– We continue our Lenten journey in John’s Gospel. We’re almost there, this is the last Sunday before Palm Sunday.
We noticed last time that John’s Gospel is the Gospel that insists the most on Jesus’s divinity and yet there is this paradox that it also dwells a lot on Jesus’s emotions and feelings. We often assume that Jesus had feelings because “he was human after all”, but with John we may want to start to consider that maybe it’s the other way around: Maybe human beings have feelings because we have something divine inside of us. Holiness is not about being unmovable, unshakable, on the contrary with Jesus we learn that holiness is also being able to be touched, to experience compassion – a feeling that the Gospels (not only John’s) mention very often.
– I am reminding us of this because the passage we have just heard discloses a lot of Jesus’s inner life at a crucial time. Actually, John mentions this is THE time, Jesus’s time, Jesus’s hour. Before this very passage, we have at least five references to “Jesus’s hour”, an hour yet to come says John, but now this is it. We are four days away from the crucifixion. Jesus is facing his death, and he is very aware of that.
Some commentators calls this passage a soliloquy (that is a monologue), assuming that Jesus talks to himself. It’s true that it’s not really a prayer, Jesus mentions the Father but he speaks to him quite indirectly. In the same way, he talks to his disciples but it’s clear he does not expect an answer. So that could be a monologue indeed, but to me it sounds more like a confession. Jesus is pouring his heart out in his time of trial and offers to us a striking meditation on death – actually part of this passage is often read for funerals.
So what does Jesus say about death?
+ Death is scary, and dying feels unfair and unjustified.
As we mentioned before, we see in this passage that Jesus is troubled and he imagines he could ask to be rescued from having to die (even if he decides against it). So the first thing I notice is that it’s actually not a lack of faith to be afraid of death. Now I have met some people who have made peace with it (and Jesus will reach this point later in the Gospel), but we certainly see that fear in front of death is natural, animals are afraid of dying too (at least afraid of violent death) and it’s also, as we say, “human” to be afraid.
The thing is, with the reversal John operates, it looks like there is also something holy in the fear of death. The least we can say is that fearing death is a sign of wisdom, the shadow of the fear of God. Wisdom starts when we acknowledge our finitude and realize we are not in charge and can’t save ourselves. Again, there are people who are not afraid because they are at peace with death, but most of the time when you hear someone say they don’t fear death, you can be pretty sure it’s because they haven’t thought this through, they live in an illusion of control and eternity.
Psalm 90:12 Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
It can be hard to know what it is exactly that we are afraid of when we are afraid of death (fear of suffering, of dying alone, fear of hell…) but Jesus went through it all, and again – not because he was a coward or just weak, or just human after all, but because he understood what a gift life is and how much we depend on God. Death as we know it is not God’s plan, if we love God we love life and don’t wish to die.
+ Then we can notice that if Jesus experiences all the fear, yet he pities people who cling to life, even adding that it can be foolishness to ask for God’s rescue. According to this passage, to pray to be saved from death can be foolish.
Now that’s interesting because most of the time we assume that it takes great faith to continue to pray for rescue, even in desperate situations. Well, we are right to pray, for wisdom, strength but maybe not for rescue. For Jesus, it’s clear that death is inevitable. So should we pray for acceptance? That’s what he did. When the hour came. There is a sense in John that Jesus had different “hours”, an hour to do the work (first part of the gospel) and an hour to die (second part of the book). Is it the same for us?
I have heard many testimonies of dying people saying it increases their suffering when they are not given authorization to let go. Their close ones keep on telling them that they have to fight when they clearly cannot continue to fight…It looks like there is a time to fight, but there is also a time to stop fighting (a lot of dying patients express relief when they stop treatment). Our world teaches us to cling to life, to cling to our youth etc. but there is something about it that can only increase our sufferings and despair.
Jesus shows us that it isn’t how nature works, using a very simple image: What would you think of a seed who would want to be a seed for ever? If a seed had a mind of its own it would probably be afraid to be buried and to burst out. And yet, what if it could understand it would become a plant? Imagine a baby in his mother’s womb who never wants to be born.
For this reason, clinging to life or to life as we know it can lead to death. That’s in this context that we can best understand Jesus’s famous saying: Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. What Jesus says is that paradoxically not dying is truly dying. We know that when we don’t want things to change in our lives- it feels good at the beginning, comforting, but then we realize we’re stuck. Frozen. Not really alive anymore and on our own.
+ From there, Jesus teaches that death is the opposite of being alone.
In the Hebrew Bible, there is certainly this sense that when we die and are cut off from the land of the living, we experience great loneliness. And it’s certainly an image we have in mind quite naturally: dying is to leave all the people we love. Yet Jesus offers us another comparison. He says that indeed the seed becomes nourishment for the plant, so it is poured out, and yet there is a sense that the seed does not disappear, the seed becomes the plant, actually the plant was in the seed all along. It’s very different from our modern thinking: When we think about the cycle of life we imagine that a living being disappears, becomes food so another individual can live. But God’s plan is that our death lead us to become fully who we are meant to be. For Jesus, it’s by dying that we can become fully alive, bearing much fruit.
Now we don’t know about our own death, but we can certainly observe that in his death, Jesus was given to all. Not just seen, encountered by a few ones, but as he prophetized, lifted up and drawing all people to himself.It’s fascinating that Jesus compares himself to a grain of wheat if you think about it. Not only it is fantastic that he has this kind of humility, but we also know that one of the most important ways Jesus is present to us is through the bread, in the Eucharist. If he was indeed a grain of wheat, he hasn’t stopped multiplying himself and giving fruit over two thousands years all over the world.
We also say that when we celebrate communion, not only we are in communion with Jesus but also with all the saints. In dying, we are raised again to a new life where we are reunited to a multitude of people and creatures, we aren’t trapped in our individuality the way we are in this life. Difficult to say more, but that’s what we can deduce from this text.
+ Jesus teaches that death comes when the Father decides.
It’s reassuring in a way, thinking that death isn’t random. In the same way that you have to plant at the right season, to give birth when it’s time, we tend to believe that God calls us back when we are ready, when it’s our time. I read testimonies of soldiers on the battle field who said it helped them tremendously to cling to this belief. But if we believe that God decides about “our hour”, it also reminds us that we cannot decide to end our own lives or the lives of others – at least we have to be very, very careful about that kind of decisions. What we call tragedy is not so much death than untimely death.
Now are there death that aren’t allowed by God? That are truly untimely? We all know people who have passed away way before we think they should have, and so it was for Jesus who died very young and in a very violent way. And yet it was his hour, so that’s a paradox.
The way I see it is that certainly God refuses for us to use death as a power on others (by using violence, threat), that’s actually what Satan does. In this passage, Satan is trying to destroy Jesus, using the violence and the rejection of men. In the end though, Satan won’t succeed. Satan uses the power of death to bring fear, desperation, rebellion against God but God is more powerful. In Jesus, God overcomes death not by avoiding death but by walking through the fire. The cross is the sign of Satan’s defeat.
Jesus said to Julian of Norwich: I havemade well the greatest harm…(his death) I shall make well all that is less (her death). The worst is over (Satan’s attack on the cross). And we know even if a death seems completely meaningless, with time and faith we often end up finding hope. Jesus is with us through it all: Where I am, there will my servant be also.
+ In the end, Jesus teaches that death in this world isn’t eternal death. Did Jesus pray to be rescued or refused to pray to be rescued? Evangelists disagree on that. But they all agree that in the end, request was granted above anything that could be fathomed. Not only Jesus overcame his death, but death itself. Jesus teaches us that the best response we can give to death is love, trust (faith) and hope. That’s how we glorify God.
So what can we make of it today, concretely? Well, Lent is this time where we learn how to die…
We glorify God in our lives but we can also glorify God through our death and our Daily dying. So often, we want to glorify God through our accomplishments, but we do even better when we offer our limitations, our renunciations, our sacrifices. We don’t do it to obtain something but to find true life in him.
Example: Theme of Lent this year is Forgiveness. Forgiveness is certainly a little death. Dying to the desire of being right, being vindicated, of finding restitution. (Tell my story). And yet, we can all experience that forgiveness brings new freedom, new life, new love. We are not alone anymore.