From Death to Life

After Jesus rode into the city of Jerusalem the excitement was followed by surprise.  The Jewish throngs crowding into the city for Passover were expecting a national Messiah as their hero...come banish the Romans and get rid of all the pagan people from their lands.
Sound familiar?
Sounds a bit like the posture of militant Jihadists from the Middle East today.  The strong ethnic nationalism is based on the fear of losing identity.  Get rid of the foreign nationalists who bring in their culture, their values, their ways of doing things...return back to the fundamentals of our own culture...Fundamentalism is the same in all areas.

Jesus surprised everyone...
John 12:20-28 (NIV)
²⁰ Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the Feast.
²¹ They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. "Sir," they said, "we would like to see Jesus."
²² Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.
²³ Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
²⁴ I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
²⁵ The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
²⁶ Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
²⁷ "Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.
²⁸ Father, glorify your name!" Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and will glorify it again."

While the Jewish nation looked for Jesus to come in and become the Messianic King...instead he makes it clear - He is the Savior of the World, not just the redeemer of the Jewish nation.  These Greeks, Gentiles, came to worship, but they were not national Jews, so always "less than".  These Gentiles were seeking Jesus...a sign of that which was to come.  Jesus had said it previously:
John 10:16 (NIV)
I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.

Here we have God's great purpose being declared.  The kernel of wheat falls into the ground, is buried, seemingly that's the end, it's dead; but we know it's not death, it's the beginning of life.  From the seed, roots go down, the stem begins to grow breaking through the earth and the plant grows producing much, much more fruit.
BUT
IT MUST DIE!!!

As a young Christian some 40 years ago I read this passage and it changed my life.  I wrote on 3X5 cards the simple words:  "IF IT DIE", and plastered them all over the place.  It was on the bathroom mirror, on the fridge, over the sink, by the TV, hanging from the Car's mirror, on my books, in the office...literally everywhere.
There can be no life from Jesus without the death of self.
"The man (person) who loves his life will lose it, while the person who hates (gives up their rights to control) their life in this world will keep it for eternal life."


We must be as Jesus, willing to give up our own rights and cast ourselves headlong into the life of Jesus - that LIFE that came into being because he gave up his own life...unwilling to be the National Hero of Israel, so that he could take on the Glory of God's will for the sake of the whole world.
"Whoever serves me must follow me...My Father will honor the one that serves me."


Is it worth it?  Yes.

Peace