From John 12 (NRSV) Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 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. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour. ‘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. Father, glorify your name.’ Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’ The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, ‘An angel has spoken to him.’ Jesus answered, ‘This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.
Glory is that moment of awareness when we see and sense the reality of God. It is that moment when the veil that seems to hide God parts and we experience a moment of glory. Jesus is saying that in His death people will see and sense the presence of God in a way they have not seen or sensed it in His teaching or His miracles or in anything else. In His death people will experience the presence of God, will experience glory. How can this be? Why would His death reveal God?
We can give the explanations of love poured out for us, God’s judgment on our sin, God’s forgiveness of our sin, the beginning of eternal life. But with explanations all we have are explanations. The explanations do not give the experience of glory. They do not provide us with the experience of God’s presence. That comes in a moment of being touched by the awesome love of God. We do not explain glory. We experience it.
Unless a grain of wheat dies… We see the glory of God in the death of Jesus. And the key to seeing the glory of God in the death of Jesus is this: Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Jesus is talking about self-denial. Self-denial is not simply the effort at self-control, not some kind of rigid restraint we put on our life. Self-denial is holding on to God’s yes to us in Jesus and saying “no” to self. Self-denial is the laying down of the burden of needing to get our own way. Self-denial is letting go of the need for things to go our way, and is a submitted willingness to God.
Self-denial is not easy. Even Jesus wrestled with it as He faced the need to deny Himself and accept the Cross. Self-denial is difficult. Self-denial can be difficult and can be a struggle, but just beyond the struggle is the glory, the glory of eternal life in the presence of God.
From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope April 9, 2000
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles
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