TRANSFORMING DEATH (14 OF 49)
Scripture: John 12:20-33
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Transforming Death (14 of 49)
Series: Lectionary, Year B, Lent 05
Christopher B. Harbin
John 12:20-33
We live amid a conflicting mix of thoughts, concepts, emotions, and realities. We talk about death with finality, but also as a pathway to a continued existence. We talk about work as the essential use of our time and energy, but also about retirement from work as the goal of working. We talk about loving our neighbors but also about protecting ourselves, our turf, and our possessions against use by others. We talk about greed, generosity, death, life, work, and leisure at the same time, rarely pausing to grasp how the ways we deal with those concepts might reveal inner conflicts. How can we begin to view death as an avenue of transformation while clinging to contrary notions and competing values?
At first glance, Jesus’ words here seem incoherent, for they are at odds with so many of our prized positions on life, wealth, well-being, and how we should live. It would almost seem he was encouraging suicide as a means to gain immortality. We are hard-pressed to make any more sense of these words than Jesus’ original audience. In what sense does one embrace death with the prospect of gaining some stronger hold on life? There has to be more to these words than meets the eye if they are to make any real sense. Either Jesus had some other working definitions of these terms, or we should be questioning why John recorded them at all.
My faith traditions tell me to process Jesus’ words in spiritual terms related to eternity. That is the only interpretation of these words I have ever been given. “Die to material concerns that we might live beyond death in a spiritual reality beyond this earthly plane.” As tempting as that interpretation is, it would have made no sense to Jesus’ audience. It could not have made sense to them. Jesus had never before, at least in John’s gospel, addressed our concept of life in the heavenly realm in God’s presence on the other side ...
Series: Lectionary, Year B, Lent 05
Christopher B. Harbin
John 12:20-33
We live amid a conflicting mix of thoughts, concepts, emotions, and realities. We talk about death with finality, but also as a pathway to a continued existence. We talk about work as the essential use of our time and energy, but also about retirement from work as the goal of working. We talk about loving our neighbors but also about protecting ourselves, our turf, and our possessions against use by others. We talk about greed, generosity, death, life, work, and leisure at the same time, rarely pausing to grasp how the ways we deal with those concepts might reveal inner conflicts. How can we begin to view death as an avenue of transformation while clinging to contrary notions and competing values?
At first glance, Jesus’ words here seem incoherent, for they are at odds with so many of our prized positions on life, wealth, well-being, and how we should live. It would almost seem he was encouraging suicide as a means to gain immortality. We are hard-pressed to make any more sense of these words than Jesus’ original audience. In what sense does one embrace death with the prospect of gaining some stronger hold on life? There has to be more to these words than meets the eye if they are to make any real sense. Either Jesus had some other working definitions of these terms, or we should be questioning why John recorded them at all.
My faith traditions tell me to process Jesus’ words in spiritual terms related to eternity. That is the only interpretation of these words I have ever been given. “Die to material concerns that we might live beyond death in a spiritual reality beyond this earthly plane.” As tempting as that interpretation is, it would have made no sense to Jesus’ audience. It could not have made sense to them. Jesus had never before, at least in John’s gospel, addressed our concept of life in the heavenly realm in God’s presence on the other side ...
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