By Their Fruits

Jesus said that by their fruits we can know them.  We know God by what God does. And what does God do? In Jesus we see God giving food and life and healing and forgiveness. We see the God-Man taking on the sins of the world, actually becoming sin. Could there have been any greater vulnerability?  Jesus suffered and died for us. He subjected himself to the whims of evil men and the rejection of religious leaders—but in his powerlessness was power. Walter Brueggemann writes, “The totally vulnerable one is the present ruling Lord.”

Jesus brings life in a world of death. That’s resurrection foreshadowed in the stories of the raising of Lazarus, the young man, and the little girl. In equally dramatic ways Jesus was the life-bringer as he told the story of the Prodigal Son, fed the 5000, and talked to the woman at the well. All his actions were life-giving. Such was his mission as he came to let the blind see and the lame walk.

How am I a bearer of life? By my fruits I shall be known.