Scripture Introduction
John’s way of telling the story of Messiah has provided many opportunities to focus on him both as prophet (the very Word of God in human flesh) and as priest (the sacrifice for the sins of the people). In today’s text, Christ as King is the focus.
500 years before the events we are studying, after the exile, the Jewish people were (understandably) concerned about whether God was for them. Their flagrant rebellion had led the Lord to bring their enemies against them and to rip them from the promised land. Now they were back, but the former glory was faded, and they doubted God’s compassion. In the midst of those difficulties, the prophet Zechariah urged the people to return to the Lord and renew their covenant with him, because God is faithful and continues to provide and care. In fact, Zechariah added, “God is sending a King, righteous, bringing salvation, humble and mounted on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
Today we hear the fulfillment of that Old Testament prophecy and of the response of the people. The crowd surely did not think of Zechariah when they saw Jesus; they simply hoped for a king who would rule well and rescue them from the pains and injustices of life. Yet God uses all things to bring his plan to completion, and they say more than they know when they shout to Jesus the words of Psalm 118: “Save us—Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” We now call this event, “Palm Sunday” because palm branches, tokens of the triumphal entry of a great king or warrior, were placed in the path of Jesus.
[Read John 12.12-26. Pray.]
Introduction
I searched for John Piper and “die to self,” thinking he must have written on the subject. Sure enough, there were many hits. A page called “The Internet Monk” caught my eye. His blogings were typically trite, but I did find an interesting comment from an angry woman. She complained about the foolishness of Christianity for suggesting that we die to self. She had tried it—her husband was a louse, but she served him and sought to win him without a word. At the end all she had was pain and sorrow.
“If you love your life you will lose it; only those who hate their life, keep it.” Jesus’ intense contrast grabs the casual listener by the collar, shakes them to attention, and demands we recognize that true religion is not principally about our ease. But what does it mean to “hate your life in this world”? Hate?, as in the way those who commit suicide claim to hate themselves? Pascal believed it a universal truth that all people seek happiness: “This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves” (Pensees, 425).
Is “hating your life” some type of super-abundant guilt felt down in the depths of your bowels, which, if it does not incapacitate you, at least depresses you enough to damage every interaction with others? How much guilt do we need?
Or is hatred really compulsive discontent, refusing ever to be satisfied? Are the rich and healthy excluded from eternal joy? What about those raised by godly parents, who really have nothing of which to complain? How do they hate their lives?
Or, is Jesus speaking of an inner angst we all must feel, a form of psychological suicide which either makes all true Christians neurotic, or all neurotics potential converts? Were the monks right in saying that those who follow Jesus need some form of fleshly suffering for the proper hatred? A rock in the shoe, perhaps? I wonder, how big a rock? How far must we walk? Should it have sharp edges?
Is Jesus asking you to “beat yourself up” on a regular basis, not physically, but emotionally, mentally, spiritually, psychologically? Or is confession of sin enough to experience eternal rewards? How many sins? Every sin, committed every day, in every, specific way? Or will a general, “Have mercy on me, a sinner!” suffice? Or, is true Christianity revealed by weeping over sin? What amount of sorrow is sufficient for salvation?
Careful Bible students discover that there are other statements from Jesus which add nuance and depth to “hating your life.” Dr. Luke records one: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9.23). What is Jesus asking of us? How shall we live? What does it feel like to deny yourself and follow a suffering Savior? To explore these questions, first note:
1. Because Christ Died, We May Live (John 12.23-24)
At first, these verses seem unrelated to Palm Sunday, prompting many pastors preach a separate sermon about the Triumphant Entry, then the next week deal with call to die. Explaining this is further complicated by Jesus’ apparent refusal to answer the request of the Greeks who wished to see him. Here is how verses 12-26 are united:
* Until now, Jesus has stayed relatively secluded. He has taught, healed, worked miracles, and proving himself the promised Messiah while revealing the mercy and compassion of God with us. But all the while, he has shunned the spotlight. Some call his focus on private ministry “the Messianic Secret.”
* Jesus’ fame has spread and the crowds are adoring. Verse 19: “Look, the world has gone after him.”
* To fulfill his mission, Jesus now accepts the public proclamation of him as King of the Jews: “Hosanna! Your king is coming.” Notice what he says in verse 23: “The hour has come….” In John 2.4, Jesus says to his mother: “My hour has not yet come.” At the feast of booths, he says, “My time has not yet come.” And on two occasions (in John 7.30 and 8.20), no one is able to arrest him because, “his hour had not yet come.” This is the first time reference in John which does not push the culmination of Jesus’ work into the future. Now is the time.
* Because now is the time, even the Greeks (non-Jews) take notice: they wish to see Jesus.
But the Lord’s response seems strange. Why does he answer this way?
First, he speaks of his death in order to remind both Jew and Gentile that he will not be crowned with gold and seated on a throne of silver, but with thorns and nailed to a rack of wood. This King rules from a cross.
Second, he speaks of his death in response to the Greeks in order to reminds us that he is first the King of the Jews. Only after they reject Messiah will the good news go to all nations.
In effect, Jesus says: “Yes, I am the king promised. The crowds are right to shout “Hosanna!” and the Greeks right to seek an audience with me. But I am not the King expected; my rule does not flow from your acclaim, but my death. And when I die, a seed buried in the dark ground, I will rise to bear much fruit. That fruit is the salvation of both Jews and Gentiles, all to my glory. They want to see God’s King? They cannot “see” until after the cross. First, because I come to the Jews. Second, because no one sees me while they seek a king lifted high on Hosannas; the King to be seen is the one lifted on the cross.
There is a clear question implied in Jesus’ cryptic response. You, too, say you want to see, but will you look to a crucified King? The cross is not peripheral to the faith; it is the means to glory. Only by his death may any rise!
What does that mean? When a subject pledges herself to a king, she is saying: his word will be my wisdom; his law will be my guide; his reward will be my goal; his enemies will be my foes; his rod will be my blessing; his glory will be my passion; and I will serve wherever he sends and always at his pleasure. That is what it means to serve a king, any king.
But a crucified King shades every service in the shadow of the cross. So it is not simply that we must make his word our wisdom; it is that, but since life comes by his death, Jesus must open our eyes and ears to his word and give us the ability to believe it. It is not simply that I must make his law my guide; he must make me spiritually alive to walk in its way. It is not simply that I must make his reward my goal; he must renew my heart and mind to value that reward. The King must die in order that his subjects may live. We need to be careful of thinking too highly of our service and not highly enough of our Savior.
Of course, it is easy to say I serve King Jesus. How do we know if our profession is true?
2. Because Christ Died, We Must Die (John 12.25-26a)
The political experts tell us that with the addition of Mrs. Palin to the ticket, both parties have a superstar celebrity, whose fame and adoration they hope to ride to the highest office in the land. Contrast that with the words of Jesus: “If you want to see me, then watch how my ‘hatred of my own life in this world’ takes me to the cross. Once you see this, you will know if you believe it by how you respond. Will you hate your life with me? Will you deny yourself with me? Will you follow me to the cross?”
Or, as Paul expresses it: “Will you always carry around the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus is everywhere revealed in your life?” Those who serve this King, serve as he served, die to their own demand for glory as he died.
Earlier I told you about a hurting woman who claimed she had died to self. There may be room to question her commitment to Christianity, but even if we give her the benefit of the doubt, it is obvious that she missed the next part:
3. Because Christ Died, We Will Receive Honor (John 12.26b)
Do you feel the tension? Seeing this King requires we see and seek both the hard and the honor. Matthew 7.14: “For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” Those who think only of honor may minimize the sacrifice and fall into the error of triumphalism. The woman who complained about the ineffectiveness of her efforts to die to self did not consider the cost of the cross.
But great glory is also guaranteed, as in Luke 6.22-23: “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven.”
Both the hard and the honor are in this passage. It is hard: dying, hating your life, following Jesus to the cross, serving others. And there is honor: bearing fruit, keeping your life for eternity, joining Jesus in glory, receiving the Father’s praise.
4. Conclusion
So what does it feel like to hate your own life, to carry a cross daily, to deny yourself?
I remember the feeling I had the first time one of my kids failed to perform up to expectations in public. Shame and humiliation wounded my pride because their actions reflected poorly on me. I wanted so much to lash out, to hurt them as their failings hurt me. To hate my own life meant demanding that my wounded pride be crushed so I could speak God’s Gospel of grace into that situation. What I wanted had to be denied so that what God wanted for my child could be given.
What does it feel like to hate your own life, to carry a cross daily, to deny yourself?
Pastor Tim Keller tells about coming home one evening after a session meeting whistling with joy. When he entered the house his wife said, “Wow, Tim, you must have had a great day.” He suddenly realized that his moods had less to do with the love of the one who made the world and moves the stars than with whether he got what he wanted at work.
The most recent PCA magazine, ByFaith, reported on Lynn Wheeler’s response to being made a quadriplegic in a car wreck. Rather than pout or withdraw, “Lynn continues to attend church every Sunday, though it requires getting up at 5 am to begin the preparations to leave the house. [And] She has taught the catechism to Pioneer Kids every Sunday night this year….” Hating your own life feels like refusing to feel sorry for yourself because of your circumstances.
Dr. Paul Tripp tells of a night in which he got home late from work after counseling all day and teaching an evening class at Westminster Seminary. He was tired and desperately wanted some relaxation time to read the paper, drink a diet coke and hit the remote control. Tripp had a plan for the evening and it centered on himself and his “needs.” His unexpressed hope was to find his wife and children asleep so he could be alone.
Instead, when he opened the door he heard Ethan, his teenage son, yelling. Listen to Tripp: “My disappointment gave way to anger. I wanted to grab Ethan and say, ‘Don’t you know what my day has been like? Don’t you know how tired I am? I wish for once you would think of somebody besides yourself.’
“These thoughts raged within me, but [by God’s grace] I did not say a word. I listened as Ethan poured out his complaint. He was as angry as he had ever been at his older brother. It was after ten. The issue that started this thing was petty. I was tempted to tell him to get a grip and deal with it, but another agenda gripped me. Here was one of those unexpected moments of opportunity, one of those mundane moments ordained by a loving and sovereign God where the heart of my teenager was being exposed…. The only question in the moment was whether I would pursue God’s agenda or my own. Would I believe the Gospel in that moment, trusting God to give me what I needed so that I could do what He was calling me to do in the life of my son?” (Age of Opportunity, 20-21).
What does it feel like to hate your own life, to carry a cross daily, to deny yourself?
Andrée Seu (pronounced, Ahn’-dray Soo) wrote about it in an article in World Magazine a couple of weeks ago: “I was accustomed to thinking of discouragement as something that happens to a person. But on closer examination…I have been taken aback by how volitional or ‘active’ it is. To go around saying, ‘I am discouraged,’ as if it’s a saddle someone strapped to your back while you kicked and screamed against it, is akin to Aaron’s version of how he made the golden calf: ‘So they gave me [the gold], and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf’ (Exodus 32:24). Um, no.
“I have noticed that I actually choose discouragement. Sounds nuts, but a quiet little heart transaction takes place at some point (typically, in my case, very early in the game) in which I say to myself, ‘I don’t want to fight this thing. I’m going to just give in to it.’ Sometimes I give in…because I have been round this block so often that God can’t possibly forgive and reinstate me again—at least not until I show Him a good two weeks of being properly miserable. If this is your problem too, I have a verse for us: ‘Yet even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return to Me with all your heart’ (Joel 2.12).”
Seu is not suggesting there are no physical causes of depression; she is reminding us that our attitudes are largely our own, produced and promoted by a heart active in idolatry. Hating your own life feels like choking a part of you that feels so alive when you feed it hateful, vindictive, self-righteous, or despairing thoughts. Those who follow this King give up the right to an attitude inconsistent with his reign and rule. “The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed in us” (Romans 8.18).
What does it feel like to hate your own life, to carry a cross daily, to deny yourself?
It feels like you are giving up your right to be in charge of your own thoughts, your own emotions, your own desires. It feels like someone else’s responses are replacing your own. It feels like the glorious promise of freedom from the tyranny of a sinful heart, selfish desires, and self-seeking emotions. It feels like something created by Christ and honored by the Father. You think about. Amen.
