John 12:20-26
Some Greeks who had come to Jerusalem to attend the Passover paid a visit to Philip, who was from Bethsaida, and said, “Sir, we want to meet Jesus.” Philip told Andrew about it, and they went together to ask Jesus.
Jesus replied that the time had come for him to return to his glory in heaven, and that “I must fall and die like a kernel of wheat that falls into the furrows of the earth. Unless I die I will be alone—a single seed. But my death will produce many new wheat kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives. If you love your life down here—you will lose it. If you despise your life down here—you will exchange it for eternal glory.
“If these Greeks want to be my disciples, tell them to come and follow me, for my servants must be where I am. And if they follow me, the Father will honor them.
Today is the 5th Sunday in Lent for this year. Next Sunday will be Palm Sunday and we will enter into the final days of Jesus’ life here among us, as one of us (in this human form). While the majority of his time here had been lived in the region of Galilee, he had shifted south into the area in and around Jerusalem in order to participate in a couple of the annual feast celebrations at the Temple.
Scripture gives us a very loose chronology all that goes on in these weeks of traveling back and forth, but in this trip south Jesus did some public teaching in the outer courtyards of the Temple, cured a blind beggar, debated some more with the Pharisees who were still trying to convince everyone that Jesus was a fake, and traveled south from Jerusalem to visit his dear friends, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus in Bethany. While traveling, he received word that Lazarus was near death from an illness, but he stalled several days before going there, and by the time he arrived Lazarus was dead and buried.
After comforting the sisters, Jesus raised Lazarus from his tomb, a story we are largely familiar with. Then, knowing this would bring hoards descending on him, when he wasn’t quite ready to deal with that, Jesus left for the Jordan River for a few days, and then, finally, since Passover was drawing near, turned back and led his followers toward Jerusalem.
This is where our reading for today comes in.
“Some Greeks who had come to Jerusalem to attend the Passover paid a visit to Philip, who was from Bethsaida, and said, “Sir, we want to meet Jesus.” Philip told Andrew about it, and they went together to ask Jesus.”
Jesus’ response was fairly terse:
“If these Greeks want to be my disciples, tell them to come and follow me, for my servants must be where I am. And if they follow me, the Father will honor them."
But the crux of Jesus’ answer is to be found in the deeper explanation delivered between those two briefer statements:
Jesus replied that the time had come for him to return to his glory in heaven, and that “I must fall and die like a kernel of wheat that falls into the furrows of the earth. Unless I die I will be alone—a single seed. But my death will produce many new wheat kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives. If you love your life down here—you will lose it. If you despise your life down here—you will exchange it for eternal glory.
Seeds come in all shapes and sizes but they are generally relatively small things but once they die into the earth new life – multiplied 10, 20,100 times over springs forth from that one seed. “Unless I die I will be alone—a single seed. But my death will produce many new wheat kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives.
Jesus had said repeatedly by this point that he was here – in this time and place – to die so that God’s people would have new life. Many did not believe, but many others did – even some of the Pharisees believed that Jesus was the promised messiah. But telling was never going to be enough, they had to be shown, they had to witness it with their own eyes, and see what would happen now and in the days and months to come.
As I said at the beginning today, next week will be Palm Sunday and we will pick up our story again at this point and enter into Jerusalem for the final time with the people proclaiming him “king” and “lord”.
Scripture gives us a very loose chronology all that goes on in these weeks of traveling back and forth, but in this trip south Jesus did some public teaching in the outer courtyards of the Temple, cured a blind beggar, debated some more with the Pharisees who were still trying to convince everyone that Jesus was a fake, and traveled south from Jerusalem to visit his dear friends, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus in Bethany. While traveling, he received word that Lazarus was near death from an illness, but he stalled several days before going there, and by the time he arrived Lazarus was dead and buried.
After comforting the sisters, Jesus raised Lazarus from his tomb, a story we are largely familiar with. Then, knowing this would bring hoards descending on him, when he wasn’t quite ready to deal with that, Jesus left for the Jordan River for a few days, and then, finally, since Passover was drawing near, turned back and led his followers toward Jerusalem.
This is where our reading for today comes in.
“Some Greeks who had come to Jerusalem to attend the Passover paid a visit to Philip, who was from Bethsaida, and said, “Sir, we want to meet Jesus.” Philip told Andrew about it, and they went together to ask Jesus.”
Jesus’ response was fairly terse:
“If these Greeks want to be my disciples, tell them to come and follow me, for my servants must be where I am. And if they follow me, the Father will honor them."
But the crux of Jesus’ answer is to be found in the deeper explanation delivered between those two briefer statements:
Jesus replied that the time had come for him to return to his glory in heaven, and that “I must fall and die like a kernel of wheat that falls into the furrows of the earth. Unless I die I will be alone—a single seed. But my death will produce many new wheat kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives. If you love your life down here—you will lose it. If you despise your life down here—you will exchange it for eternal glory.
Seeds come in all shapes and sizes but they are generally relatively small things but once they die into the earth new life – multiplied 10, 20,100 times over springs forth from that one seed. “Unless I die I will be alone—a single seed. But my death will produce many new wheat kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives.
Jesus had said repeatedly by this point that he was here – in this time and place – to die so that God’s people would have new life. Many did not believe, but many others did – even some of the Pharisees believed that Jesus was the promised messiah. But telling was never going to be enough, they had to be shown, they had to witness it with their own eyes, and see what would happen now and in the days and months to come.
As I said at the beginning today, next week will be Palm Sunday and we will pick up our story again at this point and enter into Jerusalem for the final time with the people proclaiming him “king” and “lord”.
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