John 12:20-33
Jeremiah promises that we shall no longer ask to know the Lord; “…they shall all know me, from least to greatest.” John’s Gospel like the others, but more systematically, is a process of revelation; it is the story that tells us how we can come to know God and see what that means for our lives.
Jonathan Sacks, in The Great Partnership the book studied by the Study Centre last year, distinguishes two great traditions of thought which we in the West, at least have used to explain the world, and so too to know God. There is the scientific and empirical tradition of thinking which has its origins in the Ancient Greeks and the Jewish Hebrew tradition, which is more elliptical and allusive, explaining by story and imagery, allowing a whole picture to emerge rather than employing a usually dialectical progression. The Greek tradition typically starts with Plato’s accounts of Socrates’ conversations, although they are not, in fact, anything like as straight forward as they initially appear; the point is usually more in how Socrates’ interlocutors fail to answer the question. They are not so different from the Rabbis’ stories as ways of explaining the world and searching for what it means to know God.
John’s Gospel uses and mixes both traditions; there are dialogues and speeches, and there are, sort of, stories. Like Plato’s, the dialogues are full of misunderstanding and irony and they mix the banally mundane with extraordinary spiritual observation in the same sentence. There are no obvious stories, no parables in John, but the accounts of the miracles which Jesus performs, the “Signs”, are artfully constructed dramas and always tell us a great deal more than the magic on the surface.
What do those signs, these cunningly contrived stories, tell us? They tell us, I think, that something powerful is at work in the World, bringing in a new order; one of abundance as the new vintage overflows at Cana in Galilee; one of new knowledge and a new Law as 5000 are fed on a few loaves and fishes; one of enlightenment and vision as a man blind from birth is made to see, while the learned authorities remain in the dark. And finally, one of new creation, as Jesus reveals himself as the resurrection, the master of life over death, as he raises Lazarus from the dead in a story which echoes the first creation of life, as Jesus shouts into the tomb, imposing his word on the stinking chaos, as God did on the formless tangled void. Raising Lazarus is the last and most momentous sign, it is also the most disturbing; disturbing, and the last straw, for the authorities and disturbing for us; reversing death sets a dangerous precedent. Without death there can be no generation and regeneration. Quite simply without death there can be no life, in a physical sense. And that is, I think, the real point of the miracle or sign. It is through death, through the acceptance of mortality and engagement with the physical world, in the knowledge that there is something beyond, that we can become truly alive. So it is that the grain of wheat must die before it can germinate; we must accept, and submit to, our human limitations, our mortality, as Jesus does, before we can realise our greater destiny.
But to get back to the Greeks, the ones who approach Philip whom they presumably, suppose to be sympathetic, because of his name. Philip goes to Andrew and together they approach Jesus. These protective circles around Jesus remind us of his actual situation. It is dangerous. He was warned not to re-enter Judea before setting off to raise Lazarus, and as the story progresses we see just how right those warnings were. The world is indeed hostile and deadly and it is closing in. These Greeks want to see Jesus, and we suppose, talk to him, to see some evidence and perhaps to engage in something like a Socratic dialogue to hear what he has to say and to learn who he is. There is however, no debate, only outbursts from Jesus and an outburst from heaven. Even these are puzzling and must have seemed so to those who witnessed them (indeed, some think the heavenly voice was just thunder and we are told shortly after our passage ends that some still did not believe, although the reason for their disbelief was fear of the authorities).
Perhaps what Jesus has to say and what his life and death have to tell us can only be expressed in metaphor, in stories, symbols and signs. The imagery which the Greeks, the bystanders and we, actually get reflects the tense situation. Glorification is coming but at the price of death, but not even at the price of death, because the death itself will show God’s glory. Whatever else may be unclear, what is obvious is that Jesus is talking about his own death, by crucifixion, and the human in him fears that vividly.
Somehow, and somewhat paradoxically given that it is the local authorities who will condemn Jesus, this death, he says, will drive out the rulers of this world. More paradoxical still is that this victory over the power of this world will be achieved by subservience to it, by submitting passively to its authority.
In John’s Gospel Jesus talks about eternal life, and Glory, where in the other Gospels we hear about the Kingdom of Heaven. I confess, I find the idea of the Kingdom of Heaven a great deal more accessible, although it has its difficulties too; like the eternal life that John’s Jesus talks about, the kingdom seems to be at the same time something we need to work for, something in the future, and yet also something that has arrived, and that is the Good News. Both eternal life and Kingdom are places or states, of abundance, a new Law and Justice, of enlightenment and above all of full and meaningful Life that has escaped the restrictions of this world and inevitable mortality.
It escapes the restrictions of this world, however, only by accepting and submitting to them. To be like Christ we must serve him: “whoever serves me must follow me and where I am there will my servant be also.” That place is surely here and now and the service he requires for us to know him is, essentially, to be kind, just and loving in the way that he was in his earthly existence. I have said the Signs are metaphorical, but they are real too and noticeably based in every case on Christ’s human emotion, of pity, concern and sorrow. They are his reaction to the need around him.
To be Christ-like, to enjoy eternal life or to bring about the kingdom, we too need to respond to human and worldly need, not, I hope, for any of us to do so unto death, but in our everyday lives (and not forgetting that for many Christians elsewhere, the realities are very much grimmer than for us) We remain in this world, but need not be of it; and that way, the way of service, we shall I think come to know God, as Jeremiah promised we would. Amen.