COMPLETED PECTORAL CROSS
CHRIST THE TRUE VINE
The vine represents Christ who tells us in John 15, "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser...I am the vine, you are the branches." In referring to Himself as the stem that sustains the branches, and his Father as the vinedresser, He was using a metaphor that was well understood, since grape growing was widely practiced in the Holy Land. He describes how the vinedresser prunes so that it will bear more fruit and how a branch thrives in its connection with the stem and root system.
The flowing grapevine was used in this design to entwine and connect the different design elements illustrating how Christ the Vine twines us together in a growing Christian community equipped to bear His fruit.
John 15:1-5 (RSV)
"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.