A Cross-eyed Vine in love with a mixed-up world

In the garden of Slumber there stood a Cross-eyed Vine; His gaze was sorrowfully fixed upon the Vinedresser’s Hand as it held out toward Him a cup overflowing with the wine of sour grapes, the fruit of a vineyard gone bad. Gracious were the full-bodied words that He prayerfully uttered thrice with persevering spirit. Fragrant was His humble acceptance of the Chalice that weighed heavy upon a world deserving of its deathly intoxication. With thirsty onlookers vying for a taste of His passion-fruit wine this Cross-eyed Vine proceeded to shade His tender branches, for which He was willing to be thrust through. He alone at that moment was to be pressed for little branches can only bear the fruit that the Vine gives them to bear in their own well-aged time. Branches can only go where the Vine chooses to grow. Be it in sorrow or sunshine the growth that matters is the love that learns to abide in the Vinedresser’s side. The Cross-eyed Vine alone knows the way to this table of plenty where the language of love is the food that doth not perish. Now having secured the safety of those who were His own, our beloved Vine was led forth into the darkness of the high priest’s house where one would expect the light of judgment to shine. And yet in the utter darkness of that room the only light shining was the light that darkness cannot overcome. Behind the curtain of his high priestly robe he was not able to recognize the presence of the Light burning before him and from here our beloved Vine was led out to be covered for the night in a chamber as if hidden beneath a bushel basket. In the morning’s youth the fruitfulness of the Vine was beginning to peak because His hour to be pressed was now at hand and despite attempts to sway His Cross-eyed truth in favor of personal safety our beloved Vine affirmed the safety of His branches to the End by willingly divesting Himself of His ‘stone rejected by the builders’ – wine, which has now become the celebrated Passover blood from which the New Vineyard has its life and in which it will always draw its life. The fruit of the Vine IS the fruit of the branches and without it there is no fruitfulness at all. The Love that sparkles therefore is the love that abides, and to abide is to lay down one’s wine for one’s friends. This is the Vinedresser’s design. Hence the Table of plenty wherein the language of love is the food that doth not perish. Our beloved Vine, with heartfelt gratitude we thank You for shedding Your wine so that in the fruitfulness of ‘love to the end’ we can call the Vinedresser – Daddy Abba, and be Your beloved Friend. Amen