Accompany Him

A Reflection on the Gospel for March 21st, 2021:
Fifth Sunday of Lent

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​John
12.20-33

Among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 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. The person who loves their life loses it, and the person who hates 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 honour.

“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. Father, glorify your name.”

Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An Angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.
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Pause. Pray.

And then read more...

​We are edging closer to Easter. Jesus is proclaiming the truth about Himself and the days to come. It’s an uncomfortable truth. A truth so inconvenient that Al Gore would squirm. The Son of Man is preparing to offer up His life, to die. He’s telling His disciples what to look for in the coming days. What sort of death is in store for Him.
 
He is also signalling to them what His death would accomplish. He is the grain of wheat, buried in the dirt so that it can bear fruit. He will be lifted up – He will draw all people to Himself.
 
While it’s easy as the inheritors of over 2000 years of tradition to gloss over these parts – the prediction of a Passion we have played out and remembered every Easter since the first one – we should be deeply unsettled. Our God not only suffered, died, and came back from the dead, He told us point blank that whoever serves Him must follow Him. That means we too must join Him on the long, arduous walk of the Passion.
 
To be clear, we are called to accompany Christ in the clearest sense of the word. Not just to observe, but to get into the dust with Him, to endure our own suffering and die our own death alongside Him. As we enter into Easter, we have the opportunity to reflect on the Passion and see where Christ is calling us to join Him.
 
More importantly, we have the opportunity to reflect on who we are called to be in our own suffering and death. Jesus shows us the way, but also how we are to walk that way. We are called to serve the Lord in fullness, with faithfulness in all things to the end. We are to reject the temptation to avoid our own suffering when it is necessary.
 
But that perfect, Christ-like approach to the Passion doesn’t belong to me properly, it’s something that is Christ’s. I am incapable of running up to the Cross and stretching my hands out to endure my own death. But Christ promised us He would send us the Holy Spirit – and through the power of the Holy Spirit I can become more and more Christ-like. I can become open to my Cross and even bear the Cross with Him according to Christ’s example. Without the Spirit, I am prone to wander, prone to fight, prone to flee.
 
To receive the Holy Spirit in fullness, we need to make room. We need to empty ourselves of our own feeble powers to make space for the expansive, stretching, comforting, purifying power of the Holy Spirit.
 
Jesus has shown us the way. The Holy Spirit enables us to be like Christ. All for the Glory of God.




Stephanie Potter

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