like raising someone from the dead. Jesus summed it all up for me in the parable of the pruning: “I am the True Vine and my Father is the Vinedresser.”

It is enough to say the accounts of miracles are all true, and I bore witness to them. It is enough to know that I, like many thousands of others, believed that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed the long-awaited Messiah, Son of David, King of Israel.

But the vast numbers did not follow Jesus because of his teaching about the Kingdom of God. They waited and watched as he made a blind man