4.17.22 - Easter Sunday: A God Who Connects (Kenny Camacho)

Revolution Church Annapolis

SCRIPTURE: John 15:1-13

“It’s time for reconnection; truly it is. It’s time to see God not as Someone to chase but as Someone to trust. It’s time to see your faith not as a source of certainty but as a place for growing confidence. We can do this together, because God has grafted us into each other’s lives, just as branches are grafted alongside one another into a vine. We just have to remain…and to remain is to simply be in love: with God, our gardener; with Jesus, our Savior and hope; with our brothers and sisters, our companions in this world; and with our neighbors, who are already connected with us, too…even if they don’t yet believe it.”

REFLECTION/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Let’s revisit this year’s conversation about (Un)Certainty: what are you learning about the desire to feel “certain” in your life? Where do you feel/sense this most urgently? What are you learning about “confidence” as a kind-of antidote or counter to that desire? Where is your confidence growing?

2. Now, let’s talk through the parable of the vine and the branches (John 15:1-13). What does it mean for God to be the “gardener” in this parable? What does our understanding of gardening help us to see about God?

3. What does it mean for Jesus to be the “vine” in this parable? What does our understanding of how vines work help us to see about Jesus?

4. What does it mean for us to be the “branches” in this parable? What is surprising about how the branch is described here? What is the branch tasked with “doing”?

5. On Sunday, Kenny said that what makes Good Friday “good” is that the cross is where the connection between us and God is made. What does this mean? How are we connected to God in this moment?

6. Kenny said,

   “If Jesus is the source of our life, if Jesus chases us down even in the absolute depths of our despair, what can we do? What does the branch do in order to find its flourishing? It remains. It accepts–every day, every hour, every minute–the new life purchased on the Cross and promised by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The chasm that our sin created between us and God hasn’t been bridged, it has been filled, and Jesus has crossed over it in order to find us and graft us into real and true Life. Are we willing to let ourselves feel it? To be loved? To remain in love? To make our joy complete?”

   What does this mean to you? What is so critical about “remaining”…and how do we actually do it? What can you take away from all of this as we move forward into 2022?