A Dying Grain Changes the World

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A Dying Grain Changes the World

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Sisters and brothers, congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have read that some Greeks came to Jesus. This is the first time we hear of non-Jews, foreigners, outsiders seeking out Jesus. Outsiders—people who do not belong to the circle of Jesus’ disciples—and they speak these poignant words: “We want to see Jesus.” And actually, that is the theme of this entire week in all the services, in all the reflections: we want to see that Jesus. It is a simple request, but it touches the heart of the Gospel. For whoever truly wants to see Jesus, where should we look for him? We may often look for him in the intimacy of our daily lives and seek a Jesus who cares for us every day. A comforting, loving, merciful, kind—well, above all, friendly Jesus, dear Jesus. Or perhaps we seek him throughout history as the judge of this world. Oh, Jesus, come and set this earth right once and for all. Make everything that is crooked straight. Everything that is askew will fall into place. Justice and peace. We can also long for and seek that Jesus—the judge, the king, the ruler. But those Greeks seek him at the feast of liberation, at the feast of the passage through darkness and death. They seek him, quite rightly, at the Passover feast. Well, they still seek him as a teacher or perhaps as the one who dares to share a Passover meal with those outsiders, with people from outside. We want to see Jesus. They don’t dare approach him themselves. Perhaps that is also part of our attitude—that we do talk about Jesus but perhaps allow his words to touch us only a little, that he comes close to us. We ask each other, we ask our traditions if we want to see Jesus. Whoever truly wants to see Jesus must not seek him in power or glory, not in daily comfort, not in images of our own desires or our own needs. We must seek him as we follow him this week. In the path he wanted to take, the path he chose, the path he is now walking. And that is why Jesus does not answer with a direct yes or no; let them come. He does not answer with a word that meets their desires and their expectations. He begins immediately with words that point to his cross. Miraculous words, for that is how John always writes… As if Jesus were expounding deep theology there; he probably put it more simply, but in John it sounds like this: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” Well, “glorified” is a kind of code word for perishing, being crucified, dying. There’s already a whole theology, a doctrine, a concept behind it. But this is how he puts it according to this Gospel: The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. And we’re going to sit, as it were, ready to witness that. Yes, Jesus, that’s why we came. Because with the glorification of Jesus, he brings that kingdom of God; he has that solution for all our troubles; then he is truly our comfort in daily life. Then he takes away mourning; death no longer reigns; everything becomes peaceful and free, and will be glorified. Yes, but not the glorification we hope for and expect. His glory is not a triumph, but a grain of wheat that falls into the earth and dies. The grain of wheat falls into the earth; you can’t even see it anymore, and there that grain of wheat actually dies, no longer visible, out of sight. The exaltation of Jesus is not a throne we hope for—the one those Greeks might hope for—but a cross. Whoever wants to see Jesus, especially this week, must look not to a path that goes upward, but to a path that goes downward. Fortunately, we do know where that path ultimately leads. And it leads to a vision that Jesus has made his own and that has been the guiding principle of his life. The goal toward which he is directed. In the words of Isaiah: Arise, be enlightened, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. Perhaps those Greeks read that in the Greek translation of Isaiah—that vision speaking of a light rising upon a people walking in darkness. That light does not come like a sudden dawn; it does not simply appear as if someone were flipping a light switch and suddenly the whole world were bathed in the light of God’s glory. That light comes—as we learn this week, as we hear on Good Friday, as we experience on Holy Saturday—through the path Jesus takes. He is that light that is among them for only a short time, that light that does not overwhelm us, so that we squint because it is so bright. It is a light that invites us with an outstretched hand. Isaiah speaks of nations that will come to that light. And sure enough, the Greeks have read and heard it. In John we see the first signs of this: the Greeks ask to see him. Isaiah’s prophecy begins to resonate, to echo, in the reality of this encounter. But then again, that encounter sounds so different from what those Greeks had hoped for, and perhaps also very different from what we had hoped for. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, brothers and ...

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