John 12:24-26
“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. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate
their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me
must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves
me, the Father will honor.” [John
12:24-26]
Those are words that I
find myself speaking most often standing in a cemetery, conducting a burial
service. In a letter to the Corinthians,
Paul wanted to reassure them that when a body is buried in the ground, it is
not the end of the person, and that God transforms death into life on
absolutely every level.
“What is sown is perishable, what is
raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in
weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body.” [I Corinthians 15:42-44]
Before
Paul could say that, though, and before any of us could gather around a
graveside and talk about something stronger than the natural cycle of birth and
death, Jesus confronted his disciples to become his followers, precisely when
following him meant to follow him into dying.
Beware leaders who glorify death. False messiahs do that all the time, and lead
others to destruction. In 1978, Jim
Jones set up a mass suicide/murder situation among the people he led to the jungle
in Guyana, and a tape that somehow survived that day has him saying,
"I
tell you, I don't care how many screams you hear, I don't care how many
anguished cries...death is a million times preferable to 10 more days of this
life. If you knew what was ahead of you – if you knew what was ahead of
you, you'd be glad to be stepping over tonight."[1]
Jesus would never say
any such thing. Nor would he have had
anything in mind like Marshall Applewhite, the unhinged leader of the cult
called Heaven’s Gate, who in 1997 convinced thirty-nine people to put on black
track suits and Nikes, to eat applesauce laced with barbiturates, wash it down
with vodka, put plastic bags over their heads, and then lie down and cover up
with a purple cloth – because a comet visible in the sky at the time was hiding
a spaceship that was coming to collect their souls.[2] Nor would he have been like the Branch
Davidians in Waco, who held off the FBI for fifty-one days to protect David
Koresh from answering charges of child abuse.[3] Those are only three modern examples; there
are many more if you dig around, people who were overcome by their own demons
and dragged many others to their deaths with them.
Jesus never glorified death, and never sought it. The gospel of Matthew recounts how, in the
Garden of Gethsemane right before his arrest,
“he threw himself on the ground and
prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what
I want but what you want.’” [Matthew 26:39]
When soldiers arrived
to take him, he didn’t ask his disciples to fight to the death, or to fight at
all. Instead, he stepped up and,
“he asked them, ‘For whom are you
looking?’ And they said, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’ Jesus answered, ‘I
told you that I am he. So if you are looking for me, let these men
go.’”
[John 18:7-8]
The real Messiah is
very different from the false ones. He
gave his life for others, rather than ask others to give their lives to save
his.
Yet in asking for followers, people who walk in his
footsteps, he knew that there would be the possibility that those followers
would face the same dangers that he faced, even death. It would never be something to be sought, but
neither would it be something to be feared.
It is something to be avoided, but not at all costs.
Maybe it’s someone like a Liberian man named Foday Gallah
who was 37 when ebola broke out in the town where he drove an ambulance,
presenting him the choice to stay in the middle of the plague or leave for
safety. He stayed. Someone asked him about it and he said,
“I was trying to save a little boy, a little
child. And he survived. He survived. He is alive and well and doing great. He
is somewhere in Kakata. And that was my prayer. That was my wish. Even if I had
died of Ebola, I still have family, right? But that little boy lost his family.
His mother, his brother, his sister. Wiping away his entire family. But I kept
him alive. So all my efforts did not go in vain. I survived, and he survived.
I saw him [in the treatment unit]. I got there
two days before he was discharged. He was there. And I stayed there for two
weeks. He was my son there. He was always around me. I was very happy to see
him. I was very happy. Maybe he gave me the strength to live because all my
efforts [to save him] did not go in vain with that child.
I don’t regret picking him up, because I prayed
for his life, I wanted his life. And today he has his life. So I think I
achieved something: his life. At least that can be a representation of his
family. So there is one member of the family who survived.
I am going to go back in full swing. I am not
going to be afraid. I am going to walk in to fight Ebola with all of my might.
I would have died. A lot of people die. But in there I was treated, and cured,
and automatically that is the work of God, and I have built immunity to it, so
that is a gift.”[4]
This is someone who realized that, should he die, it would
not be for nothing. He did not seek his
cross, but his cross found him, and he took it up and followed. And he was only one of thousands, most of
whose stories have gone untold, though God has seen them and, one way or the
other, seen them through.
“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. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate
their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me
must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves
me, the Father will honor.” [John
12:24-26]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown#Deaths_in_Jonestown
[4] http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-ebola-caregivers/
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