Our text today that is offered to the Church, as the Church is asked to reflect upon it on this fifth Sunday of Lent, is from the gospel writer, John 12, beginning with verse 20. Please know that as we share this Scripture and reflect on this Scripture, millions if not a billion Christians somewhere in the world today will be listening to these very same words, and lifting up thoughts and prayers in reflection. Here begins the reading.

 

 

 

 

 

This is the Word of the Lord for us this day.

 

The fifth Sunday of Lent – six weeks as we move in the direction of Easter. Next Sunday is Palm Sunday. It’s hard to believe. Isn’t it? 

 

I tried to think of a way to help us get into this text today. It’s a powerful text. Perhaps this will help.

 

If you are new with us today, if you have never been to Broadway Christian Church, chances are you did not know Bill Bower. Bill was part of the community of faith here at Broadway. A couple weeks ago Bill died. Please know that with complete respect I say these words. A week ago Wednesday, we planted Bill Bower. Do you know what I’m talking about?

 

You see… Christians at such times as these feel like we are planting seeds rather than burying a body. For us, a memorial service is often as much a beginning as it is an ending. We bury a life in the earth and find what strength we can, and often wait for a long season of grief and loss, which is normal and natural, to pass. But then we also see one day a seed sprouts. One day we look and see a legacy breaking through the surface. At first it seems just like a single leaf, maybe like some of the things you are seeing in your own gardens nowadays. Then something that looks like a stalk grows up, reaches toward the sky, looking for sunlight and air, and it keeps on growing and growing until at just the right moment it bears fruit. It’s ripe. It’s ready. That little grain. That little seed put in the ground, over time, is ready now to feed the lives of those who are left behind. Isn’t that amazing? So normal, so natural, so cyclical, so basic, so foundational. Yet, for many people in our culture and around the world it is a foreign idea.

 

A guy in our neighborhood has a bumper sticker on his pickup that says, “No Farmers: No Food.” Actually I think it is more basic than that. If there aren’t any seeds, there is no food. “No Seeds: No Food.” “Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, unless it germinates, sprouts, buds, becomes what it was intended to become, it remains only a single seed.” 

 

Much of the world measures life, does it not, by the years that we live? How old are we? What have we produced? What kind of fruit have we produced while being here?

 

In the Broadway musical Rent, you hear a theme song that goes something like this:

 

The name of the song: “Seasons of Love.”

 

In our text today, Jesus says that life is measured by the legacy it leaves behind. Hear that. Life, for Jesus, is measured by the legacy we leave behind. Every life that has ever lived, in the time we are given to live it, has within it the very stuff that one day could produce a legacy that could feed the lives of all those who are going to come behind us, if that person, if we together dare to freely offer it.

 

The question today: What will be the legacy of your life? What fruit will the seed that is your life, my life… What fruit will it bear once it is finally planted in the ground?

 

You see… Jesus wants us to know that those who seek to be like him in this world will see our lives as holy seeds. It’s a great image. Holy seeds, that one day will be planted, will be put back in the earth in order that they might be germinated, sprout, bud, bear fruit. That they might give a harvest of grain – tons of wheat – for those who are going to come after us. “Unless a kernel of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single seed. But if it dies, if it does what it was created to do, it bears much fruit.”

 

The seed, of course, that Jesus was talking about was his own life. What he was saying is what the Church has proclaimed for over 2,000 years. Yes, Jesus was a very fascinating man who lived a very amazing and interesting life, three years of which has been preserved for us in the gospels. 

 

Everybody is making movies and writing books today about other times and places. None of them know. We don’t know. All we know is what the gospels tell us. While he did have an amazing life, an awesome, mysterious, mind-boggling life, it was, in fact, rather small and fleeting compared to the eternal legacy that would be left behind by his death. Not his life, but his death. 

 

His life was a seed. When it fell into the ground at the tender age of 33, it produced some amazing, unique fruit called salvation. It was fruit called healing. It was fruit called new life, new possibilities. It is now and eternal for everybody who is willing to receive it. That’s the legacy, folks. That’s the legacy that you and I get to inherit as the children of God.

 

In our text today, we see Jesus’ life at a crossroads. We’re at Chapter 12. He gets to Jerusalem, and he knows he is wearing a bull’s eye on his back. He’s a marked man. His days are numbered. Why are they numbered? They are numbered because simply Jesus brought the Way, the Truth, and the Life of God to the people, and that always causes problems.

 

“I have come,” he said, “that they might have life and have it in all of its abundance, all of its fullness” (John 10:10).

 

To share life, to tell the truth, to make justice happen, to feed the hungry, to heal the sick, to refuse to participate in violence and dominance. And that necessarily, by definition, leads to conflict. It leads to conflict and confrontation with those who are in authority, whether it is within the church, or whether it is within the state. That conflict, as you know, breaks things up. It causes breaks in friends and families. People lose careers, and health, and wealth to name just a very few of the mild forms of crosses that Christians carry.

 

Here we are in Chapter 12 in the Gospel of John. Jesus has to make a decision. You know what that decision is. Either he backs off and lives, or he walks right into the conflict with the genuine likelihood that he is going to lose his life. He knows this. One choice. Preserve what he has and live for a little while longer or make a ton of wheat. Feed people like you and me today.

 

The way John tells it, not Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but the way John tells it, this is a decision that causes Jesus really not a great deal of anguish. As we all know, looking at it from this side, Jesus freely chose to do what he believed in his heart of hearts was what he was sent here to do – to love God and to bring life. In fact, he loved God and his mission more than he loved life itself. He knew he could either save his life and lose his legacy, or he could give it up in order to make a legacy. It all comes down to that choice. 

 

It’s a hard choice. It’s hard for us to hear. It’s hard for us to talk about. One single choice that he and all of his followers ever since have to make over, and over, and over again – self-preservation or self-offering. A choice between hanging on to the things the world thinks are important, or letting go of those things in order to inherit something far greater.

 

Now folks, I have to tell you I have known people who have made the first choice, and I have known people who have chosen the latter. I’ve sat with many of them in the last days of their lives, and I have buried many of them. You can generally tell which choice they have made by the peace with which they face the end of their days. The truth is not every life leaves a legacy that feeds, that heals, that helps, that builds up, that blesses. We have a lot of people who leave burdens, not blessings, but burdens that never seem to be lifted off the backs of those who grieve them and have known them and loved them. 

 

I have buried the dead in the presence of no one else but the grounds keeper. I’ve buried the dead in the presence of the faithful to celebrate a life that counts for something beyond which this world can give meaning. 

 

I have learned, over the years, that the legacy that anybody leaves is going to cost him or her something. Just like it cost Jesus something. It may not be your life. It was for Jesus. It may not be for you, but I can guarantee you it will cost you a part of your life. Something that, once you give it up, can never be taken back. Something that is so costly that the legacy it produces is going to be priceless and irrevocable. You know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about your time. I’m talking about your talents. I’m talking about your passions, your life’s work, your dreams, your plans, your money, your stuff. Yes.  But more than that, your hearts, and your souls. 

 

Jesus seems to think that if you love these things, if you cling to those things so tightly that you cannot, or you will not, or you do not offer them freely to the world, then you may, indeed, live for a little while, but chances are you probably never got around to really living. 

 

Jesus was not the only one, as you know, in the Bible or the history of the Church to choose self-offering as opposed to self-preservation. We’re talking about obedience here, folks. We’re talking about sacrifice. We’re talking about the blood of the martyrs of the faith. 

 

The list is long. Stephen. Do you remember him? The first deacon found in Scripture. Out there in front of all the people proclaiming the difference between the old faith and the new faith. His audience became so furious. Do you remember what they did to him? They stoned him to death. The first martyr of the Christian faith.

 

Saul had a brilliant, successful career in the synagogue. But in order to become Paul and to preach Christ, he had to make a choice. That choice led to five public whippings, three public beatings with rods. The Scripture says it. One public stoning, two shipwrecks, imprisonment, arrests, a serious illness, and eventually just disappearance. He’s never heard of again. No one has any idea what happened to him. And yet, here you and I sit today in church, in a worshiping, serving community of faith because Paul’s little seed produced a great harvest, a legacy. You and I inherited it. You and I and millions, even billions, someday, maybe even today will inherit it.

 

The list is long, folks. It’s a glorious list. All those names of all those people, in all those times and places who have been ready to suffer all kinds of ill treatment for the sake of Jesus Christ. Let’s make it real clear here. We’re not talking about just suffering. Everybody suffers. It’s the reason for the suffering that matters. 

 

The list is long. Listen to it. Just a few. Polycarp, Ignatius, Valentine, Justin, Perpetua, Felicity, Thomas More, Thomas Becket, St. Catherine, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Oscar Romero, Martin Luther King Jr., Ida Ford, Agnes Chang, Steven Bieka, just to name a few. “Unless the seed fall into the ground and die…”

 

Folks, the seeds of our Christian ancestors have given us our lives of faith. We need to remember that. We need to celebrate it. I sit in awe of them. I bow my head. I am not worthy, and I don’t know anyone worthy to even to begin to untie the thongs of their sandals.

 

The question today: What will be the legacy of your life? What self-offering are you going to make, will you make that will provide a harvest of wheat for others?

 

I thought about that this week. I thought of several people. I thought of a friend who recently walked away from a very high-paying, very-successful career, because it seems that he woke up one day and he realized he loved his wife and his four children more than the practice that kept him away from them. After eating the Bread of Life at the communion table, he and his family made some new choices about his life and about their life together. They have created something brand new, and they are going to live it out together. He has planted a seed, folks. He’s building a legacy, and it’s costing him. It’s costing him something.

 

I think of Louise Hassinger. She grew up in this church. This is a gal who has a 4.0-degree in accounting from the University of Missouri. She went to Afghanistan at the beginning of the war. Some of you remember that. She was so taken by so many people there who had lost their limbs. She came back to the United States and earned a degree in prosthesis. She plans to return to Afghanistan soon. Her parents are very afraid. She has planted a seed, though. She is building a legacy. And it has, and it will cost her something.

 

I think of George Garner. He didn’t even know I was going to say this today. He’s sitting on the front row. I think of Jack Miles. I think of many, many of you in this room who have poured your talent, your time, your heart, your money, your soul for nearly 50 years in building up the Body of Christ in this place so that people could come and worship, so that children could be taught the Scriptures, so that youth could have a safe place to develop, where hundreds and hundreds of people can “Grow in Christ.” [Pointing to the big banner hanging in the sanctuary…] We get reminded of that every time we walk into this place. It’s a place where we can serve the Spirit of the Living God. A seed has been planted. A legacy is being built. And it costs. It has cost, and it will cost you and them something.

 

So, what’s going to be your legacy? What’s going to be the legacy of your life? What self-offering are you going to freely make, that part of your life you are going to choose to let go of for the sake of Jesus Christ. A seed, that if planted, is going to provide a harvest.

 

“I tell you the truth,” said Jesus, “unless that seed falls into the ground and dies, it will just remain a single seed. But, if it dies and produces many seeds, a plentiful harvest; anyone one who hangs on to his life is going to lose it, and everyone who lets go of his life is going to preserve it into eternity.”

 

This is the Word of the Lord for us this day.

 

And we all say together… “Amen.”

 

 

God of the Fields, thank you for lifting us up out of the darkness. Thank you for creating us to be so much more! You renew us with hope and possibility. You make us radiant in the light of your love. Amen.