We are almost to Holy Week in our Lenten journey. Today, on Palm Sunday, we are praising the Lord with “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the king of Israel!” (John 12:12-13) and walking into the Triumphal Entry and the paths of the cross with Jesus. The word “Hosanna” means “save us.” Jesus is not only the saviour for the people of Israel as the king of Israel but also the Messiah for all the people in this world as the King of kings. On Good Friday, we will reflect on the meanings of Christ’s passion, and on Easter Sunday, we will celebrate His resurrection.

Our primary scripture for today begins with some Greek people. They went to Jerusalem to participate in the Passover feast. After Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, many people went out to meet Him. When Jesus entered Jerusalem with His disciples, they gathered to praise Him, once again, as if He were their king. The disciples were extremely happy with Jesus’ popularity. Unlike them, some of the Pharisees were jealous and said to one another, “Look how the whole world has gone after him” (John 12:19). Jesus never traveled two or three hundred miles away from his hometown. He never wrote books, nor was He engaged in speaking assemblies. However, His influence was growing not only in Palestine but also in its neighboring areas.

I do not know where these Greeks came from or who they were. All I know is that they were coming to worship God at the temple and were drawn to Jesus. They approached Philip, seeking wisdom and knowledge in life, and were presented to Jesus: “Some Greek-speaking people would like to meet you.” Knowing Jesus and His popularity, they might have wanted to know how to heal the sick, perform miracles, or receive the secret to eternal life.

What was Jesus’ response? In verse 23 He says, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” The word hour does not refer to the service time at 10:00 am in the morning. The original language means “a point of time or a season when an appointed action is to begin.” In order for the Greeks, the disciples, and the remaining followers of Christ to understand this, Jesus illustrates a universal truth of God’s creation in verse 24. “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” Whenever Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you”, it signifies a profoundly important lesson that we must keep in mind with all our hearts. This lesson from a kernel of wheat may seem simple; however, it contains the most fundamental principle in God’s nature.

While preparing this part of today’s sermon, I wanted to find out what happened to kernels of wheat when they were planted into the ground and died. Have you ever seen a kernel of wheat? It is smaller than a peanut. In order for a seed to grow, it is first planted 2 or 3 centimeters below the ground. The seed will then root into the ground. It looks like the seed is decaying. When it dies, however, a green shoot of life begins from it. This is the most critical part. When the seed dies completely, it becomes nutrition for the shoot and stem. Without this process, the fruit cannot be produced. The seed has to be one hundred percent rotten, not ninety-nine percent. Thus, the rottenness of the seed is not a disappearance but a new creation or life which produces a lot of fruits from the seed. The seed of a kernel of wheat has huge potential. One piece of kernel may produce 100 to 125 kernels of wheat after four months. If we plant these again and again for five years, we may get 10,000,000,000 to 12,500,000,000 kernels. This amounts to 17,000 bags. In other words, when one hundred people eat the food produced by this one kernel of wheat three times per day, they can live for 68 years.

Here in this illustration for today, Jesus is speaking of Himself. He is the kernel of wheat. In the same way that a seed is planted and bore much fruit, Jesus was on His way to the cross to die, be buried, and resurrected to new life. His life falling on the ground and transformed as a ransom has given new lives to many people in this world (Mark 10:45). Jesus was confident that through His death, there was a resurrection of Him and that God would be glorified during this whole process. This profound statement was not only designed for the Greeks and the disciples, but also for all who follow Him today.

When God made human beings, He commanded us to follow in His footstep and explains in detail in verse 25 what He means by that: “Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” This is the central message of the Gospel. All four gospels present this truth. (Matt. 10:39, Mark 8:35, Luke 17:33).

Now the question we need to ask is the meaning of Jesus’ paradoxical statement. What does Jesus mean by hating our life? Does that mean that we engage in self-condemnation, or torture our bodies in various ways? Not at all! Remember that we are created in God’s image. Our body is the temple of God. So, what does Jesus mean by this ironic statement? “Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 13:25). In this verse, the word “life” appears three times. When used in the first and second instances, the word for “life” refers to “the human mind, ego, or self.” We Christians often call it “the fallen or sinful nature.” That is why we tend to seek our own selfish desires and pleasures. When used in the third time, the word for “life” with the adjective “eternal”, is translated to a life “everlasting and fruit-bearing.” So, the phrase “hate or love their life” in our text means loving or hating our sinful and selfish life.

In another Gospel, Jesus expands this meaning of hating our sinful life in a little bit more detail. “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves…” (Mark 8: 34). We as human beings tend to cling to our selfish life if we do not make an effort to avoid it. Following our sinful desires is something we often do naturally. In order to become a true disciple of Jesus, we need to think carefully about what hating our sinful nature means and need to work on it daily.

How can we deny ourselves and bear a lot of fruits? In Galatians 5:19-26, we are invited to consider the way we are living today. There are two different ways of life. One is known as “the acts of the sinful nature” and the other is called “the fruit of the Spirit.” When we do not hate our sinful nature and follow our sinful desires, we eventually produce bad fruits in life. Paul made a list including sexual immorality, idolatry, hatred, jealousy, drunkenness, and the like. We may be able to cover up these sinful behaviors before the people who are around us. However, one day all of these will be unveiled before the Lord, and the real problem we will face is His denial. What if God says to us, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” (Matt. 7: 23). On the contrary, there is another way to live. When we trust in the Lord with all our hearts, submit to Him in all our ways, we can have the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5: 22-23). With the help of the Holy Spirit, we must deny ourselves and die to sin again and again.

Now some of us may wonder and ask this kind of question: “Why does hating my sinful nature matter to me?” Those who are out there in the world are free to do whatever they want to do. “Why do I need to be bothered by Jesus’ teaching?” We can find a couple of answers from the last part of today’s holy text. In verse 26 Jesus said, “Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.” First, we need to do it because our Lord Jesus said so. Are we followers of Jesus Christ? Or, are we fans of Jesus Christ? There is a big difference. The main purpose of being a fan of a celebrity is for our enjoyment. We just need to have fun. That is almost everything we are required to do. As followers of someone or a cause, it is more serious. We are responsible for observing what we are taught and sharing it with others since we love them. Second, we need to think about where Jesus was and where He is now. Our Lord Jesus went to Gethsemane to pray, took up the cross, and went to the grave. After that, he was raised from the dead and now is sitting with the Father God Almighty. This leads us to the next point. God will honor anyone who serves Jesus. Are we excited about what happened to Jesus after the grave and what God was going to do after finishing His journey of faith? Of course, I believe that all of us here in this sanctuary or via Zoom are excited about our final destination. When we look at the world around us, we may be discouraged because of the things we have heard and seen, but as followers of Jesus, we must throw off everything that hinders us and run with our eyes fixed on Jesus who has already finished his journey of faith.

“In the First World War, there was a young French soldier who was seriously wounded…” Similarly, Jesus did not lose His life. Instead, He gave His precious life to save us from eternal death. Jesus had a strong desire to please and glorify God. When we look at Jesus’ public ministry, one crucial lesson we can find is that He wanted to glorify God in everything and in every circumstance. Jesus did not move by His own time schedule. Even though a lot of people were looking for and asking Him for His help, He told the disciples, “Let us go somewhere else – to the nearby villages – so I can preach there also. That is why I have come” (Mark 1:38). Before Jesus took Lazarus out of the tomb, He said to Martha, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God” (John 11: 40). He wanted her and all the people around her not only to see Lazarus become alive but also to experience the glory of God through the miracle. In John 17:1, Jesus prayed to God, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.” Here the phrase “the hour has come” meant that Jesus was going to be arrested, beaten, died, and buried. The main and first prayer request He had made was to glorify God even in His suffering. Jesus always had a burning desire to exalt God in the highest place.

Finally, do we hear how God responded to Jesus in verse 28 “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” God was so pleased with Jesus’ attitude and passion about this, and in turn, the Father God gave the Son Jesus Christ the name that is “above every name” (Philippians 2:8). Think again about what happened to Jesus on Good Friday. He was arrested and whipped. His body became fragile. He was nailed to the cross, lifted up, and died. And he was buried in a grave like a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil. We all remember that on the third day, on Easter Sunday, His body was raised to life and God is fully glorified like a farmer getting a full harvest.

One great lesson we have learned from today’s sermon is Jesus’ passionate, holy, and ongoing desire to make God His first and most priority. During the season of Lent, we need to ask ourselves again and again whether we put Jesus first in our daily lives. Once we surrender anew to Jesus, God will bless us with indescribable joy and peace. This means giving up all of our self-confidence and our willpower so that we can entrust God with our concerns and our problems. We also need to remember that Jesus Christ lived the life of a kernel of wheat. Even though He is God Himself, He gave up His glory of heaven and came into this world to serve sinners. He sacrificed everything of His being as the kernel of wheat for us so that we may receive forgiveness of our sins and eternal life. Friends, let us admit that we are not gods and we are just one of the kernels of Jesus’ wheat. When we follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, God will not only reward us in Heaven but also produce in us much fruit here on earth.

*In this sermon, I have used some thoughts and materials from various messages texted on the passage, John 12:20-33.