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\u201cAs the Father has loved me,\xa0so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.\xa0If you keep my commands,\xa0you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father\u2019s commands and remain in his love.\xa0I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.\xa0My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.\u201d (John 15:9-12).

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Hanging onto hope can seem like a hard thing to do these days.\xa0 Lots of division, heartache, disease, death, and loneliness threaten to rob it out from under us.\xa0 And if we have a hard time hanging onto hope ourselves, how can we possibly go out and offer it to others?

To be actively showing love, experiencing joy, giving care, doing justice, and offering hope seem like just the Christian things to be doing.\xa0 Our Christian faith comes with commands, after all: and Jesus says the only way to remain in his love is to keep those commands.\xa0 But that only leaves us feeling more stressed and guilty, because we\u2019re tired and we\u2019ve just got no energy left to be doing it all.\xa0 And if we can\u2019t do it all, will Jesus still love us?\xa0 Hope is a hard thing to hold on to, indeed.

But of course, that\u2019s not really what Jesus is saying at all here.\xa0 The picture behind this command, is that of the vine and the branches.\xa0 Just a few verses earlier, Jesus has said: \u201cI am the vine; you are the branches.\xa0 If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.\u201d

The first thing Jesus gives us then, is not a command, but an invitation.\xa0 And that invitation is not to do something, but simply to be.\xa0 To remain where we already are: in the love of Christ.\xa0

It\u2019s only from that place, of being nurtured and fed by the life-giving sap of Jesus\u2019 love, that we are asked to do anything.\xa0 And what we are asked to do, is simply to be conduits of what we have received.\xa0 Love has been given to us and we pass it on.\xa0 Joy has been infused into our souls, and we radiate it.\xa0 Life is ours in Christ, and from his life in us: we bear fruit.\xa0

But it is his work in us.\xa0 His love in us.\xa0 His joy in us.\xa0 That\u2019s where our hope comes from.\xa0 From Jesus, as we do nothing more than remain where we are.\xa0 So, take heart.\xa0 Hope isn\u2019t something we have to hold on to ourselves.\xa0 In fact, if we are branches on the vine that is Christ, it\u2019s probably better to recognize that hope is holding onto us.\xa0

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