There's Light at the End of the Tunnel (John 12.20-33)
I was speaking to my neighbour the
other day, at an appropriate social distance of course, and we got into an
unusually long conversation about our lockdown experiences.
She spoke of hope, dreams,
disappointments ups and downs, and one particular well known phrase kept
cropping up;
“There’s light at the end of the
tunnel.”
She reflected perhaps the way many
of us might be feeling. Weary but slightly hopeful that things are going to
change relatively soon. That hopefully we’re over the worst of it. That soon
she would be able to see her grandchildren again.
I was speaking to Paul the other day
and he asked ‘How are you?’ I responded, ‘Oh you know, not too bad.’ Paul then
asked ‘why do people always say oh you know. I don’t know that’s why I’m
asking.’
He has a good point. We don’t know.
We don’t know how other people are feeling, or what’s going on.
Today our Gospel reading shows
Jesus doing a similar thing. What do I mean? Well, the people gathered there
don’t know what’s going to happen. They don’t know about the events of Holy
Week, they don’t know what Jesus knows. How he’s feeling and thinking and Jesus
starts to reveal to them what he knows.
‘Now my soul is troubled’ is a
polite translation.
Jesus is a human person, with
thoughts and feelings like the rest of us. He must’ve been in private agony. He
Knew what was going to happen to him. But refused to turn.
Going ahead with it despite knowing
that he was going to die. And not just a quick death, but a slow, tortured and
humiliating death on a cross.
It’s right that on this, the last
Sunday before Holy Week, that we have this reading because it points us towards
the cross. For Jesus that means pain, suffering, accepting the bitter cup that
he must take in order to save us.
The Greeks who come to see Jesus
are probably Godfearers. Gentiles who were respectful of the Jewish religion
and abided by many of the Jewish customs and laws.
Jesus tells them about the grain of
wheat. On the face of it this just seems like quite a confusing story. Why we
might ask, is Jesus telling them this?
It’s two fold. Firstly Jesus is
talking about the rich future harvest that will come. The harvest of many
different people. That Christians will not be left alone when he dies, that the
labourers will all be united together in the harvest, whether they are Jew or
gentile.
Secondly it’s to tell them that
though his death, he will be glorified and it’s through the cross that they
will all receive new life.
Jesus points the disciples and the
rest of the people there towards what will happen. That’s the point of the
voice from heaven. Ultimately through
Jesus’ sacrifice, through the cross he will be glorified.
Though the world might not
understand, though it might seem weak, though people might make fun of us, or
misunderstand, it is the ultimate sign of strength.
That our God doesn’t use violence,
or force to achieve His aims, but through self-sacrificial love redeems the
whole world.
The self-sacrificial love of God is
the only thing of God that we can emulate. We can’t heal people in the way
Jesus did, we can’t move mountains and seas. We can’t save ourselves.
We can sacrifice something of
ourselves through love, we can love other people. We can do good things for the
sake of others.
For the writer of John, serving
Jesus is as important as believing in Jesus’ promises. When Jesus says “Those
who love their life lose it and those who hate their life in this world will
keep it for eternal life.”
I think Jesus is talking about service.
That when we choose to serve God we sacrifice something of our own lives, we
must, otherwise it’s not really service.
These verses show us that Jesus’
death brings new life to all of us. Through the cross, through the resurrection
and through love.
In a time when all we seem to do is
sacrifice what we want for the sake of others, It’s worth remembering that when
we do these acts, we are truly living out the Gospel in the world.
Sometimes, like the crowd, we lose
sight of God. We can’t hear God’s voice, all we can hear is the thunder of our
own emotions. The thunder of loss, disappointments and ups and downs.
Sometimes, it might feel like that
thunder is overwhelming, that God has gone away from us for a while. Like a
former fruitful relationship that used to be intimate, but now we’re in
separate bedrooms. No longer talking.
There is light at the end of the
tunnel. Be assured. Jesus said
“Now is the judgement of this
world; now the rule of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted
up from the earth will draw all people to myself.”
The light is that. That Jesus draws
all people to himself.
That everything we are or ever will
be is understood by God.
That God drives out the darkness,
even though things feel dark for us now.
That we’ve all got a place. Greeks
and Jews.
As long as there are those who love
each other. Those who are willing to go for other people. God is there with
them.
Because the light of the world
can’t be extinguished. Not by our feelings, or by pandemic.
The Disciples waited before they
saw the resurrected Jesus. It was scary, a time when hope was short, and it
seemed all that they loved was snuffed out.
But Jesus came. Hope was rekindled.
God didn’t abandon them.
So it will be for us. The thunder
doesn’t last forever. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
Photo by Elisabeth Fossum from Pexels
Preached at Zoom Service for St John the Baptist and St Paul's, Old Lakenham and Tuckswood.
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