In last week’s discussion of John 3:14-21, we observed an
intriguing use of the verb “to lift up.” Jesus referred to the Son of Man’s
being “lifted up,” as a way of alluding to both his crucifixion and
glorification. Paradoxically, these two elements—Jesus’ shameful death and his
exaltation—go hand in hand. John 12:20-33 uses a similar juxtaposition that returns
to the same theme. In verse 23, Jesus proclaims, “The hour has come for the Son
of Man to be glorified,” and as he speaks further about glorification, he says,
“when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself” (verse
32).
Just as these apparent contradictions somehow belong
together, Jesus now speaks of death as the necessary prerequisite for new life,
for resurrection: “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” (verse
24). It would be easy to think that Jesus here refers only to the necessity of his
own death and the promise of his resurrection, but unfortunately for us, this
word applies not only to Jesus but to those who seek to follow him as well.
There’s a frequently quoted line from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar that states: “Cowards die many times before their deaths;/ The valiant
never taste of death but once.” I think Jesus may disagree with Shakespeare on
this one, for the death required of us may not simply be a physical death, and we may
die all sorts of deaths throughout our lives. These deaths may include the end
of a career, a broken relationship, or the loss of status or wealth. The
radical message of Jesus is that it is through deaths such as these that we
might find new life, or to paraphrase Father Richard Rohr, when we fail or fall,
we might learn to fall upwards, even if that’s sometimes difficult to believe. |
