John 12:20-33
Sir, we wish to see Jesus. The setting is Jerusalem. The occasion is Passover. The people expressing the desire to see Jesus are Greek. And who wouldn’t? Jesus has done some amazing things. He’s turned water into wine, fed 5,000 people on the fly, made a blind man see, and raised a guy named Lazarus from the dead. I don’t know why exactly the Greeks wanted to see Jesus but I know the desire. I want to see Jesus. And I bet you do too.
We all have our reasons. And if you’re curious about yours you may want to think about how you pray. Do your prayers mostly sound like a to-do list for God? Holy and well intentioned, but basically a list of requests? Help this person. Heal that person. Fix this problem. And so on. I know mine often do. And those types of prayers reveal that, yes, we have a desire to see Jesus, but to see him on our terms not necessarily on his. Sometimes we want something from Jesus more than we want Jesus himself. And that’s a problem. Because seeing isn’t a spectator sport. We don’t just watch a superstar player from the sidelines of life. Seeing Jesus involves participation - joining in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. And this is what Jesus is talking about here.
Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
Death and loss - not things that we typically want to hear about, let alone experience. Yet they are unavoidable. I mean, you don’t have to live very long before experiencing death - especially the kind that doesn’t involve physical death. Truth is we die a thousand times throughout our lives. Sometimes we do it by choice like when we willingly give up parts of ourselves for another. We let our single life die so a marriage can thrive. Parents sacrifice their lives all the time for the good of their children. Caretakers give up parts of their lives so that someone else might live with dignity and love. Then there are the deaths that we would never choose in a million years. The loss of a loved one. The end of a relationship. The decline of health. The end of dreams. Sometimes death involves the painful letting go of something we’ve been clinging to for way to long - things like fear, anger, regret, the need to be right, or the need for approval.
Death and loss happens all the time. And no matter who you are, it is hard. Even Jesus calls it soul-troubling. But talking about death isn’t about being a Debbie-downer. Just the opposite. Jesus names this reality so that we don’t get stuck in those dark places believing that that is all there is. For death, no matter what form it takes, is ever the end.
That is what we see when we truly wish to see Jesus, the fullness of Jesus, the one who holds it all - life, death, and resurrection. In just a few short days from uttering these words about a grain of wheat dying and the losing of one’s life, Jesus will takes those words and make them more than words. He will embody them on the cross. And it is soul-troubling. But that is not the end - not for him nor for us. Yes, the grain of wheat dies, but then through death it bears much fruit. And those who hate their lives, or a better way to understand what Jesus is saying here is that those who are willing to surrender their lives for the sake of love, will find life. Truly, if we want to see Jesus we have to be willing to look at the cross in all of it’s frightening reality and recognize that along with everything else it is the gateway to new life. For in every death, resurrection is hidden within.
Which, honestly, can be difficult for the human eyes to see. Thankfully, though, it is not we who have to do all the striving and straining to see Jesus. As he told the Greeks, it is he, Jesus himself, who is the one who ultimately draws and gathers all people to himself. Jesus is the one who allows himself to be lifted up so that what may be difficult for us to see on our own comes close and becomes visible.
Now our desire to see Jesus may wax and wane. But Jesus’ desire to see us never does. There’s no doubt that Jesus wishes to see me, to see you, to see us all much more deeply and passionately than we’ll ever wish to see him. That’s just grace. He loves whether we love or not. And we are only able to love because God loves us first. We see this in the cross - in all of its power and mystery - as it draws and gathers us towards God and one another in love. Whether or not we wish to see Jesus. We are the ones who are seen and loved. Loved to death and through death so that we can truly live.
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