Resurrection

The 5th Sunday in Lent, Year B The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt-- a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the LORD," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31.31-34 NRSV) Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. 21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." 22 Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. 23 Jesus answered them, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor. 27 "Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say--'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name." Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again." 29 The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, "An angel has spoken to him." 30 Jesus answered, "This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." 33 He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. (John 12.20-32 NRSV) “THE LIFE OF A SEED” When I was young, I had a small patch of ground out back behind the garage on which I had a garden. I tried growing various things. My grandfather also had a garden, a bigger one, and I remember from way, way back seed catalogs and his grow light to start the plants indoors. I helped in his garden. I remember spending an afternoon weeding his asparagus patch. I can still close my eyes and see the weeds. Didn’t like them; loved the asparagus, however. Everything he planted grew and was wonderful. My lettuce did not turn out. Hot weather makes it bitter, I found out. I did well at green bell peppers which Grampa liked in the years when he could no longer garden and grow them for himself. Also cherry tomatoes which my Dad liked. One of the great things about gardening is that you often have appreciative fans. My carrots were good and zinnias and radishes, but my green beans and sweet corn weren’t. My Grampa’s were. The reality is that to have something grow you have to plant it. You can admire the catalogs and be overjoyed when the seeds arrive, put them in a special place, and dream about what the garden will look like and the vegetables will taste like, but when the time is right—and there are many different ways of telling when it is the time for planting—you have to let go of the seeds. They have to disappear into the earth. Only then will the full potential be fulfilled. Only then will they come alive. Only then can the hopes become reality. In gardening, first you have to get the soil ready. Grampa had a machine to help with this. When I used to do this in my little garden, it was by hand, and I would see bits of glass and old tin cans. It puzzled me as I was getting ready to put things into the ground, not expecting to take them out of the ground. I found out that the neighbors used to bury their garbage on our lot. As I would turn over the soil, the garbage of the past came out. But that comes first, and then the planting. That is the message of the Gospel reading this morning. Jesus starts out saying that the hour has come for him to be glorified. That is, the time has come for his death and resurrection. He describes it by talking about a grain of wheat. The grain of wheat must die, vanish, disappear before there can be a yield. By itself, it is just one grain of wheat. But having died and risen it becomes many new grains. This is the pattern of Christ’s life, he dies, but there will be a resurrection. It is a sign of what is to come for him, but also for those who have faith in him. Jeremiah gives the word of the Lord to the people and tells them that there will be a new day. They will come back to the land from exile, back to the land they had been deported from. They lost the land because they could not keep the covenant with God. But God will do a new thing. Instead of laws which they cannot keep, God’s word will be planted in their hearts and God will enable them to keep it. It will give them a new heart, not a disobedient heart of stone, but a living heart of obedience. It is a hopeful land not only because its bounty will sustain them, but because there, again, God will be their God. And the past will stay buried. Lent is the time when these ideas come together. We long for newness of life, such as we see all around us in spring. We long for God’s word to be in our hearts. We long for the salvation of our souls and hear God’s words through Jeremiah and Jesus’ words and know that they are to apply to us. In a week we will begin Holy Week, and know that we will remember Jesus’ suffering and death. Those are our reasons for hope. Jesus’ life and death for us gives a shape to our lives as well. He is the seed dropped into the ground to bear much fruit. In Christ’s death and in our Baptisms, the power of sin is destroyed. It is what lets our past sins stay buried. But the resurrection is what we long for. Jesus’ life tells us about our own. As we hope for the future, we must give up holding on to the seed. We must let go of what we cling to and give it to the ground in faith so that it will bear fruit. There are things we need to give up, place in the ground, before there can be a harvest. What Christ experienced shows us that we are not alone. Just like in life, my Grampa was an example to me in gardening, so Christ shows us life and death and the new risen life and gives us hope. He has been through it and can accompany each one of us along this path of life. That can give us hope in life instead of fear. Evelyn Bence writes this about letting go. She has a fear of heights which makes navigating the District of Columbia subway system difficult, especially the long escalators riding up. When her older sister Alice came to visit they rode the subway to an unfamiliar stop. She panicked. Alice encouraged her and held her hand all the way up. Some time later, a friend asked her, “If you could choose one person to be at your side when you die, who would it be?” “Alice,” she answered quickly—“I’d want her to hold one hand. And Jesus the other.” With the promise of Christ with us we can bury our fears. We also have the example of Christ to us to inspire our daily lives. God can bless how we live as we learn to let go of what we have to find something better as we entrust it to God. The old can turn into the new. It is how seeds work. Tim Williams associates this with spring in the desert. It is a harsh environment. A lone white primrose appears. The next day it the rocky earth is covered with them of all colors. He recalls another sign of spring. It was a young lady from the poorest of homes gathering the tough young boys of the neighborhood into her back yard with a plate of cookies to hear Bible stories. There they heard that God loved them. Williams does not know how they all turned out but as he puts it, “for a least a single spring morning, beauty reigned in a barren place.” God can use what we offer to God. It can bear fruit in unexpected ways. To explain what was soon to happen to him, Jesus talked about a seed. A seed must go into the ground before it can do anything. What we hope it will do is produce much. What we hope for is not the end of life but a new life. What we hope for is more than one seed. This is a picture of what is to come. Jesus must first go into the ground of the tomb. But then comes the resurrection. This is the hour for Christ to be glorified. We will remember that in the weeks to come. He goes before us in death and in life. Then it will be the time for him to walk with us in glory. Now is the time for us to walk with him in faith. What we plant will rise. Let us plant our lives with Christ, in Christ. Soon, the resurrection comes.