The Fifth Sunday of Lent 

"The Hour Has Come - To Follow Jesus"

The Rev. Stephen Elkins-Williams

It is easy to miss the significance of the pivotal passage we just heard in John’s Gospel, if we do not see it in its context. We must remember that in his earlier chapters, the evangelist has told us repeatedly that Jesus’ hour had not yet come. At the wedding in Cana, when his mother tells Jesus that they have run out of wine, he responds to her that his “hour has not yet come” (2:4). Several times after that, when attempts are made to arrest Jesus, we hear that they did not succeed because his “hour had not yet come” (7:30, 8:20), a recurring phrase.

But now the response to Jesus’ teaching and miracles has been growing and growing, and after people learn that he raised his friend Lazarus to life after four days in the tomb, their interest in him reaches dramatic proportions. In the verse immediately preceding today’s Gospel passage, the Pharisees moan resignedly to one another, “You see that you can do nothing; look, the world has gone after him.”

Now follow along with me in your bulletins if you will. To make very clear that indeed the whole world is going after Jesus – and remember that is why Jesus came, because “God so loved the world that he sent his only-begotten Son” (John 3:14) – John tells us that “among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks.” These non-Jews represent the world beyond the chosen people. When they seek out Philip and then Andrew to say, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus,” it is the sign Jesus has been waiting for. He now realizes in this climactic declaration in our passage, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” Because the world, represented by these Greek “seekers” (to use a modern term), is now responding to Jesus, it is time for him to let go of his life that he might find it and to find it not merely for himself, but for the whole world.

Liturgically then, this sets the stage for us for the events of Holy Week, which we will celebrate beginning next Sunday, Palm Sunday. We will hear Mark’s retelling of Jesus’ suffering and death, now that his hour has come following the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. On Maundy Thursday we will focus on the moving story of Jesus’ washing of his disciples’ feet and his gift to us of the Eucharist. On Good Friday we will follow today’s Gospel passage with John’s version of Jesus’ crucifixion and death, and then at the Easter Vigil and on Easter Day, we will joyfully celebrate Jesus’ resurrection bringing new life to the whole world.

If you ever go to church, these are the minimum services you should participate in. In these eight days which we call Holy Week, and particularly in the five which have unique services attached to them, we relive in a powerful way the core of our Christian faith. Through the scripture readings and actions and prayers and music of these climactic services of the liturgical year, we immerse ourselves in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and we give thanks and praise to God for this amazing life-giving mystery.
But perhaps even more, since we are to praise God not only with our lips but in our lives, we are strengthened and inspired to follow and serve Jesus, especially through the dying we encounter in our lives. Notice in our Gospel passage (if you are still following), right after Jesus declares that his hour has now come, he speaks a deep underlying truth: “Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” He is speaking about his own death here and the life-giving fruit that will come from it. But he is also revealing the truth of our lives, a truth that is counter-intuitive, that it is only in following Jesus by letting go of our lives that we will find true and lasting life.

One author puts it this way, “Death followed by resurrection, life through dying, is the way things are. It is not a truth limited to the one event of Christ’s death and resurrection, nor does it affect us only when we approach the end of our lives. It is the principle of all existence. Hang on to what you have of life and you are lost. Let go, do the necessary dying, and a fuller, richer quality of aliveness will be given to you” (John V. Taylor, Weep Not for Me for the World Council of Churches, 1986).

You do not have to go looking for this dying; it will find you. When you lose someone very close to you, when your job disappears beneath you, when your health becomes unreliable, when your heart breaks for someone else’s suffering, when someone you trust lets you down, when your financial security is no longer so secure, when the discouragements of life and basic loneliness threaten to overwhelm you, unite yourself to the sufferings of Jesus. Know that he has been there before you and is there with you. Remember his invitation in today’s Gospel, “If any one serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there shall my servant be also.” As we prepare to enter into the sacred, life-changing liturgies of Holy Week, let Jesus speak to you and accompany you and help you to take up your cross and follow him.

John 12: 20-33