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Sermon - The Fifth Sunday in Lent (B) - 29th March 2009
St Aidan's Anglican Church West Epping 8:30 am
Readings: John 12:20—33
One of the great strengths of reading the Bible is its ability to surprise us and to challenge us – to alert us to where we are going wrong and how we can amend our lives. As worshippers of God, we wish to worship him in Spirit and in truth and the scriptures are an essential guide to doing that. In just a few verses in today’s gospel reading Jesus has laid out the basic principles of our discipleship as well as his vision for the future. We can assume what we think God is doing yet when we read this passage it may take us in directions we may not be comfortable with.
Our reading begins with this odd story of Greeks coming, wanting to speak with Jesus. For some reason, they approached Philip with their request, and as usual he didn’t know how to respond. So he went to Andrew and they both approached Jesus. John is the only disciple to tell us this story. And what is odd about it is that Jesus is more concerned about the approach of the Greeks than the question they came to ask.
Their approach come at a ironic moment in Jesus ministry. At this time the Pharisees and the chief scribes had rejected Jesus and become openly hostile. And in contrast to them we have these Greeks who wanted to approach Jesus and question him. But for Jesus there is a greater significance in their approach. And this is a surprising moment in Jesus’ ministry. Modern theologians have worked hard to place Jesus in his historical setting. They have attempted to interpret him as an Essene or a Zealot, or a representative f one of the political groups of Jesus day. But it doesn’t quite work because most of these movements were fiercely nationalistic.
But Jesus is never bound by nationalism. He helps the centurion, he heals the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman, he spends time with the tax collectors. He’s not too strict in keeping the ceremonial law. And now he reads great significance in this approach from these Greeks. They may not have been from Greece. But Greek cities were established around the known world for five hundred years before Jesus. In the region of the Decapolis there would have been plenty of such cities. So these Greeks may not have travelled far. But for Jesus he never saw his ministry as being confined to Israel. Certainly he believed he should begin in Israel but that was just the start.
Now with the approach of these Greeks Jesus recognised that the hour had come to complete his mission. Earlier in John’s gospel we are told of attempts to arrest Jesus in chapters 7 and 8. But on both occasions we have the rye comment that it did not happen because Jesus’ time had not yet come. But now in chapter 12 with the arrival of these Greeks it is different. In a way, these Greeks are representative of a wider world and so now was the time to complete his mission which was to have its impact on all the world. And so Jesus makes his announcement that his hour had come at last.
Even though it may feel we are only half way through John’s gospel, the next chapter tells the events of the last supper, so this announcement that his hour had come is probably made the week before his entry into Jerusalem. And now the time has come. This is the climax of his ministry but look at how Jesus describes it. It is quite amazing. He describes what he is about to do in terms of the parable of the kernel of wheat. While you have the seed it achieves nothing. But when it is buried in the ground and dies it then produces many seeds. Jesus’ mission is to die so that he can produce abundant life. This is what his ministry is all about.
And the remarkable thing is that this whole story is played out in our world. It shows us what a huge mistake it is to think that God is far away caught up in his heaven. Sometimes it can seem to us that prayer is humankind tapping God on the shoulder, to distract him from heaven to gaze upon the horrors on earth. And to assume that would be a grave error. We can see here how earth-focussed God is. The earth is his creation. He created us to rule over it and manage it. But we’ve not done a good job. We find we can’t even keep ourselves in check. There is not much of what we see today that resembles what God had intended. But remarkably he has not abandoned us. What does the creator God choose to do? He chooses to remake us. His involvement with us is of the highest intimacy – he sends his own son. His own son takes on our flesh so he too might die and his death will bring an abundant life. His death defeats death – breaks the power of death, so that death no longer rules over us.
This whole story is played out in our world, in our time. We can still visit the city where all these events took place. God is not heaven bound. He doesn’t discuss with his son in the heavenlies some plan of reconciliation and sorts it out there. That would be the work of a remote God, a disengaged God, a God who had other things on his plate to worry about. But at the same time that Jesus announces what he is about to do he also seems somewhat taken aback by its enormous gravity. He was there at the creation of the world. He knew the enormity of that task. And here he is again at its recreation. He knows what this will mean. Its no wonder he says, “Now my heart is troubled.”
He considers his options. One thing he could do is to back out and call it all off. His prayer could be “Father, save me from this hour.” But he won’t do this. The focus of his ministry will be the cross. He came to die. So he says, “No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. The time had come. Everything was prepared. This was to be Jesus’ hour. And then notice what happens. At such a significant moment Jesus’ launches into a conversation with his father. And his father replies. And what’s more, the crowd hear this conversation. An amazing moment. But again, it shows God’s intimate involvement with our world where Jesus can launch into a conversation with his father, and his father responds. God has brought glory on himself in the past in making his good creation. And he will demonstrate his power by the rescue of that creation, restoring it to what it was always meant to be. Here is the Father and the Son working together putting the world right again. And so Jesus rightly says, “Now is the time for judgement on this word; now the prince of this world will be driven out.”
All that was wrong with the world is being addressed. But as for us, Jesus will draw us to himself. This is a bringing together of God’s people – a picture of reconciliation. And as we meet this morning we are putting into action what Jesus is describing here. We are drawn together because of Christ and because of what he achieved when he was lifted up. But notice the universality of it. Jesus is not just the Saviour of the Jews, he is not just a Palestinian messiah. It is a message for all people everywhere. This was why, when the Greeks arrived, Jesus knew his hour had come. His work of rescue will encompass the whole world, drawing all people to himself. So when we feel alone, when we feel isolated, that God seems far away, we can remind ourselves of these words. Paul reminds us of the same truth in Acts where he says, “God is not far from us, for in him we live and move and have our being.” Jesus reminds us of both the closeness of God and his willingness to rescue and remake us and draw us to himself. When we feel lost and alone, we need to remember that God has not yet finished with us.