One of the things we enjoy about these shows is how the clues lead one way, then another, with the tension gradually building up, narrowing down the suspects to just a couple who could each have caused the murder. Then, all of a sudden, a particular clue falls into place and the detective smiles because he has now realized that he’s got the murderer, that it is time for the arrest. It is like a gong has sounded, telling the detective and us that the story is almost over and its time for the grand finale.
Sometimes things like this happen in real life, too. We come near the end of our senior year and finish up a key test and we know that we will graduate – we just have the ceremony ahead of us. We meet the girl of our dreams and one day she asks how many children we’d like to have and we know that she will say yes when we ask her to marry us. We are looking for a home and a particular house has the garden plot that we’ve always wanted and we know that this house will be our home.
When Saundra and I were living in Atlanta about 20 years ago, we decided to move back to the Mid-Ohio Valley. But in Atlanta, everybody had a horror story to tell of the house that didn’t close. We visited this area in early March – that year there was still a foot of snow on the ground. We found a home we like near Lowell, OH, and began the process. We brought a load of stuff up on May 1, but we were still uncertain whether or not the house would close the following week. On the way up, Saundra turned to me and asked if we could have a lilac bush, which don’t grow well in Georgia because the weather is too hot. It seems that when Saundra was a little girl, she would take blossoms from a lilac bush in the early afternoon and put them on her pillow, closing up the room as she left. Then, when she came back later to go to sleep, the fragrance would have filled the room. I said, “Of course you can plant a lilac bush. We’ll own the place.”
When we arrived with that load of stuff on May 1, there in full bloom under our bedroom window was a huge lilac bush and beside the door to our warehouse building where Saundra would spend time with our business was another large lilac bush in full bloom. The gong had sounded – God had said this would be our home – and it was for ten years until we went into full-time ministry and moved to Clarksburg.
Saundra was not expected at her first church in Clarksburg for a few weeks. She was very nervous as to whether or not she was truly called to ministry. And when she went to that church – beside the door was another blooming lilac bush. BONG! Under her leadership with God’s guidance, that little church tripled in numbers over the next three years.
In our Gospel reading from John 12, Jesus is teaching at the Passover festival. This spring festival doubled or tripled the population of Jerusalem as a hundred thousand or more pilgrims came from all corners of the Roman world to sacrifice and worship at the Temple of God. While about half of the Jews in the Empire lived in the Holy Land, the other half lived scattered about the Empire from Egypt and Turkey to Italy, North Africa, even Spain and France, which the Romans called Gaul. Most of these scattered Jews spoke Greek as their primary language, dressed like Greeks, and were culturally much more Greek than the Jews who lived in the Holy Land who spoke Aramaic.
Additionally, scattered around the Holy Land were some cities with large Greek populations, both Jewish Greeks and pagan Greeks. One of these cities was Bethsaida in Galilee, the hometown of the disciple Philip, who was even named after Alexander the Great’s father, Philip of Macedon.
So while Jesus is teaching at the Passover festival, a group of Greeks who had come to worship at the festival came to Philip and said, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
They don’t merely want to look at Him. They could do that from a distance, but they would like a private discussion with Jesus. Philip goes and tells Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. Andrew also bears a Greek name which means “manly”. Why not take the Greeks straight to Jesus? There are a couple of reasons. First, there was a general idea that speaking to a non-Jew would pollute a rabbi, much the same way many people today feel that some people are not good enough or worthy to speak to a minister – and how some people don’t want their minister to be seen speaking to certain types of people. Should a minister spend time in a bar or with a group of drug addicts? Many people still believe the answer is “no”, but the example I see with Jesus is that these places are exactly where I should spend much of my time. But Philip and Andrew did not know whether or not Jesus would want to talk to pagans – or even non-Jews who were trying to worship at the Temple.
The other reason they were uncertain is because Jesus had clearly said His ministry was to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The Greeks were not of the house of Israel – although their ancestors may have come from Israel – or they may have been from pagan ancestry, but they had come to worship at the festival. It was a difficult call for Philip and Andrew – will Jesus want to speak to these Greeks?
They both went and told Jesus. It is unclear whether or not the Greeks are tagging along or whether they stood at a distance. But the message from Andrew and Philip sounds the gong for Jesus. Three times previously in John’s Gospel, Jesus has said that it is not His time. Three times, Jesus tells people to back off because God has not completed things for Jesus. But this time, the fourth time, the gong sounds for Jesus. BONG! He announces: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” He is ready for the cross.
But why? Why does Jesus suddenly start talking about His up and coming death? To understand, we must delve a bit deeper into the mind of Jesus. And in doing so, we will find that although Jesus was far above any other man as Son of God, He often used information that was available to any person who truly wanted – or wants – to understand God’s plan for history.
Throughout His ministry, Jesus often referred to details found in Scripture – which at that time was the Old Testament. In particular, Jesus had an encyclopedic knowledge of the first five books of the Old Testament – the Pentateuch – and He also commonly referenced the Book of Isaiah the Prophet.
In this case, Jesus has in His mind Isaiah 49, particularly verses 5 and 6. He had referenced Isaiah 49:5 before:
And now the Lord says—
he who formed me in the womb to be his servant
to bring Jacob back to him
and gather Israel to himself,
for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord
and my God has been my strength—
He has been focused upon Israel. For example, He says that He has come to the lost sheep of the House of Israel to a Syro-Phoenician woman, who begs for healing as if that healing was a scrap of bread given to dogs around the family dinner table.
But now, a group of Greeks has come to listen to Him. Gentiles want to talk to Jesus and find answers. And Isaiah verse 6 comes to mind:
6 [The Lord] says:
“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
Perhaps Jesus knew that if He died too soon, His death would be seen as just for the house of Israel – with all the pagan Gentile nations of the world left out. Perhaps Jesus knew that if He went too soon for the cross, His life would be soon forgotten. But perhaps Jesus understood and had the faith in what had been revealed 800 years before to Isaiah, that Messiah had come, not just for the good people of Israel, not just for the lost sheep of Israel, but for every man and woman and child in the entire world who chose to look up to Jesus, to believe in Jesus, to follow Jesus! Because these Greeks had stepped forward, persistently, trying to speak to Jesus, God was ensuring that through Jesus, salvation would reach the ends of the earth! IT WAS TIME FOR THE CROSS!
"Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, 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."
Jesus would be that kernel of wheat, buried in the ground, producing many seeds of life through His death.
"Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me."
Are you willing to give up your life for God’s plan, to serve Jesus? We think so often of the big, grand ways we can give up our life for Jesus, standing boldly in front of anti-Christian terrorists, jumping on a grenade to save our friends, conducting a suicide mission against a would-be dictator. But there are countless people who have given up their lives for God’s plan, serving Jesus. There is the woman who teaches the children’s church and gives up an hour every Saturday evening to prepare a lesson about Jesus for them. There is the man who takes his hard-earned cash every week and puts more than his share in the offering plate every Sunday, who puts not 10% of his tax return in the plate, but 25% and with it chooses to take a vacation to the local state park instead of a Floridian beach. There is the man who chooses to spend two nights a week practicing gospel music to sing at festivals. There is the teen who gets up every Sunday morning early so that the Facebook Live will be functioning at her church. There is the woman who picks up 5 other people every Sunday and takes them to her church. There is the college kid who makes short TikTok videos about Christ and posts them every week. There is the pastor who almost falls asleep driving back from the trauma hospital because she has been visiting a frightened family, and she needs to preach at three churches the next morning. That is how to give your life to serve Jesus and keep that life for eternity.
Or something even simpler, a four-step process:
1) Read a bit of your Bible every day. Just 15 minutes or so.
2) Pray everyday for the salvation of a dozen people whom you don’t think know Jesus.
3) Plan carefully something to say to these people by phone, text, or in person about something Jesus has done for you in the last week or two. It doesn’t have to be long – just a couple of sentences, like “Jesus sent me money just when I needed it”, or “God gave me just enough time for me to get to my appointment yesterday.”
4) Take time to listen to people when they want to talk about problems, or have questions about life.
Read, Pray, Plan, and Listen. That’s all. You will get closer to Jesus and help other people get closer to Jesus. That’s giving your life to serve Jesus.
Jesus, after the Greeks had arrived and the metaphorical gong had sounded, continued: “Now my soul 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."
Jesus knew His destiny was upon Him. What is your destiny? Has God been calling you to do something scary, something glorious, something you have special skills for that God has developed in you years ago? Step forward and say, “This is the reason for my life!” At this point, Jesus could have turned from the cross, but He knew that it was for this very reason He came to this hour, and so He shouted:
"Father, glorify your name!”
"Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him."
"Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine."
It was another sign that Jesus was the Son of God, God on the earth, as He had repeatedly said. If you watch, God will speak to you and tell you when you are at the right place and doing the right thing. For Saundra, God spoke through lilac bushes. She settled into our home and then into her ministry. Confirmed by God booming Voice, Jesus then turned to prophecy. He first spoke of Satan.
"Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out."
And then He spoke of Himself: "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
"He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die," John adds
For the cross lay before Him. And He looked past the cross to the joy that lay on the other side, for He knew that He would be the one to defeat Death, that all people could know that Death could be defeated.
How about you?
It is a pleasant thing to think of, that someone died so that we could live. For over 75 years, we have celebrated the sacrifices that our grandparents made during World War II, fighting in Europe and the Pacific to protect us, dying on battlefields we sometimes visit in movies and occasionally in person. But those people gave up their lives, and they died. Whether or not they will live again doesn’t depend upon their bravery or heroism, it doesn’t depend upon whether or not they were American or Canadian or British – or German or Italian or Japanese. It doesn’t depend upon anything they did – except whether or not they decided that they would choose to follow Jesus the Christ as a pattern for their lives.
Jesus is to be our pattern, our example, the one we are to follow, our leader.
The writer of Hebrews, in chapter 5 tells us that Jesus was appointed as our high priest, forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.
In Genesis 14, as Abraham returns from battle against a group of bandits, a puzzling man named Melchizedek, whose name means “the king of righteousness” comes out of Salem, the city that would become Jerusalem, and greets Abraham with gifts of bread and wine and blesses Abraham. Abraham gives Melchizedek a tenth of all the spoils of the battle, a tenth of all the loot. Melchizedek is also known as both the king of Salem and the priest of God Most High. We don’t know his parents – we don’t know his descendants.
And the writer of Hebrews – and King David, the author of Psalm 110, tells us that Jesus was appointed as our high priest, forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. Jesus, has become the high priest who is entitled to connect God and man together, the connection that was broken in the Fall, when we were kicked out of the Garden of Eden. And He will pray for us in John chapter 17, just outside another Garden – the Garden of Gethsemane.
If you will follow Jesus – be sure that you are truly following Jesus. For Jesus, as the gathered disciples – and the Greeks - learned the day the Greeks came to Philip and Andrew, Jesus is not just another philosopher who gives us guidance for living a good life. Jesus came to die that He might draw all people to Himself, the entire world, all people. Jesus did not intend a group of followers who rejected people of different speech or nationality. No, Jesus intended to draw to Himself good Jews and prostitutes, corrupt tax collectors and bar tenders, Greeks and Romans, Persians and Arabs, Chinese and Mexicans, British and Irish, Germans and Italians, Africans and Russians, Hindus and Pakistanis, doctors and fast food workers, business owners and the unemployed, single mothers and drug users, politicians and drug pushers, alcoholics and lawyers, and even farmers and fishermen.
The most exciting time of the Christian year is upon us. March 28 is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. Come join us at the 10:30 am service inside our sanctuary. Come meet each other. April 4th is Easter – we will have a Sunrise service in the lower parking lot at 7 AM, followed by breakfast together for the first time in two years. And then, at 10:30 Am, we will have our Easter service. Come and join us. Bring a friend! Come and find out what it means to be with joyful people in a joyful place. Wear a mask, yes! But come and join us safely as we go to the cross.
For spring is here and the seed of wheat that died and lay underground is ready to blossom here at Cedar Grove United Methodist. Jesus Christ is alive and so are we!
For the cross lay before Him. And He looked past the cross to the joy that lay on the other side, for He knew that He would be the one to defeat Death, that all people could know that Death could be defeated.
How about you?
It is a pleasant thing to think of, that someone died so that we could live. For over 75 years, we have celebrated the sacrifices that our grandparents made during World War II, fighting in Europe and the Pacific to protect us, dying on battlefields we sometimes visit in movies and occasionally in person. But those people gave up their lives, and they died. Whether or not they will live again doesn’t depend upon their bravery or heroism, it doesn’t depend upon whether or not they were American or Canadian or British – or German or Italian or Japanese. It doesn’t depend upon anything they did – except whether or not they decided that they would choose to follow Jesus the Christ as a pattern for their lives.
Jesus is to be our pattern, our example, the one we are to follow, our leader.
The writer of Hebrews, in chapter 5 tells us that Jesus was appointed as our high priest, forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.
In Genesis 14, as Abraham returns from battle against a group of bandits, a puzzling man named Melchizedek, whose name means “the king of righteousness” comes out of Salem, the city that would become Jerusalem, and greets Abraham with gifts of bread and wine and blesses Abraham. Abraham gives Melchizedek a tenth of all the spoils of the battle, a tenth of all the loot. Melchizedek is also known as both the king of Salem and the priest of God Most High. We don’t know his parents – we don’t know his descendants.
And the writer of Hebrews – and King David, the author of Psalm 110, tells us that Jesus was appointed as our high priest, forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. Jesus, has become the high priest who is entitled to connect God and man together, the connection that was broken in the Fall, when we were kicked out of the Garden of Eden. And He will pray for us in John chapter 17, just outside another Garden – the Garden of Gethsemane.
If you will follow Jesus – be sure that you are truly following Jesus. For Jesus, as the gathered disciples – and the Greeks - learned the day the Greeks came to Philip and Andrew, Jesus is not just another philosopher who gives us guidance for living a good life. Jesus came to die that He might draw all people to Himself, the entire world, all people. Jesus did not intend a group of followers who rejected people of different speech or nationality. No, Jesus intended to draw to Himself good Jews and prostitutes, corrupt tax collectors and bar tenders, Greeks and Romans, Persians and Arabs, Chinese and Mexicans, British and Irish, Germans and Italians, Africans and Russians, Hindus and Pakistanis, doctors and fast food workers, business owners and the unemployed, single mothers and drug users, politicians and drug pushers, alcoholics and lawyers, and even farmers and fishermen.
The most exciting time of the Christian year is upon us. March 28 is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. Come join us at the 10:30 am service inside our sanctuary. Come meet each other. April 4th is Easter – we will have a Sunrise service in the lower parking lot at 7 AM, followed by breakfast together for the first time in two years. And then, at 10:30 Am, we will have our Easter service. Come and join us. Bring a friend! Come and find out what it means to be with joyful people in a joyful place. Wear a mask, yes! But come and join us safely as we go to the cross.
For spring is here and the seed of wheat that died and lay underground is ready to blossom here at Cedar Grove United Methodist. Jesus Christ is alive and so are we!
Sing with us, Now the Green Blade Riseth
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