A Life That Lasts
John 12:20-26 20Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the Feast. 21They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. "Sir," they said, "we would like to see Jesus." 22Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus. 23Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
I John 2:15-17 15Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.
Into this wonderful time of year filled with gifts, hugs and homecomings, decorations and doughnuts, Santa Claus and singing choirs, John seems to sound a sour note, “Do not love the world or the things in the world…for the world passes away.” If it is a sour note, it is also a true sound. For we know that the goodness of Christmas will end. The decorations will come down. People will return to the regular routine.
The world passes away. It may be a true note, but somehow it sounds out of sync. The world is here for us to enjoy. We need to celebrate life. We need to savor its goodness. That is the gospel being proclaimed today. But, has all of our concentration on the enjoyment of life really given us an enjoyment of life? Or has it made us more demanding? More spoiled? Actually less satisfied by the fleeting pleasures of life? Could it be that by grasping at the goodness of life we not only rob ourselves of the good gifts of life but of something more as well?
“The world and its desires pass away,” John says, “but the man who does the will of God lives forever.”
John is saying that if we are always grasping after the fleeting goodness of this world, we may miss the more permanent gift God has for us. It is the life of His Son. For it is this life that abides forever. “The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.” We do the truth, John says, and we discover the truth. We cannot think our way into this life that abides forever. We can discuss it, and debate it, and make motions about it, and sing about it, and celebrate it. But John says we do not discover it until we do it, until we do what God in Jesus Christ has commanded us to do. “Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him” (I John 3:18-19).
There are several ways of entering into this experiment of doing the will of God to discover the truth. One way is to ask ourselves a simple question about our behaviors and our decisions: “will Christ be glorified.” We can justify our behavior and decisions by what the Bible says, or by justice, or even love. But I believe we will come closer to truth by asking “will Christ be glorified.”
“The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.” Christmas is about the eternal life of God invading our world in the life of Jesus. The Eternal stoops to the temporal, the Holy to the human. Christmas announces once again that we are upheld by a mystery we cannot see, sustained by a power we cannot control, challenged by a goodness we cannot attain, redeemed by a grace we never imagined.
By doing the will of God we find the Christ that is in Christmas. By living as if Christ is Lord we discover the life that abides forever. The Christmas season will pass, but the life Jesus came to give abides forever. In the midst of the passing season may God give us the lasting joy as we seek to do the will of God.
From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell
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