Tuesday of Holy Week - John 12:24-43 - Mach 31, 2015
Jeremiah 11:18-20
St. John 12:24-43
St. John 12:24-43
Almighty
and Everlasting God, grant us grace so to pass through this holy time of our
Lord’s Passion that we may obtain the pardon of our sins; through the same Jesus
Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost,
ever one God, world without end.
1) Yesterday
Jesus was anointed for His burial. Today Jesus teaches the necessity of His
death and burial. He says, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground
and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.” (John 12:24) Jesus is the
grain of wheat. If Jesus is not planted in the cold, dark ground His blessings
will not be any good to us. He was a wonderful blessing to the men, women and
children He came into contact with during the days of His humiliation. His
presence was beneficial to the paralytic who received the use of his legs back
from Jesus as well as the forgiveness of all his sins. Jesus was beneficial to
those who received their dead back from the grave and their children back from
the possession of devils. Those who heard Jesus’ preaching and doctrine were
blessed to hear such words of the kingdom of God, how it comes to them by grace
and not by works. But that is where the benefit of Christ stops unless He
suffers, dies, and is buried. If Christ remains alive He can only be a blessing
to those He personally visits. The grain of wheat would ‘remain alone.’
2) Jesus’ death and burial are necessary because it is only by His death that
Jesus will draw all men to Himself. This is the fruit of the cross, the
salvation of the souls of mankind. If this grain of wheat does die, if it is
placed in the ground, then it will produce much grain. Jesus is this grain of
wheat, which, when placed into the ground, will bring forth an uncountable
harvest of men’s souls. This is why He tells His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but
the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out
laborers into His harvest.” (Matthew
9:37-38) This single grain of wheat that is placed into the
ground yields what St. John sees as “a
great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and
tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white
robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice,
saying, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the
Lamb!’” (Revelation 7:9-10) Augustine
spoke truth when He said, “The death of Christ was the death of the most
fertile grain of wheat.” His death procures
atonement for all of your sins. His death acquires for you the perfect
remission and forgiveness of all your transgressions against God and neighbor. His
death wins God’s absolution for you for that it might be given out through the
preaching of the Gospel and the sacraments.
3) Jesus,
having described Himself as a grain of wheat which must die to be of any
benefit to anyone, then likens His Christians to the same. He says, “He who loves his life will lose
it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If
anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be
also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.” (John 12:25-26) What does Jesus
mean by this, that we are not to love our life but hate our life in this world
in order to keep it? He means that we are not to be so attached to this life
that we forfeit everlasting life. We are to tend to our vocations. Hating one’s
life for Christ’s sake does not mean the monastic abandonment of marriages,
families, cities, and all public life and responsibilities. All our vocations
come from God our heavenly Father and are gifts from Him and trusts from Him
that we are to fulfill. Adam was put in the Garden of Eden to tend it and Adam
was able to do this vocation while still walking with the Lord. Hating one’s
life does not mean fleeing this life, or ending it prematurely, or even
desiring to end it. Hating one’s life means not attaching ourselves to closely
to its luxuries, its pleasures, happinesses and treasures so that we being to
think this life is far better than any heavenly life Christ is able to give. We
are not to cling to the things of this life as little gods, expecting every
good thing from them so that we forsake Christ, His cross, and cease to look
forward to the life of the world to come. Loving one’s life, as Jesus means
here, is not wanting heavenly treasures because the soul is infatuated with
worldly things. They are to be put to use, guarded, and kept according to God’s
will, not loved excessively over and above our Lord Jesus Christ.
4) For in Christ’s sufferings and death, His “being lifted up” on the cross,
we possess two great blessings. The first is that when Christ is lifted up on
the cross, “the ruler of this world is cast out.” Christ breaks the power of
Satan, not chiefly in exorcising demons from troubled souls, but by dying with
the sins of the world on His shoulders, so that those sins can no longer be used
against us in Satan’s accusations. Christ breaks the power of the ruler of this
world by enduring God’s full against sinners so that “there is now no
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” by faith. Satan’s power to
terrorize you with thoughts of God’s wrath is stripped of Him, for faith unites
you to Christ and declares you forgiven of those sins and their punishments.
Christ breaks the power of Satan at the cross by enduring the accusations of
sinful men against Him. By enduring false accusations, you no longer have to
listen to Satan’s true accusations against you about your sinfulness, your
unworthiness, and your uncleanness, for all that is removed by faith in the
Gospel. These are treasures of far greater value than anything this world has to
offer because these treasures make one wise unto salvation and fit one for
dwelling in the heavenly Jerusalem.
5) The grain of wheat must be placed in the ground and die so that it can
bear a harvest throughout the world, but also in you, for your salvation. So
Jesus must die or else He is worthless to us poor, miserable sinners. And you,
His Christians, justified by faith in the Gospel, believing and trusting in His
merits and atoning death, must die as well, but you must die to your love of
self and your love of this world and its pleasures. The gifts or forgiveness
and freedom from the ruler of this world and his accusations, these are your
everlasting blessings and your true treasures which we celebrate this week and
enjoy forevermore with Christ in eternity. Amen.