On
the face of it, it seems insignificant, almost unimportant. A group of Greeks want to see Jesus, to talk
with him, to hear what he has to say. We
are not told why they asked to see him, but they must surely have been aware of
the stir he was causing in Jerusalem during Holy Week: aware perhaps that he
had entered the city on a donkey to cries of “hosanna”; aware of his
overturning tables in the temple.
Whatever the reason, they wanted to see him.
When
Jesus heard that the Greeks wanted to see him, he proclaimed, “The hour has
come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”
This is the fourth time in John’s gospel that Jesus makes this reference
to “the hour” and this is the first time he says that his hour has come. Clearly there was something significant about
the Greeks wanting to see him.
I
think Jesus saw in them the future. For
Jesus this group of Greeks represented all those in the world who were not
Jewish, all the millions of people for centuries to come who would become
disciples and citizens of the Kingdom of God.
For Jesus those Greeks represented each one of us here today. In them Jesus saw that his ministry had not
been in vain, that people of all races and times would be drawn to him as
Saviour and Lord.
As
Wilbert Howard wrote in his commentary on John’s gospel, “Seldom was our Lord
so deeply moved. Huge tides of thought
and feeling raced each other through his mind – exultation, gravity, a measure
of uncertainty, utter and absolute and happy resignation to the will of God,
whatever that might cost him: and then, as the clouds that had blown up
scattered and the sun broke through again, once more and finally
exultation. And all this because a
handful of Gentiles were impressed by him, and wanted to go further into the
matter and know more about it.”
Jesus
knew that he was going to die very soon on a Roman cross and the request of the
Greeks to see him brought reassurance that it would be worthwhile; that the
whole world could be saved through his sacrifice.
Jesus
then went on to say, “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it
remains only a single seed. But if it
dies it produces many seeds.”
This
is a true observation of nature. If I
buy a packet of dried seeds to plant in the garden each pea remains just a dry
hard shrivelled thing whilst it is in the packet; but if I plant it in the
ground that single shrivelled dry pea will produce hundreds of peas that are
sweet and delicious and good to eat.
The
impact of Jesus on our world, the reason for the existence of the Christian
church today, is not his teaching and it is not the loving sacrificial life he
lived: the impact Jesus is that he died in agony on the Calvary Cross and then
rose to new resurrected life.
Despite
this some Christian preachers have, as Biblical scholar Bruce Milne wrote, “Tried
to limit the message and significance of Jesus to his moral teaching, and to
reduce his kingdom to the ethical principles within his proclamation. In other words, they attempted to conclude
the ministry of Jesus at the beginning of Holy Week, eliminate the
resurrection, and permit no significance to the cross beyond its being an
outstanding example of self-giving love.”
He goes on to comment, “What is even more astonishing is that such unbiblical
and fallacious versions of Christianity are still embraced at times within the
churches.”
Many
people, even within our churches don’t understand the cross and don’t really
want to; they don’t want to understand the full implication of what Jesus did
for them on the cross because it is a direct challenge to human pride. My understanding of the cross is very much
the same as that of John Stott who wrote, “The cross tells us some very
unpalatable truths about ourselves, namely that we are sinners under the
righteous curse of God’s law and we cannot save ourselves. Christ bore our sin and curse precisely
because we could gain release from them in no other way. If we could have been forgiven by our own
good works we may be quite sure that there would have been no cross. Every time we look at the cross Chris seems
to say to us, ‘I am here because of you.
It is your sin I am bearing, your curse I am suffering, your debt I am
paying, your death I am dying.’ And of
course people do not like it. So they steer
clear of the cross. They construct a
Christianity without the cross which relies for salvation on their works and
not on Jesus Christ’s. If preachers
preach Christ crucified, they are opposed and ridiculed, persecuted. Why?
Because of the wounds which they inflict on people’s pride.”
The
cross is difficult for us to accept and it is difficult for us to understand
how Jesus’ death on the cross has saving power for us today. There are many theories from learned
theologians about exactly how Jesus death on the cross saved us from the
consequences of our sins and when I was training to be a Methodist Presbyter I
had to read about more than a few of them, some are very simple and some very
complex. Yet at the end of it all a
simple and profound truth hit me, Christ died on the cross and, as a result,
anybody who confesses and repents of their sin and acknowledges Jesus as
Saviour and Lord is restored to a right relationship with God and has the
assurance of eternal life.
It
was only on Good Friday a couple of years ago that the truth really hit
me. For some time I had be wrestling
with understanding how Christ’s death on the cross brought salvation. As I was sitting in church, listening to the
sermon on that Good Friday morning, a picture came into my mind, a picture of
Jesus in agony on the cross. The picture
was not any painting I’d seen, it wasn’t from any of the film or television
presentations of the life of Jesus I’ve watched, it was an image I’d never seen
before. It might have come from my own
mind or it might have come from God, but it was very vivid and real to me. As I saw the agony, the final moments of
Jesus life, as I saw him die I felt God was saying to me that Jesus went
through all this for me; for me and for sinners just like me. As Christian believers all we really need to
understand is that Jesus’ death on the cross brought forgiveness for our sins
and that he died for us because he loves us.
It
was to his death on the cross that Jesus was looking when he said, “The hour
has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”
It was to his death on the cross that Jesus was looking when he said, “Unless
a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single
seed. But if it dies it produces many
seeds.” And it was to his death on the
cross that Jesus was looking when he said, “Now my heart is troubled and what
shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this
hour?’ No, it was for this very reason I
came to this hour. Father, glorify your
name!”
As
we see later in the Garden of Gethsemane, we see here a very human Jesus who is
not in the least bit looking forward to what is to come. Who would look forward to dying the most
agonising death ever devised by human beings?
Yet Jesus is also fully accepting of God’s will that he dies in that
way; because he knows that through his death reconciliation between a holy God
and sinful human beings will become a reality.
As
Christians we are those who have been, and are continually being, reconciled
with God. We have claimed that
reconciliation for ourselves by confessing and repenting of our sins and
accepting by faith that Jesus is our Saviour and Lord.
As
Christians we know, or at least we should know, that we can do nothing to earn
our own salvation, that our forgiveness is a free gift from God. Yet the faith that has led us to proclaim
Jesus as Saviour and Lord should also lead us to change the way we live. As Jesus said in our passage, “The human
being who loves their life will lose it, while the human being who hates their
life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I
am my servant will be.”
Jesus
lived a life of total obedience to the will of God and he asks the same as
us. We must dare, by faith, to take him
at his word; that if we are willing to give our lives to God and to his kingdom
then we will live for all eternity.
For
centuries Christian believers have given their lives for the sake of
Jesus. Many of you will have heard the
phrase, “The blood of martyrs was the seed of the church.” It was often through their deaths that the
churches grew.
In
Celtic times, believers would set sail on the sea in tiny boats made of animal
hide called coracles. They would take no
oars or other ways to steer their fragile boats, but would trust God to take
them where he willed. One of those was
the Irish St. Columba whose coracle took him to Iona. It was from Iona that the British Isles were evangelised.
One
well known Archbishop of Canterbury was Cosmo Lang! At one time he had great personal ambitions
but a friends influence led to him training as a minister in the Church of
England. One day, as he was praying in
the chapel at Cuddesdon where he was training for ministry, he heard God’s
voice saying to him “You are wanted.” It
was because he buried his personal ambitions that he became useful to God.
Dare
we, by faith, accept Jesus’ challenge to be willing to give him our lives in
this world for the promise of eternal life in the next? Dare we be true servants of Jesus in this
world? Dare we say with Jesus, “Father,
glorify your name”? Dare we risk everything
for him who gave everything for us?
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