We are smack dab in the middle of the Farewell Discourse this week. In the Gospel of John, 4 chapters, 4 whole chapters are dedicated to Maundy Thursday. Jesus’ final night and his final meal with the disciples. It begins in chapter 13 with him washing their feet and Judas leaving. Then from chapters 14 through 17 Jesus is sharing his final words with them before he will be arrested. Many call this the “Final Discourse,” the last words to his disciples, to his friends, before he is killed. So, in chapter 15, our text for today, we are in the middle, the heart of his last words to his friends. And really, the words immediately after this are the essential portion: 9“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.   12“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.” If you talk with many pastors, they feel that John is just kind of ramble-y. There are SO MANY WORDS! And yet, they all build on each other. While John is wordy, he isn’t often talking just to talk. There is always a theological point or nuance that he is making. And so, we can’t really understand the vine and the branches without looking at these verses that come immediately after. And we can’t understand that vine and the branches without looking at the entirety of this night and the days to come.