Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.
“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. - John 12:20-33
Lent 5 Year B/March 18,
2018
St.
Stephen Lutheran Church
Pastor
Maurice Frontz
I
have a book on my shelf –
well,
actually I have a lot of books on my shelves.
This
book is called What Was the World of
Jesus?[1]
and
it goes into detail about the hopes and realities
of
people 2,000 years ago.
The
hopes were that God would act to fulfill his promises,
one
of which we have today in our reading from Jeremiah,
that
God would make a new covenant with his people,
that
he would forgive their sins
and
put new desires in their hearts,
so
that they would finally fulfill their destiny,
to
be a people of God not only in name, but in word and deed.
The
realities were less pretty.
There
are so many murders and battles
that
I eventually had to stop reading.
It
was exhausting.
Foreign
invasion,
war
between co-religionists,
apocalyptic
religious groups,
and
finally, the failed uprising that led to
the
destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans
in
the year 70, some 35-40 years after Jesus’ crucifixion.
So
many failed Messiahs,
so
many promises of God’s intervention that did not come true,
but
there was one who promised the truth,
and
whose revolution succeeded.
When
Jesus said,
‘The
hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified,’
one
wondered if Philip and Andrew thought
that
it was time for an uprising,
for
Jesus to cleanse the religious world
of
its false leaders
and
to lead the people in an revolution
which
would cleanse the land of the foreign invaders.
But
of course, Jesus chose a different path to glory,
‘Unless
a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
it
remains a single grain;
but
if it dies, it bears much fruit.’
‘A
grain of wheat must fall into earth and be buried;
its
external husk has to be broken open for the life within to come out.
Only
if it ‘dies’ will it bear much fruit.’
‘So
now Jesus sees his own forthcoming death.
It
would be so easy to avoid it,
to
choose the path of human glory and follow the crowd to revolution.
But
if the seed is not placed in the earth, it remains alone.’
‘If
one seed reproduces itself fortyfold in the ear of corn which grows from it, and
these are all replanted,
and
so on each year,
it
would only take just over six years
before
that one seed results in as many seeds
as
there are human beings on this planet –
all
from one seed buried in the ground.
Jesus’
path to glory will also put him in the ground
before
he can bring his fruit to the Father.’[2]
Very
few people know the names
of
those failed revolutionaries,
those
esoteric, ascetic, or apocalyptic religious groups,
of
those who fought each other and those outside
for
God’s glory and perhaps their own.
Even
for those professional and amateur historians who remember them,
they
remain merely objects of curiosity and perhaps of interest.
Perhaps
we are more educated if we know about them,
but
they have no other effect on our lives.
But
Jesus’ name is known throughout the world,
for
he is the one to whom the Father gives glory.
He
is the one through whom God made the new covenant Jeremiah promised.
And
when we know him by faith,
when
we trust in what he has done for us,
when
we believe that he is the one whom the Father glorifies,
then
it is that we are his followers,
we
are the fruit which the burying of his seed produces.
And
if our lives are to produce fruit,
we
must follow in the Savior’s footsteps.
These
words apply to us as well as to him:
‘Those
who love their life lose it,
and
those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.’
Of
course, this does not invite us to self-hatred,
or
to a constant state of grimness.
Rather,
it invites us to a recognition
that
what this world calls glory is not the glory God gives.
The
way of power,
the
way of conquest,
the
ways of anger and desire,
greed,
slander and envy,
ways
that come so naturally to us
are
not to be our ways.
Rather,
we are called to die to these ways,
even
when they seem to be the only path to glory,
for
us to gain acceptance
or
to have our say or our will be done
or
even to see our accomplishments in our lifetimes.
But
we are called to store up our treasures in heaven and not on earth,
to
do good to, pray for, and love our enemies and persecutors,
to
use our energies and gifts to do God’s will,
to
leave behind that which would keep us from God.
‘Every
call of Christ leads to death.’[3]
The
breaking open of the seed must happen for us as well.
Jesus
was born to be buried.
So,
we, too, are born to be buried,
not
simply physically, but also spiritually.
so
that we may be raised.
Our
old selves must be put to death
so
that our new selves can live,
and
so that we can bear fruit.
‘Baptism
signifies that our old self
with
all its sins and evil lusts
should
be drowned by daily sorrow for sin and repentance,
and
that the new self should rise up daily to live before God
in
righteousness and purity forever.’[4]
St.
Teresa of Avila used a different metaphor:
that
of the silkworm which builds its cocoon and ‘dies’
so
that it may emerge as a butterfly with wings.
She
exhorts us:
‘Therefore,
courage!
Let’s
be quick to do this work
and
weave this little cocoon
by
taking away our self-love and self-will,
our
attachment to any earthly thing,
and
by performing deeds of penance,
prayer,
mortification, obedience,
and
of all the other things you know.
Would
to heaven that we would do what we must,
and
we are instructed about what we must do.
Let
it die; let this silkworm die,
as
it does in completing what it was created to do!
And
you will see how we see God,
as
well as ourselves placed inside God’s grandeur,
as
is this little silkworm within its cocoon.’
But
death is not the end,
the
end is life, a new life,
the
life of the free butterfly:
‘It
no longer has any esteem for the works it did while a worm,
which
was to weave the cocoon little by little; it now has wings.
How
can it be happy walking step by step when it can fly?’[5]
[1]
Roemer, Carl E. What Was the World of
Jesus? A Journey for Curious Pilgrims (True Directions, 2014)
[2]
Burridge, Richard A. John 12:20-33, in
The Lectionary Commentary: Theological
Exegesis for Sunday’s Texts – The Third Readings: The Gospels, ed. Roger E.
Van Harn (Grand Rapids, MN: Eerdmans, 2001), 542.
[3]
Bonhoeffer, Discipleship (Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 1996), 87.
[4] Luther,
Small Catechism (tr. Timothy Wengert)
[5]
Teresa of Avila, in Ramshaw, Gail, Richer
Fare: Reflections on the Sunday Readings (New York: Pueblo, 1990), 109-10.
