"unless A Kernel Of Wheat Falls To The Ground And Dies..."

“Unless a Kernel of Wheat falls to the Ground and Dies…”

John 12:20-33

In our Gospel Lesson for this morning, Jesus unveils the pattern of life we all experience as human beings on this earth.

It is the pattern of life for all living things.

Jesus says, “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.

But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”

There it is the pattern of life is the pattern of loss and renewal that runs throughout our lives and our world.

And even if you’ve never thought of this as the pattern of life, you’ve lived and experienced it, sometimes by choice and other times by chance.

Either way, it’s there.

Think of the way this pattern has happened in your life.

Have you ever fallen in love and committed your life to one another?

If so, you had to let parts of your old life go and something of your single life died so that you could be with that other person.

How about parenting?

If you are a parent you know that there are sacrifices of yourself and your life to be made in order for the new life of your child to take root and grow.

We give up parts of ourselves for the other.

Parents are continually letting go of their child so that she or he can grow up.

(pause)

Have you ever been a caretaker for someone?

If so, you could name the parts of your life that died so that another person might live with dignity, compassion, and love.

(pause)

What are the costs, the losses, you paid for an education or a career?

You chose certain losses and let go of some things so that other things could arise.

For every choice we make, every yes we say, there is at least one “No” and probably many.

We see this same pattern in nature.

We can see it in the changing of the seasons, falling leaves and new blooms, and the rising and setting of the sun.

And think of the Scriptural stories of loss and renewal:

Abram left his country and his people so that he might be made a great nation, renamed Abraham, and be a blessing to all families of the earth.

Jacob lost his identity and was wounded so that he could become a new man, Israel, with a new life.

James and John left their father, boats, and nets to become disciples of Jesus and fishers of people.

Jesus taught His disciples that “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.”

This pattern of loss and renewal is everywhere, dying and rising, letting go and getting back, leaving and returning.

It’s at the core of our baptism and it’s what we declare before we take Holy Communion: “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.”

What in your life do you need to let go of today?

What might you need to leave behind?

What needs to die so that something new can arise?

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that John 12:20-33 is set in the context of the Passover Feast.

Remember what that’s about?

The Passover is the celebration of the Israelite’s liberation from bondage in Egypt.

It’s about freedom and new life.

It’s about letting go, leaving behind, and moving into the new.

There’s something about this pattern that is the lens through which we see Jesus.

In our Gospel Lesson some Greeks come up to Philip and say, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.”

I don’t know why they wanted to see Jesus but I have a few guesses.

Jesus turned water into wine.

He cleansed the Temple.

He healed the son of the royal official.

He healed the paralytic.

He fed 5,000 people with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish.

He walked on water.

He gave sight to the man born blind.

He raised Lazarus from the dead.

“Sir, we would like to see Jesus.”

Me too!

That’s the Jesus I want to see.

Don’t you?

Philip tells Andrew about the Greeks and their request.

And both Philip and Andrew tell Jesus.

Jesus says to them, “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.

But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”

That’s His response to those who want to see Him; to the Greeks, to you, to me.

(pause)

Dying is more than our physical death.

It’s about that but it’s so much more than that.

We die a thousand deaths throughout our lifetime.

The loss of a loved one, a relationship, health, opportunities, a dread; all deaths we don’t ask for.