Lent V B [John 12:20-33] (18-Mar-2018)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Next Sunday we celebrate Palm Sunday, which marks the occasion exactly one week before Easter Sunday, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, and was welcomed by large crowds waving palm branches, and shouting out words of praise. Our reading today tells about a conversation that Jesus had with his disciples immediately after this happened. And Jesus tells us about why he is coming to Jerusalem. He is coming to be glorified—but not in the way that people think, but through his suffering and death. And he has come to Jerusalem to kick the devil, who he calls the ruler of this world and to draw all people to himself.

So let’s look at the first part of our reading which says: Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus”. I remember these words very clearly from when I was a child, when I used to attend the Lutheran Church in Magill in Adelaide. There were some very artistic people in that church, and some who did calligraphy. Sometimes after church we might have found ourselves playing hide and seek, and if we hid inside the pulpit, we would read these words written in calligraphy as a bold message to the pastor: Sir, we wish to see Jesus.

These people coming to Jesus were Greeks. This gives us a little foretaste of the fact that the Gospel was going to go out to all nations. Already at Jesus’ birth the exotic and mysterious foreigners had arrived to present Jesus with strange gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Already Jesus had healed the children of a Roman centurion and a Canaanite woman. And Jesus says: The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Jesus knows that there is a time coming when not just a handful of individual foreigners will come to Jesus, but a whole host of foreigners. And it happens because Jesus is about to die not only for Jews, but also for foreigners, and the whole world.

Jesus says: The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. The gospels often show us very clearly that Jesus is both true God and true man. Here we see that Jesus knew exactly who he was and what was going to happen to him. He knew he was the Son of Man. And he knew he was going to be glorified. Peter once said that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And Jesus praised Peter. Jesus knew Peter was telling the truth. Even when Jesus was a 12-year-old boy, he knew who he was, and said to Mary and Joseph: Why were looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?

But how is Jesus going to be glorified? Jesus gives a little picture: Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Jesus talks about a grain of wheat dying. Now the funny thing is that a grain of wheat doesn’t die. You can’t murder a grain of wheat. We don’t hold funerals for grain and say: “Here’s lies the late Mr Spelt.” But Jesus compares planting a seed to burying a person. When people die, we bury them in the ground, much like a seed. Jesus says that a seed only produces fruit, if it dies, meaning when it is buried in the ground.

Jesus shows here that he is going to die and be buried. We read about two wealthy men, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, giving Jesus his funeral, with the traditional customs and the traditional spices: myrrh and aloes. And they gently lay this dead Jesus in a tomb. And now that Jesus has died and has been planted like a seed in this tomb, now see what’s going to happen. The hour has not come for the Son of Man to fail, but to be glorified. This death is no failure, but the payment for our sin, our ransom, our atonement. It is a glorious thing! And Jesus rises from the dead, and the wonderful fruit of the gospel goes out to all the world.

This picture first of all refers to Jesus himself, but Jesus also gives this picture as a kind of general rule for everyone. The same thing applies to us—like a seed being buried in the ground, our sinful self, our old ways, must be put to death. Jesus then says in our reading: Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Jesus says: If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Just think what would have happened if Abraham had wanted to keep his old life in Mesopotamia, and had rejected God’s call upon him to go to the promised land?

Jesus often calls us as Christians to go through difficult times, and leads us into uncertainty, where the future seems dark. He wants to sharpen us and tempt us and entice us to good. Often if we are going to bear fruit, some part of us needs to die, and be buried in the ground. We experience hardships and trials as Christians also because that old sinful person we carry around with us needs lots of killing off. But also, when God creates something, he always creates it out of nothing. And so sometimes he has to make us nothing. And also Jesus said to St Paul: My power is made perfect in weakness. And so of course, sometimes God has to make us weak.

There are many passages in the Scripture that speak about this. In the book of Acts, we read about Paul and Barnabas preaching from town to town in cities called Lystra and Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. Also, the apostle James begins his letter by saying: Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. Peter also writes in his letter: Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.

The picture of the wheat dying also shows that our trials and hardships won’t last. They will be short, just as the time of Jesus’ suffering was also short. A seed won’t stay hidden and dead in the ground for long, before it bursts forth into an amazing work of God’s creation, with leaves, flowers and fruits. St Paul writes: God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. He promises to lead you through the trial and out to the other side of it. Psalm 30 says: Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

Think about the example of Joseph in the Old Testament. He experienced so many trials and hardships. He was sold to slave-traders by his own brothers, he was falsely accused of raping his master’s wife, he spent a number of years in prison, and when he had the opportunity to get out—when one of his fellow prisoners was going to put in a good word for him to Pharaoh—he forgot about Joseph. But then when Pharaoh had troubling dreams, Pharaoh’s cup-bearer who had been with Joseph in prison, remembered him, and Joseph became the second-in-charge over the whole of Egypt, and organised a rationing program that saved the whole country, and even his own family back in Canaan from starvation during a famine.

Looking back on his hard life, Joseph then says to his brothers: You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive. The same goes for us in difficult times. We don’t understand what’s going on at the time, but later we realise that Jesus was with us all along. At the time, we feel like a very small seed under a pile of mud and manure. But later, when we see the fruit, we understand.

In our reading from a few weeks ago, we read: When [Jesus] was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. At the Last Supper, when Peter didn’t want Jesus to wash his feet, Jesus said to him: What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand. Jesus tells Peter to wait, be patient, and then you will understand. In the Book of Job, he describes his experience of feeling cut off from God in his suffering. Job says: Behold, I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I do not perceive him; on the left hand when he is working, I do not behold him; he turns to the right hand, but I do not see him. But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold.

So it’s a wonderful comfort that Jesus gives in our reading: Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Then Jesus says: Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. One of the most difficult things to break is our sinful pride. We don’t want to change our lives, but because of Jesus’ great love for us, he sometimes pushes and pushes on us until it feels like we’re breaking. His call upon us feels too great for us. We want to keep our life, but Jesus wants us to lose it and to give us a completely new one.

There are many wonderful examples of this in the bible too. Think about King Josiah. For many years, the bible was hidden, and then when Josiah hears it read out, he begins to hate his own life, as Jesus says, and tears his clothes. But God says to Josiah: I also have heard you, declares the LORD, and your eyes shall not see all the disaster that I will bring upon this place. Or when the prophet Jonah after running from God, got vomited up by a fish, and went to Nineveh, and the king commands all his people to turn back to God. And we read: When God saw what he did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster.

Remember the tax collector who was praying in the temple: God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Jesus says: This man went down to his house justified. Jesus says in our reading: Whoever hates his life in this world will what? He will keep it for eternal life. If the Holy Spirit could create faith in us through the word, then the Holy Spirit also will protect us in [our] great weakness against the devil, the world, and [our] flesh. [The Holy Spirit] will rule and lead [us] in His ways, raise [us] again when [we] stumble, comfort [us] under the cross and in temptation, and [also] preserve [us] and keep our life for life eternal. What a wonderful promise of Jesus in our reading.

Jesus then goes on in our reading: If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honour him. Maybe someone wants to serve Jesus, but not go where Jesus wants us to go. When I was a child, I might have been happy to help my parents, but not necessarily to wash the dishes or clean my bedroom or take out the bin. So also Jesus says: If anyone serves me, he must follow me, and where I am there will my servant be also. Jesus sometimes moves, and when he does, we must go to meet him. Jesus also promises: If anyone serves me, the Father will honour him.

Jesus continues and says: Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name. If Jesus’ disciples should follow him, where is Jesus going? He is going to the cross. And then he will rise, and then he will send his apostles out into the whole world, and they build up the church in preaching the word of forgiveness and baptising people and giving them Christ’s body and blood to eat and drink in the Lord’s Supper. Jesus soul is troubled because of the great suffering that he is about to go through, but he says: For this purpose I have come to this hour.

Then an amazing thing happens. Jesus prays a little prayer to his Father. Father, glorify your name. This is much like the Lord’s Prayer, where we say: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. We read: Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him”. This thundering voice of God speaks a wonderful message. God’s name has already been glorified. Jesus had already existed from eternity with his Father. And now Jesus has taken on human flesh and he will make atonement for our sins. And in doing this, God’s name will be glorified again.

This is exactly what we read about earlier in our reading where Jesus says: The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. To the unbeliever, the naked Jesus, bleeding and wounded on the cross on Good Friday, will look like one of the greatest tragedies and failures of history. But it is nothing of the sort. That terrible place, Golgotha, the Place of the Skull, where Jesus will be nailed to a cross with two criminals is the place where the Son of Man will be glorified. This is the place where God will glorify his name again. It is for this purpose that Jesus has come to this hour. This is the glory of our Christian faith: Christ crucified.

And so Jesus shows the wonderful victory and the wonderful glory that occurs as he sets his face to the cross. He says: This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth will draw all people to myself. We also read: He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die. Here the devil is called the ruler of this world. Jesus says that his death on the cross is the place where the devil will be cast out. He will be kicked in the guts, and his time will soon come to an end.

On one hand, Jesus judges and casts out the devil. On the other hand, he draws all people to himself. The whole history of the world will now rotate around Jesus, and whether we believe in him, or whether we reject him and are offended by him. If we side with the ruler of this world, we will come under judgment. But when we look to Jesus lifted up from the earth, dying on the cross, then Jesus draws us to himself, and into his loving arms. This is the wonderful promise of our reading. We know that everything that Jesus has done for us is not in vain, but is his wonderful and amazing victory. And anything we endure—whether it is hardship or temptation or troubles—is also not in vain, because Jesus is with us through the valley of the shadow of death to forgive us and strengthen us and lead us through it. He is not a failure, and neither are his Christians. Now is the time for the Son of Man to be glorified. Amen.

Heavenly Father, glorify your name. We thank you for glorifying your name in the death of your Son on the cross. Make your power perfect in our weakness and in our weak lives, and keep and preserve us for eternal life. Amen.