ROME IMPROVEMENT 03/21/2021

MORE POWER!  MORE GLORY!!  MORE SPIRIT!!!

SURVEYING THE SITE—John 12:20-33

This week we are challenged to consider time and what can be done in the time we are given. Are there some things that really cannot happen until the time is right?

Part of the suspense in the Gospel of John comes from Jesus’ first miracle story (changing the water into wine), when Jesus’ mother tells him to solve the problem of the wine shortage. Jesus’ reply to his mother is, “My hour has not yet come.” This prepares the reader/hearer of this gospel to hear that Jesus’ hour has come.

Despite the fact that his hour has not yet come, Jesus changes the water into wine. Throughout the gospel, we hear that Jesus continues to teach and to make miracles. Each time Jesus has an encounter with people in John’s Gospel, the underlying question is, “Is this the time when Jesus’ hour has come?”

Each time Jesus engages a person or crowd in need and in need of teaching, his words, “My hour has not yet come,” linger in the background. Might this occasion be when the time has come? Yet we do not hear it until now in the twelfth chapter.

In the Gospel of Matthew, we see the Wise Men (magi), who are standing in for the world, recognize who Jesus is even when the Jewish people do not know Jesus to be the Messiah. Now, when we least expect it in the Gospel of John, we hear Jesus say the time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified when some Greeks, people of the world, come to see him.

Really, have we been waiting for some Greeks this whole time? God makes things happen, when the world is ready, so that God’s grace can be known. It is time for Jesus to be glorified.

READING THE BLUEPRINT

As Jesus has come to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem, so also some Greeks have come to worship. While they are there, they approach Philip and ask to see Jesus. Philip goes to Andrew to talk about it; then Philip, Andrew, and the Greeks go to see Jesus.

When Philip and Andrew make known the Greek’s request for an audience, Jesus says, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Unless a seed 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. Those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me. Where I am, my slave will be there also. The Father will honor those who serve me.

“Now [the time is right], and my stomach is in an uproar; I feel great anxiety. [Knowing that the time is now], 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.’”

A voice came from the heavens, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” When the crowd heard this, some thought it was thunder. Others said an angel had spoken to him.

But Jesus said, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now [and at this time as well] is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw ALL people to myself.” He said this to point to the kind of death he was to die.

ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE

Dr. Karoline Lewis, Luther Seminary, says, whenever we read “glory” or “glorification” in the Gospel of John, it refers to the cross and crucifixion. So, this text can read, “Now is the time for the Son of Man to be crucified.” These words prepare us for the events of Chapter 13 where Jesus washes the disciples’ feet, eats the meal where he dips the bread in the wine and gives it to Judas, foretells Peter’s denials, and then withdraws to Gethsemane where he is arrested.

If last week was proleptic (telling what has not yet happened narratively while already knowing the end of the story), this week’s text introduces the reality of the end times of Jesus’ life. But it is always important to remember that the cross is not the final statement concerning Jesus—resurrection, new-life-living makes the difference. The ultimate event of Jesus’ life is overcoming death and the grave. This ultimate time event is called the “eschaton”, and the consideration of this time is called “eschatology”.

Many people want to consider eschatology as something that only concerns us after we too have died separating our lives and what we do here on earth from the reward of God’s grace in heaven. This week’s text shifts that understanding. In this text we are told that the eschaton is concerned with Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

We are the fruit of the seed that falls into the ground; we are not the seed, Jesus is. So, eschatology includes us in the story. Our lives are proleptically involved in Jesus’ death and resurrection. As the fruit, we are now part of the death and resurrection story. We are already living in that not fully known world of Jesus’ resurrection, what theologians call the realized eschaton.

PUTTING UP THE WALLS

Each time I read this passage I get to “If you hate your life,” and I try to soften the word of hate. But the word in Greek is definite. “If you love your life, you will lose it. If you hate your life in this world, you will keep it for eternal life.” Until this year, I have just quickly passed over these words and moved on. There is so much here to wrestle with that I could let hating my life in order to keep eternal life just slide without examination.

This year that all ended. When I sat with the text this week considering what realized eschatology had to say about our participation in Christ’s resurrection world, I wondered whether I loved my life or whether I hated it?  

Personally, my life is pretty good. But, my life, beyond myself, is awful. Hate crimes abound. Politics divide our nation. Personally, I have really started to understand how entrenched racism is in our government and society. Public figures are allowed to make statements concerning entire groups of people that dehumanize them without anybody holding the speakers accountable for their language. We continue to create laws that intentionally deprive the poorest part of our society from voting. I hate it. Does this mean I am assured of eternal life?

The next part of the text informs my love and hate, “Whoever serves me must follow me [walk where I walk]. Where I am, my slave [follower] will be there also.” Our love and our hatred of life is known and shaped by Jesus’ love and hate. We live in that eschatological and proleptic knowledge of what it means to live in the resurrection of Jesus the Christ.

As Jesus was not able to be silent about the inequities of his time, we are not to be silent about the inequities of our time. Indeed, in the name of the One who is glorified and whose name will always be glorified, we are given our marching orders.

One of our Eucharistic prayers includes that God’s mercy is endless and God’s rule of the world is eternal. It continues, “We praise you for the grace shown to your people in every age: the promise to Israel, the rescue from Egypt, the gift of the Promised Land, the words of the prophets; and, at this end of all the ages, the gift of your son, who proclaimed the good news in word and deed and was obedient to your will, even to giving his life.” We are living in the midst of Christ’s eschaton.

Living in the resurrection world turmoil of today, we are challenged to consider the conditions of our lives. Do we love it? Or do we hate it? Lukewarm toleration is not allowed. If you love it, say so. If you hate it, say so. The world cannot change if we give our silent affirmation to our status quo.

In a world of Black Lives Matter;

In a world of violent aggression against women, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, immigrants;

In a world of poverty;

In a world where people are dying because they cannot afford medical treatment,

where do we see Jesus?

Where do we see Jesus lifted up before us and how are we being drawn to him?

How are we following him in these proleptic and eschatological times?

HANGING THE TRIM

When our two older nieces were five and three, my sister learned about the time that had not yet come. The two girls did everything together. Because the younger one was tall for her age, we had come to think of them as being the same age. One day, this three-year-old did not do something the five-year-old did regularly. When my sister disciplined the three-year-old for this failure, this child looked up at her mom and said, “Mom, I’m only three. I can’t know that yet.”

There is much about the fullness of Christ’s end times that we cannot know yet, but there is much that we can know. In faith, let us walk together in word and deed, following the one who goes before us. Now is the hour when the Son of Man will be glorified.