5 Lent B John 12:20-33 6 April 2003
Rev. Roger Haugen
We live in dark and dangerous times. The stability we crave in life seems shaken every time we turn around. Jobs are continually downsized, the mutual funds that were to give us security in our retirement send out notices of negative returns again this year. Our streets do not seem safe as we hear about home invasions and street gangs. The world is a dangerous place as we hear about Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and wonder when it will come here. We turn on the television and war is centre stage. We need a saviour, we need release, we need hope. We wish to see someone who can save us from it all.
A group of Gentile outsiders had watched Jesus heal the sick, give sight to the blind and make the lame walk. They came to some of the disciples and said, “We wish to see Jesus.” They thought that this was the one who could give hope and meaning to their lives. They were on the outside looking in and they wanted more. When Jesus heard this, Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” The one who had repeatedly said that the time was not yet, now says it is. The time has arrived for the message of the one who has come to save all people to be spoken for all to hear.
“We wish to see Jesus.” What does that look like? Jesus tells us stories of what it would look like. “Do you want to see me? Then you must die as a seed dies. You want to see me? Then you must hate your life in this world with all the security and comfort you have accumulated. You want to see me? Then you must follow me and serve me.”
Jesus is talking about a life of risk. Farmers and gardeners know about risk. Every year seeds are put in the ground not knowing what conditions will greet them. Will there be enough rain, will there be rain at the right time? Will the wind and the sun of summer whither the crops? All questions that are asked once the farmer has risked the seed, willing to let it die so that it might germinate and create life. To not risk the seed, to keep it in the bin, is to give in to the urge of safety and by doing so, receive nothing. This is what Jesus is talking about. We must be willing to die, knowing that only by doing so can life result. Watching farmers and gardeners is one thing, but Jesus gets personal. Those who love their life and see their creation of life as all important will ultimately lose it. It is only those who hate their life in this world to the point of be willing to let it die, will have a harvest of new life and hope.
What does that death look like for us? Who is asking us to see Jesus, hoping that in our lives we would display Jesus with absolute clarity? What would such surrender look like? What abundant crop might come from the planting of your and my seed, our lives as we have come to know them? Are we willing to take the risk? Remember the farmer, remember the little seeds we put into the soil, expecting a profusion of colour in our flower beds.
The story is told of a young girl who was sick and desperately needed a blood transfusion. Her younger brother was a match and so he was asked if he would give his sister a transfusion. He agreed and was placed on a bed next to his sister and the transfusion lines were established. He looked up at his mother as the transfusion began and asked, “Will I begin to die right away?”
What would dying to our lives look like to us? What would dying look like to Zion congregation? We live in dark times. People around us are desperate for hope and meaning. What are we willing to put to death in ourselves so that they might see Jesus? One of the critiques of mainline churches today is that we are not well equipped to lead the unchurched to “seeing” Jesus. Too often congregations are only concerned about themselves and their own members. Are we willing to die so that a harvest can result? What would the planting of us look like? What does following and serving Jesus look like for us in this community and this neighbourhood? What does following and serving look like for us in the world in which we find ourselves daily, a world caught up in terror and war? What needs to die, to be planted, in order that life can result?
Jesus answers the question by telling us of what will happen to him. He is much troubled but he tells us that he will be lifted up, he will be crucified and be killed, he will be planted. The harvest of this planting will be eternal life, life as God intended life for all of us. The harvest will be an absence of fear in the midst of all that would seek to destroy us. Hope in a world desperate for hope. Victory over evil which seeks to destroy us.
We are coming to the end of Lent. Holy Week is near. This year we need to experience Holy Week more than ever before. We need to remember the events that are the core of our faith. We need to experience the walk with Jesus into death because we need to know once again, in a very real way, the intimacy of the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday. We need to walk the way to the crucifixion on Good Friday and experience the emptiness of Good Friday and Saturday. We need the hope of Easter Sunday, but it is the most powerful only after we have walk the way of death. We need to experience this on the deepest of personal levels, not simply as an idea or a story. We need to experience Holy Week because in the world today we need to know that we can stare down evil because Jesus meets us in the midst of the worst possible evil. No dictator, no government can destroy us.
As Douglas John Hall says it,
“If Jesus is to be anything more than another name, another historical mythic figure for us; if he is to become in any sense, “Christ”, “Saviour”, “Lord”; if his name and story are to arouse in us anything like “faith”, then we shall have to encounter him and not merely some ideas about him.”
We must experience his death and resurrection in a very real way so that we might stare down the evil that seeks to suck life from us and force us to cower in fear. Knowing that we will meet Jesus as we dare to die to all that would enslave us, is the hope that we need. The hope that will give us the courage to be planted as a seed, knowing that an abundant harvest will result.
To be willing to die, to face down evil, can give us the strength to hold up God’s intention for the world – peace, shalom based upon love for humanity and all of creation. To know that Jesus walks with us through the darkest and most evil times will give us strength to stare down the most powerful evil that can confront us. When we have died to all that would keep us back, we can be seen by all around as servants of the one who invites us to die.
We need Holy Week this year because so much seeks to tear us down. We can walk the walk of Holy Week surrendering to death but in doing so, claiming life. As resurrected seeds of God, we become bearers of the news of the new covenant of which Jeremiah spoke. The good news, the gospel, is that as we stare down evil, Jesus is there, to give up life and power. This is the good news we celebrate as we taste and are touched by the sacraments. This is the good news that brings us new life, new courage in the face of that which seeks to destroy. The good news is that nothing can take that hope from us.
May the journey through Holy Week bring new clarity and hope to each one of us as we meet the saviour of the World, walking beside us but especially as he dies so that we might receive part of the great harvest, eternal life.
