John 12:20-36 "Tasting Death" Scott Hoezee

According to an old adage, the brave man tastes death but once whereas the coward tastes death many times before he finally dies. In the movie Saving Private Ryan we see this proverbial dynamic at work. Most of the soldiers in that story are stout of heart. They have passed through many harrowing battles but without regret because they know they conducted themselves well. Although some of these brave men die before the story is finished, nevertheless up until that final fatal moment, they had not experienced the kind of psychological death that is exhibited over and over by the character of Corporal Upham.

Upham was a translator in a safe clerical position before getting swept up into the real war. But this young, naive, and innocent corporal was unprepared for combat and so regularly froze up in terror. In one of the film's most excruciating scenes, Upham is seen cowering on a staircase, paralyzed by fear, even as he listens to the death cries of one of his comrades who is being slowly killed by a German solider at the top of the stairs. His cowardice prevents Upham from saving his friend's life. After the man is dead, the German who killed him casually walks past Upham on the steps. Upham is such a pathetic figure that the enemy just leaves him alone. In the gut-wrenching sobs that Upham then heaves forth, you sense that in a real way this man is dying on the inside. The brave man tastes death just once, the coward dies again and again.

Generally speaking, of course, we'd all just as soon avoid that kind of living death. No one wants to live with regret or with the nagging sense that life is passing you by. So we'd prefer to be brave than cowardly, a success rather than a failure, popular rather than unpopular, esteemed rather than despised. We'd rather be noticed than overlooked, we'd rather be envied than pitied, we'd prefer to be the object of admiration rather than the target of scorn. If you want to make the most out of life, society has plenty of advice. Popular parlance is peppered with the slogans of success: The early bird catches the worm; a rolling stone gathers no moss; when the going gets tough, the tough get going; nothing ventured, nothing gained; the race is to the swift; remember, there is no prize for second place.

When I travel as I did last week, it is always curious to overhear the way business people talk while waiting in airports. It's all about getting out ahead of the competition, maintaining the edge, getting a jump on a new opportunity, and then bragging about your success. Ironically, here at church we are often shy to talk about money--most of our elders would do almost anything to avoid bringing up finances on a family visit. In many other circles, however, there is no such shyness. Last week I heard two young businessmen talking freely about money as one triumphantly told the other that in six months' time he had cleared $9,000 on a house he bought and then re-sold. "Hey," the other man replied, "way to go!"

We know all about rising to challenges, grabbing the gusto, and feathering our own nests. But now hear the word of the gospel: unless you die to all that, you have no life worth bragging about. Indeed, you have no real life in you at all. "Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single seed." Actually, literally translated, this says, "Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone." It remains monos, solo, alone, a mono-seed. "But if it dies, it produces much fruit." A single kernel of wheat all by itself is lonely but also ineffective. When I used to do farm work while growing up, sometimes I'd grab a jacket that maybe I'd not worn in a while and sometimes when I put my hands in the pockets, I'd find a kernel of wheat or corn. It had fallen in there unbeknownst to me in the course of my work. And it could have stayed in that pocket forever but it would have been alone and unproductive. It could do no good there.

One way or another, for a kernel of wheat to do any good, it has to die. Either it gets sunk into a harrowed trench of soil and buried so it can then sprout and grow or it gets threshed and ground into flour with which to make bread. Either way, a mono-kernel off by itself will do no good. It has to die, Jesus says, if new life is to be produced.

In John 12 we know Jesus is referring primarily to himself. Paradoxically and against every messianic anticipation, he was going to have to sink deep into death if he was ever going to give life to anyone. But lest we think this is only about Jesus, our Lord also makes clear that this is to be our pattern too. There is a line in John 12:26 that we often hear quoted in quite sunny ways: "Where I am, my servant will also be." Typically we hear this quoted at funerals and so these words convey the idea that the deceased person is now in glory with the Lord Jesus. And although that may be a legitimate extension of John 12, I think the real meaning here is that if Jesus is the seed that dies in the soil of this earth, then if we are to be servant followers of Jesus, that is where we must go as well.

"When I am lifted up," Jesus goes on to say, "I will draw all people to myself." And just in case you are tempted to interpret this up-lifted status to mean something glitzy, John sticks in a little commentary in verse 33 to make clear that the "lifting up" Jesus had in mind was the cross. Ultimately Jesus would get lifted up in the ascension into heaven, but the first ten feet of the ascension came by way of a cross. Jesus' upward journey started when the Roman soldiers hoisted him up skyward at the Place of the Skull.

So if you want to fly off into glory with Jesus, you've got to be part of the first ten feet of the trip as well. You can't prop up a stepladder on the side of the cross, climb it, and then meet Jesus at the top for the balance of the journey to glory. You've got to be crucified with him. You have to be the kernel who gets buried into death with him. "Where I am, my servant will also be." But as a servant, it is not up to you to pick and choose the times and places you want to be with Jesus. You are with him always and everywhere or you are with him never and nowhere.

But how and why does this work? After all, we do now know about the resurrection. In fact, we believe that by the power of God's Spirit poured out at Pentecost we already possess resurrection life. So if Jesus is now seated on the throne in glory having passed through death to new Easter life, isn't this where we are, too? In other words, shouldn't we be finished with all this "kernel of wheat falling to the ground and dying" stuff? After all, just how often do we have to die? If in Christ we have already sprouted with Easter life, what sense does it make to try to re-plant the seed all over again?

What prevents us from skipping past the motif of dying in order to make the Christian life all about victorious living? Why can't we simply soak up the bounty of life's goodness in a way rather similar to how lots of people live in this society as it is? What prevents us from saying that when it comes to the cross, we have "been there, done that" but now we move on in the strength of Easter alone?

What prevents that, I believe, is the meal we celebrate this morning. What prevents this is that our Lord himself told us to remember not just the outcome of his sacrifice but the sacrifice itself. When Jesus said, "Do this in remembrance of me," he did not tell us to release a flock of white doves into a bright blue sky to commemorate the triumph of life and the soaring of our spirits. He did not tell us to hold a festival dance so that we could kick up our heels over the resurrection life flowing through us. He did not tell us to rent tuxedos and fancy gowns so we could dress up and hold a formal party. When Jesus said "Do this in remembrance of me," he asked us to remember how we got to Easter in the first place and to make this rhythm of dying and rising part of our very being.

What we have here on this table this morning is both the finished product of a wheat kernel's death and a vivid reminder of that death. In the loaf of bread on this table we see the staff of life, the abundance that comes when a single seed dies in the soil of the earth. But we don't simply admire the bread, we break it. We fracture the bread because Jesus' body was broken. We ingest not just the life of Jesus but also the death; not just the victory of Easter but also the sacrifice of Good Friday. Somehow we do both because this pattern of dying and rising is the rhythm of discipleship.

Practically speaking, we Christian people keep dying and rising in how we interact with others. We keep repenting and being forgiven. If and when we catch ourselves getting snared by the world's way of defining success, we re-adjust our perspective so we can again see life in the gospel's light. We die to society so we can rise to the kingdom. When we hurt someone, we don't merely shrug it off. We do the hard work of confessing, we mend fences, we seek forgiveness. If we find we have squashed someone on our way up the corporate ladder, we don't palm this off by saying, "It's just business. Hey, I'm sorry but to make an omelette you've got to break some eggs." No, we die to all that so that we can be compassionate and gentle and kind and open toward all others. We need constantly to be beating back the clutchings of ego and desire, of pride and that desire for the limelight.

The sacrament of the Lord's Supper exists, and was strategically given to us by Jesus, precisely because our Lord knew that in this world we'd never be finished with the need regularly to be called back to our gospel senses. But that can indeed be a painful process. We are forced to make hard choices, to deny ourselves certain things that others snap up without giving it a second thought. We may find ourselves gritting out teeth sometimes as we fend off our native desire to take revenge. Instead we make room for grace. Living the gospel life in a world like this one will require us to have a kind of living death as we keep checking ourselves, stopping ourselves, reversing our course, denying ourselves the satisfaction in this or that area if that's what it takes to stay faithful to Jesus.

Jesus says that unless a kernel of wheat dies, it remains solo, alone, lonely. If all you aim at in life is personal success, you may become a very impressive kernel of wheat. You may be plump and robust and attractive, you may be what for all the world looks to be one fantastic specimen of wheat. You might be such a hail and hearty wheat kernel as to get your picture taken and plastered all over the place as the very epitome of wheatiness. But unless you can somehow find a way to die to all that by valuing the kingdom life of sacrifice and service above all, then in the end you may be one fine-looking kernel, but you may also discover that you are monos, alone, lonely, a veritable hell unto yourself, isolated from God and completely unproductive in any lasting sense.

Unless a kernel of wheat falls, falls down, gets buried into the earth and dies, it's lonely and alone. But if it dies, it may well produce a great cloud of witnesses, a host of life, a cornucopia of good kingdom fruit. Whether or not the world cares for the kind of fruit that emerges from the servant pattern of dying and rising with Christ, Jesus assures us that this is fruit that lasts forever.

The brave man tastes death but once, the coward again and again. That is the wisdom of the world talking. As members of Christ's Body, we taste death again and again and are glad for it. We come to this table to taste death and only through that do we taste also life.

As people who live under the sign of the cross and who come to this table this morning to recall and re-experience that cross, we need to be shining examples of an entirely different way of life in this society. "Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much fruit." This is not an easy text. But then, it was spoken by a man who would be glorified on a cross just five days later. He either knew what he was talking about or was completely nuts. Christians opt for the first possibility and so follow this man into the death that alone gives life. Amen.