[AI translation] I think you all know very well, or instinctively feel, what it is that makes one anxious in the last hours of a passing year and the first hours of a new year. Why do so many people want to drown out this uneasiness with all kinds of raucous moods and artificially forced laughter? Because at such times we instinctively feel that we have turned another page in the book of life, and we don't know how many pages are left, how many pages there are in the book. With every page we turn, we get closer to the last page. We don't know when we will open it. But that it is inexorably approaching, there is no doubt. The final hours of a year warn us of what we otherwise hate to think about: the end of our lives and the ever-approaching judgment of God. It is then that we have a more realistic sense of the reality of God's judgment. An evening service can be a good preparation for the final reckoning that we will all have to face one day.Here in this Word, Jesus expresses God's accountable judgment in a parable. The farmer goes out into his vineyard where, among other things, he has a fig tree. He looks for fruit on it, but cannot find any. The tree hasn't produced anything for three years! But the farmer did not intend it to be an ornamental tree, he planted it, cared for it, spent money on it, and spent money on it so that it would bear fruit. But that tree is not bearing fruit! And if a fruit tree doesn't bear fruit, it has no place in the vineyard! It only takes up space from other plantations! A vineyard is not a park, not an ornamental garden, but an orchard, where every inch of space must be used for fruit production. The picture is clear, isn't it? What we are talking about is His Church. Those for whom He, the Heavenly Bounty, takes special care, for whom the Blessed Vincellier, Jesus Christ, makes every sacrifice to make us bear fruit. That is the essence of this parable: God is looking for fruit in us! The Christian man, the tree of Christianity, is not destined by God to be an ornamental tree in this world, but a fruit tree!
It is such a simple truth! Yet we always forget that all God's care for us, believers in Him, followers of Jesus, is for the fruit! Jesus was not born into this world so that we could have a nice, cosy Christmas Eve once a year, but so that Jesus could bring into our lives the life-force that would enable human life to bear heavenly fruit. Jesus did not die on the cross so that we might occasionally become pious when we think about it, but so that, cleansed of concrete sins, we might bear more fruit through His blood! He did not rise from the dead to give the girls a red Easter egg on a merry Easter feast, but so that we too might rise to a whole new life! A fruitful, blessed, useful life. This Word is not and has been spoken here in church every Sunday for the past year, so that sometimes we might hear something different from what we usually hear in the world. It is so that all that God has done for us in Jesus, all that God has done as a heavenly seed in our souls, in our hearts, in our actions, may be germinated and bear fruit.
What is this fruit? It is the tree's testimony of itself, showing what it is and what it is worth. The tree's service to others. With it, the tree becomes poorer and the other becomes richer. Fruit is something that the tree does not produce for itself, but to be plucked. The plant gives of itself for the nourishment of others. The fruits of the Christian life are the actions of Christ that make human coexistence in the family, in society, fresh, refreshing, pleasant, luscious, beautiful. The fruit of all the words, deeds, services and sacrifices in which Jesus is found. In which God's love, joy, peace, goodness, faithfulness are realised. In short, it is about practical Christianity. Unfortunately, we are over-complicating Christianity, making it a new system of thought and a new world view. Yet Jesus spoke of it in unheard-of simplicity in the Sermon on the Mount. He said: forgive the one who has offended you, do not be angry with him. Love even the one who hated you. Let there be joy in you that radiates to others. Do not seduce another man's wife. In fact, be so pure in body and soul that people around you will be cleansed! Help those in need! May all people benefit from your claiming God as Lord!
Such are the fruits the Lord is looking for in us. It is not only a strange passage from God that He desires just such fruits, but it is the very raison d'être of the world! It is an urgent necessity that such fruit be produced, for without it we are truly lost! Jesus said before the parable, "Unless you repent, you will all... perish" (Lk 13:5) We understand this better today than when Jesus first said it. I was reading the thoughts of a German philosopher the other day. He said something like this. The turning point in the history of mankind is the moment when man-made lightning caused the sun's light to be obscured. Until then, man as an individual had to reckon with the possibility of death. Since then, humanity as a species has had to reckon with it. Man can bring about a cosmic catastrophe in which not men but mankind will perish. We are at the point, says the German philosopher, where the last judgement has become an almost foreseeable possibility for us. He concludes.
Do you sense that in such an age the fruits which God is seeking on the tree of life of Christianity, the powers of divine love, goodness and peace radiating through human actions, are not luxuries?! They are a life-opportunity, an imperishable necessity. What will happen here if the forces of destruction, hatred, evil passions are not tempered and restrained by the divine forces of love, peace and good will? How plastic are the words of Jesus: 'Unless you repent, you will all... perish'! It is not just a beautiful Christian romance, when our Lord urges us to bear fruit, but life and death!
Let me present the same from another point of view! Professor Hromádka, the well-known Dean of the Faculty of Theology in Prague, once said: 'We Christians today have to prove that Christianity is something other than a Marxist concept of religion. The Marxists say that religion is superstition on the one hand and a political reaction on the other. We Christians must prove that this thesis does not apply to Christian religion. This can only be done in one way: by action! With the fruits that we are talking about here".
Do you feel that the most serious sin that we, the followers of Jesus, commit is fruitlessness? Being a fig tree that has no fruit. Here let us understand what fruitlessness means! It is not just doing something wrong, doing something bad, but doing something good that we should have done, that we did not do! We have missed something! It is not only the sin that bad, bitter, wild fruit has come upon us, but that the fruit of repentance has not come. We think it is only sin to spoil someone's joy. But it is just as much a sin not to bring joy to someone when we could! We think it's only wrong to tempt someone to sin. But it is just as bad not to try to lead someone out of sin! We think it's only sin to make someone miserable. But it is just as sinful not to help the wretched. It is not only a sin to hate someone, it is a sin not to love someone who hates you! Do you remember what Jesus said would be the accusation at the last judgment? Not that you cheated, you were evil! No. It is that "I was hungry and you did not give me to eat; I was thirsty and you did not give me to drink; I was a stranger and you did not receive me; I was naked and you did not clothe me; I was sick and a prisoner and you did not visit me." (Mt 25,42-43) Just the little things that make up our daily lives! All the good deeds we have missed. Not bitter, poisonous fruit, but the absence of good fruit. Barrenness, fruitlessness.
Do you know why this is so fatally wrong? Because unfruitfulness betrays the whole appearance of our faith. That we are not truly in relationship with the Lord. In one place the Word says: "He who is in Christ, and Christ in him, bears much fruit" (John 15:5). He is not grafted into Christ! He may profess to be Lord, think of Him with prayerful reverence, love and support His church on earth, but he is not in a living relationship with Christ! And that is death!
The farmer in the parable, after years of searching in vain for fruit on the barren fig tree, issued the decree to his vineyard servant: Cut it down, why does it occupy the place in vain! I, Brethren, have often been frightened by the thought expressed in this Word: Will not God's patience with us run out, and His judgment fall upon us? I really would not be surprised if the Lord of the vineyard were to issue a decree at this very moment that all these barren fig trees must be cut down, that they can no longer be tolerated! Rather, I wonder - knowing me and knowing you - that this decree is still being delayed. But there is a reason for that too. According to the parable, the vineyard has an expensive vineyard servant who looks after the trees. He also acts in the interest of the unproductive fig tree. He says to the farmer, "Lord, let it alone this year, till I have received it round about and fertilized it: and if it bear fruit, it is good; but if not, then cut it down." That he could still repent, still hear the Word, still have time to bear fruit. To take this for granted, to take it for granted, or even to attribute it to one's own merit, is to have no idea of God's grace. It is literally true what the Word says in another place: 'The mercy of the Lord is that we have not yet come to an end' (Jer 3:22). In this there is not only the consolation that there is still a time of grace, but the urgency that there is only a time of grace left. The past year has already been such a time of grace, and every day and every hour ahead of us is also such a time of grace! It is very clear from the Word. For the husbandman does not ask his master not to cut down the tree at all, but not yet! The threat of felling is far from over, it has only been suspended. The tree is now under increased care and attention, because it is now being decided what will happen to it. If it bears fruit, fine, but if it doesn't now, then...
I don't want to reassure anyone cheaply. It's not that simple, there's still a reprieve. Because it means that you can't be satisfied with just the leaves and the leaves and the cry of "Lord, Lord!" It's not enough to talk the talk, to make a big push, to make a determined pledge, now we really need fruit! The Lord wants fruit from you too! Because you are a fruit tree, and the purpose and meaning of your life is to bear fruit! To be a life of doing good, of transmitting Christ, of giving! There is no other way to do this, except to accept more, much more, what the Blessed Vincelier wants to work in you! You accept, you receive Jesus! The Saviour who delivers from sin, who bears fruit, who gives strength for new life!
Amen
Date: 31 December 1960, New Year's Eve.