SOME THOUGHTS ON THE GOSPEL
FOR THE 5TH SUNDAY IN LENT, MARCH 29, 2009
Dick Smith, Bismarck
PREACHING TO THE CAPTIVE WILL
The Gospel: John 12:20-33
When Christian History is written about this period of time I believe it will be known as a period of darkness. It will be seen as a time when man has placed himself above Scripture interpreting it to his own liking. Instead of Scripture interpreting man, man has usurped Scripture’s place and now has proceeded to control Scripture.
No where is this more evident than in organized institutional religion’s fixation with morality. Christ is now used as a tool to justify moral conduct as the sum and substance of Christianity. Scriptural passages are ripped from their context, twisted around, and reshaped in order to support preconceived notions about the proper kind of conduct. Conduct has become the determining factor, so much so that it has become common to hear it said, “It doesn’t really matter what you believe as long as you are sincere. And how do you know that you are sincere; because you can feel it here (the heart). The message of CHRIST for the sinner has been pushed off the stage for the sake of moral conduct.
The passage before us from John chapter 12 exposes the falsity of so much of contemporary preaching. Verse 25 drives to the heart of the matter. It reads, “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” This is spoken in the larger context of his response to Philip and Andrew. “And Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified.’ (That hour of glorification is when he dies on the cross.) ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If any one serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there shall my servant be also; in any one serves me, the Father will honor him.”
IT’S A MATTER OF DEATH AND NEW LIFE. To serve Christ, to follow Christ, is NOT a matter of self effort, or human endeavor. IT is a matter of dying with Christ and having a new life. When Jesus began his ministry, he announced that thekingdom of God was in their midst. (That is, Christ embodies the Kingdom and is in their midst.) Then he says “repent and believe in the Gospel.” “Repent” means to die and “believe” is another word for “faith,” which means “the real presence of Christ in you as a redeeming reality” (Regin Prenter, “Spiritus Creator,” (page 193; 50).
It's deceptively easy to interpret “hating one’s life” and “dying with Christ” as a psychological phenomenon so that one is to feel hurtful toward him or herself. The idea that one is to inflict pain upon one’s existence as a religious act is so popular that it blurs and contorts the message here.
It’s not a matter of twisting our emotions so that they produce some kind of spiritual change. Rather it simply the announcement to us of what is.
Paul makes his very clear in his Letter to the Romans where he introduces the matter of death and new life in chapter 6. He brings in this central issue as a progression of his thought about God’s grace. He says God’s grace cannot be out sinned! Sin all the more and God’s love is all the greater. This then leads to the next question. Shall we then keep on struggling to keep the Law which can only lead to more sinning? After all, God’s grace can’t be out sinned. His answer is, “God forbid.” Struggling to keep the Law is OVER and done with, because, he announces, we are all DEAD, having DIED in our baptism. The life now is CHRIST HIMSELF IN US.
This is not a matter of some kind of emotional rejection of our life, some kind of self hatred, some kind of self flagellation, some kind of physical lashing of our bodies. All of those things would be self administered. The dying Jesus is talking about is something that happens to us and not by us. It is administered to us by God himself in our baptism.
Since it is from God to us it is a matter of announcement to us. It is his action that is to be proclaimed to us as a fact. So our brother Paul continues, in Chapter 6 of Romans, after his answer, “God forbid,” with these words. “OR ARE YOU IGNORANT (the Greek, often translated in English: “or do you not know….’) that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his DEATH. We are BURIED therefore by baptism into his death so that as Christ was RAISED from the dead WE TOO MIGHT LIVE A NEW LIFE.
This element of ANNOUNCEMENT is clearly evident in the Letter to the Colossians where Paul writes “...you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him… (2:12). “For you ARE DEAD…”(3:3) reads the King James Version. Now I ask you, can the announcement be any more direct, any clearer, any more incisive? It’s not a matter of inner emotions, it’s not a matter of a certain kind of religious attitude, it’s not a matter of a prayerful posture. It’s not about you and me at all. It’s about God and what he has done in our baptism! IT’S about CHRIST and how HE IS the NEW LIFE in us. That passage in Colossians that begins, “For you ARE DEAD” continues, “and your life is now hid with CHRIST in God. When CHRIST, WHO IS OUR LIFE, appears you will also appear with him in glory” (3:3-4)!
The grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies and bears much fruit. CHRIST in us bears much fruit in and through us. Where Christ is, there we, as his servants, will be also, because he is our life. We have no choice. THANKS BE TO GOD!
©Richard J. Smith
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