First Reading: Jeremiah 31:31-34
31The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. 33But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
Psalm: Psalm 51:1-12
Create in me a clean heart, O God. (Ps. 51:10)
1Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;
in your great compassion blot out my offenses.
2Wash me through and through from my wickedness,
and cleanse me from my sin.
3For I know my offenses,
and my sin is ever before me.
4Against you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are justified when you speak and right in your judgment.
5Indeed, I was born steeped in wickedness,
a sinner from my mother’s womb.
6Indeed, you delight in truth deep within me,
and would have me know wisdom deep within.
7Remove my sins with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be purer than snow.
8Let me hear joy and gladness;
that the body you have broken may rejoice.
9Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my wickedness.
10Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
11Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
12Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit.
Second Reading: Hebrews 5:5-10
5Christ did not glorify himself in becoming a high priest, but was appointed by the one who said to him,
“You are my Son,
today I have begotten you”;
6as he says also in another place,
“You are a priest forever,
according to the order of Melchizedek.”
7In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. 8Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; 9and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, 10having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.
Gospel: John 12:20-33
20Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. 21They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” 22Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. 23Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24Very 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. 25Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.
27“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. 28Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” 29The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” 30Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. 31Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. 32And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.
CHILDREN’S SERMON — What do Joni Eareckson Tada, Helen Keller, Fanny Crosby and Ludwig Van Beethoven have in common? They were all famous people who had stories of loss they overcame to become famous artists. Joni broke her neck and is a quadriplegic. Helen Keller and Fanny Crosby became blind as children. Even the great Beethoven struggled with deafness from his mid twenties til he died. Today we will see a link between glory and the seeming impossibility imposed by death of a dream .
Let us pray. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.
SERMON.
The context of our Gospel today is Jerusalem and it actually takes place after the triumphal entry of next Sunday. The time is Passover week and Jews from around the world have gathered at the Temple. Jesus is not staying in Jerusalem but in Bethany a few miles away with his friends, Mary, Martha and Lazarus. He is making excursions into Jerusalem until the crucifixion. Jesus is still trying to help us understand the importance and impact of his life. Interestingly Mark opens this text with Greeks, maybe Jews but maybe not, coming to the disciples. “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Perhaps that is your cry today
Wait!!! Does this scene feel a bit familiar to you? We are coming full-circle in this year’s accounts of the God who incarnated, lived among us as one of us, and went to the cross to die for us and show us that nothing can separate us from his love, not even death. On January 6th we celebrated Epiphany when the wisemen from the East arrived in Jerusalem and asked King Herod, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?” The arrival of the wisemen that occurs near the start of every liturgical year elevated the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem to a universal story for all people. Today the Greeks who might be considered “wisemen from the East,” come looking for Jesus. They seem to signal that what unfolds is also for all people. Our text has taken on a global feel beyond the Jewish festival of Passover. This is not a history lesson but God speaking to us.
Our New Testament reading also reminded us who Jesus was understood to be, “You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.” Melchizedek was the high priest of God Most High who went out to meet Abraham when Abraham returned from rescuing Lot and families from raiders. Melchizedek blessed Abraham before Moses was born and before the law was given on Sinai. Melchizedek represents a priesthood that predates the Jewish priesthood begun with Aaron. Our text is what we would call “glocal” – global in scope and set in a local, identifiable history.
We are coming to the climax of our Lenten journey and Jesus gives the Greeks and us another image to help us understand the significance of his incarnation. Last week Jesus told Nicodemus that he must be born again and gave us the image of the wind, of light, and told us God so loved the world, he gave his Son so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. Even the Greeks, even we, can approach and come to Jesus. ”We are the “whoever’s. Our writer skips the question and goes to the point Jesus wants to make. Jesus responds to the Greeks with one of his frequent images of a sower planting seeds but this time he ties it to the glorification that is about to take place. Jesus linked glory and death when he talked about the seed falling to the ground and dying to produce fruit.
When we think of glory we think of honor, praise, and distinction. We could think of the Olympics or the Oscars, The people involved certainly give of themselves and work hard but there will be awards given to new people in the next round. We might call it “event glory.” I think there is another type of glory though that does not applaud the hard work of the individual or team but rather points to a God who enables the person or team to accomplish the impossible. I’ll call that “eternal glory.” The people in our children’s sermon overcame catastrophe to become models for many. They went from death to God’s glory. Jesus on the cross goes from death to glory, glory that goes to God. Lord, open my ears and help us to listen, understand and glorify you!
The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
truly, I tell you,
unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
it remains just a single grain;
As I looked in the gospels, it seems there are three main parables about seeds that Jesus has told during his ministry. The most familiar is about a sower throwing out his seeds and them landing on the hard soil of the path, or on rocky soil, or thorny soil, but hopefully on good soil. One sower, one type of seed and four types of soil that we pondered. God sows his word, the seed, but what type of soil is our heart that listens and receives it? The second parable is about a farmer who has his workers plant the seed but at night an enemy comes and plants weeds. We are faced with the dilemma of good and seemingly bad people in our lives. Jesus admonishes us to withhold judgment and allow God to decide at the harvest. The third parable is about the mustard seed. We only need faith as small as a mustard seed. The size of our faith is not the issue. Power rests in God, not us. These three parables use the image of a seed to talk about the Word of God and about our faith. Today’s text, though, talks about a seed being sown and then dying in order to produce fruit. We are being challenged to go deeper. God’s glory is made manifest in suffering and dying. That is counter intuitive.
So let’s go back to our three parables about seeds. In any type of soil, the seed must die to grow. Some of us have hard difficult lives like living on the path. Due to the circumstances of life we are born in families that are just plain dysfunctional and hurtful. All of us have rocks and thorns, challenges and disappointments that can lead to a choking of our faith. And the world tries to convince us that those rich people, living in big houses and seemingly blessed with talent, looks, and wealth have special access to God. The seed today represents the person in all four positions in life who must learn to die to self. The way to fruitfulness, to glory, is through death for seeds no matter what type of soil they fall on. All seeds, even the rich, must fall into the earth and die. Without death to self there is no glory. However large our faith, it must still die to self and look to God for there to be glory to God. However we are impacted by the bad guys, the weeds in our life, we must still die to self. However great our faith, we must still die to self. We most likely are willing to admit that we all will die physically and can’t take our goods with us but how does death to self relate to God’s glory?
Let’s think for a moment. There is the beauty of the wedding with the groom handsome, the bride beautiful, the guests applauding and the promises made. We snap pictures and try to capture the moment. We might even say, “That was glorious.” Let me call that “event glory.” Hours of preparation have gone into getting to this “event.” Lives are impacted and changed but “eternal glory” may or may not be achieved. As we sadly know, not all marriages last and the glory of the event must be lived in the grind of every day life.
Having sat in an assisted living facility this last year with a declining spouse who is a shell of that person I married, I saw the other families faithfully traveling to visit and support their person who was declining. I saw grandchildren visiting, facing the smells and the awkwardness of death. That is a different kind of glory. It is not “event glory,” an accomplishment we point to and defines us, but it is more like “eternal glory,” the subtle glory of suffering, that does define us but more importantly defines God. In the dying process, love somehow shines through the ugliness of death and the reality of who God is appears. We reflect on a life hopefully well-lived and learn lessons.
I asked in the children’s sermon about the four people listed. They all faced disabilities and became overcomers, models of the glory Jesus is talking about. They and their friends died to self. Joni Eareckson Tada dove into the Chesapeake Bay, breaking her neck and became a quadriplegic. She has become a singer, a writer, an artist, a renown speaker and founder of an organization to help others facing disabilities – in our generation. She is a famous example of a seed that fell to the ground and died to all those dreams of youth but in the process a new life emerged that impacted many.
The point I think Jesus is making in our text is that we all are seeds that must fall to the ground and will face choices about dying to self. Our death may be our physical death that carries us into eternity but there are also many ways that we face death to self daily. Jesus realized the Greeks and the crowds were coming to him looking for the glory of the wedding picture, event glory that gets rid of the Romans. But he tells us today again that there is another type of glory that comes when we die to self and follow God’s way, even as he is choosing to do. The nature of the glory can come from an “event” that fades with time, may be captured in a picture, and affects a few lives. “Eternal glory” that will include physical death and that will challenge our wills, leads to God’s glory as we choose to follow.
26Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.
Our text first challenged us about the nature of glory. Glory may not be having the world applaud as we win the Olympics, as wonderful as that is. Our wonderful memories of wonderful times, our “event glory,” fades with age. “Eternal glory” comes when we die to self like a seed coming to life in hard, rocky, thorny or good soil. It dies to self and in that process produces a plant that does not just live for a moment but bears fruit. I had a tomato plant that came up in the cracks of our driveway in Nairobi. I have laughed, loved, and been shown deep love by people in a famine relief camp. People in dying situations the world would consider hopeless can live good lives in community. Eternal glory, though, is glory plus ripple effect. It may start with the seed, our life, but we have no idea all the consequences that will result or the people who will be impacted by our following Jesus. Jesus’ death on the cross would look like failure to the Greeks and the world but how many have been changed by that event. A whole kingdom that lasts for eternity will result in eternal glory to God. That is a glocal definition of glory Jesus calls us to.
Secondly Jesus redefines the source of glory. In event glory, the wedding, the couple is applauded and perhaps there are lots of “likes” on FaceBook. Eternal glory that comes from following Jesus and serving him will be honored by God, the Father. The applauders are different and the focus is different.
Then a voice came from heaven,
“I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”
We heard the “voice from heaven” at the baptism, at the transfiguration, and now we hear it again. We have come full circle. “This is my son with whom I am well pleased.” “This is my son, listen to him.” Now we hear, “I have glorified it (God’s name), and I will glorify it (God’s name) again.
God is the source of power and his name will be glorified. We are back at the Garden of Eden and the Evil One tempting Adam and Eve, and us, that if we eat the fruit of this world, we can be like God. The truth is that this world can only offer “event glory.” “Eternal glory” comes from God, focuses on God and is powered by God. Eternal fruit can only grow as we die to self and turn our lives over to God.
Our text ends with Jesus realizing the choice he is making as he submits to the Father and the plan for eternity. It is not an easy choice. The voice from heaven speaks assurance.
What does Jesus want us to hear today? When we step from the kingdom of this world into the kingdom of heaven, we must redefine “glory.” I think he is trying to say that in the kingdom of this world we are continually faced with death. The wedding pictures fade. After four year there is another Olympics and we will eventually age out. Disease, death, poverty and betrayal will tarnish our event glories, our dreams of being the hero of our own stories. Event glory lasts but for a time and does have a kind of ripple effect in the children we bear, the lives we touch and the good deeds we do that make this a better world. But eternal glory, the glory that is only possible because God is enabling it, has an eternal ripple effect as we serve others, and ultimately is only possible because it is empowered by God and He will receive that glory. He is glorified and we bow before him as He is the source, the focus, and the power of true glory. We do not need to be afraid of death because it does not have the last word. But likewise, I am not the center of the universe and life is not about me. The last word goes to God. His name be praised.
Let the people of God say, “AMEN.” May it be so Lord.
On the Way to Wonder 