Gospel Notes by Michael Whelan SM
Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.
“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. (John 12:20–33 – NRSV).
Introductory notes
General
This incident is unique to John. The express desire of “some Greeks” – indicating the wider world beyond Judaism – to “see” Jesus, contrasts with “the Jews” (ie religious authorities) who keep wanting him out of their sight. The moment also provides the occasion for Jesus to speak of the “glory of God” that will be manifest in his “being lifted up”. This is in fact the very heart of the Jesus Story as far as John is concerned. The work of evil, darkness, the lie will be overcome. All we need do is believe in him.
It is worth noting that this passage in John follows immediately on Jesus’ “triumphant” entry into Jerusalem, when the people line the route shouting “Hosanna!”. In Luke’s account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem the multitude shouts, “Glory in the highest.” – see Luke 19:38. The “glory” and “glorification”/”exaltation” John has in mind is something different and when it is manifest, the people will be so absorbed in the horror of his death, they will miss the truth of what is happening before their eyes. They will come to see and believe later.
Specific
some Greeks: John could be referring to those Jews from the Diaspora who speak Greek. “They came to Philip” – Philip is a common Greek Name. The fact that there had been a translation of the Hebrew version of the Torah into Greek since the 3rd century, indicates what a significant group these Greek-speakers were. Legend has it that 72 Jewish scholars – six from each of the twelve tribes – were asked by the Greek King of Egypt, Ptolemy II, to produce a Greek text of the Torah. According to the legend, they took 72 days to do that. Whatever the truth in the legend, that text has come down to us as the Septuagint – from the Latin word Septuaginta, meaning “seventy”. Other books of the Hebrew Bible were translated in Greek later. St Paul – quoting from memory or text – always cites the Septuagint when he refers to the Hebrew Bible.
The fact that they “went up to worship at the festival” suggests these Greek-speakers are practicing Jews. In John “the Jews” are hostile to Jesus. In fact, there is an extended section at the end of this very chapter in which Jesus berates “the Jews” for their lack of belief – see 12:37-50. However, these “Greeks” who are also Jews, do not invite a rebuff from Jesus.
The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified: Are we to conclude that the request of “the Greeks” – representing “the nations of the world” – is the trigger that tells Jesus “the hour has come”? God’s glory is to be manifest in Jesus and through him and it is according to God’s timing. Thus Jesus says to Mary at the wedding feast in Cana, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come” (2:4), to the Samaritan woman at the well, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming” (4:21), and John tells us that, when those who objected to his teaching, “tried to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet come” (7:30) and similarly, “He spoke these words while he was teaching in the treasury of the temple, but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come” (8:20). In the Gospel today, the implication is that something momentous is about to be revealed – “the hour has come”. Up until now the references have been to something in the future. Now that changes. Thus we will hear Jesus say, “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name” (12:27. See also 13:1 and 17:1). The hour is the revelation of God’s glory in and through Jesus’ death and resurrection.
unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit: The manifestation of God’s glory is – shockingly – through Jesus’ death. “He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die”. It is not enough to say that Jesus died just because he was a human being and all human beings will die. Nor is it enough to say he died because he got offside with those who wielded power. While there is a truth in each of these explanations, they do not help us understand the ultimate significance of Jesus’ death. Being authentically human is about being in the flesh – incarnation. And being in the flesh demands that we embrace fully our mortality – everyday, everywhere. The truth is, however, that death-denial seems to be a primitive force within us all. It is the source of sin in its many manifestations – selfishness, greed, hatred, violence, idolatry and all manner of death-dealing. We become victims and purveyors of the death we seek to evade. Excarnation seems to come more “naturally” than incarnation. Through him, with him and in him, the otherwise impossible journey of incarnation becomes possible.
The great paradox is that dying is actually part of the Passover – “unless the grain of wheat dies etc”. Our way to life is through death. So death and dying may be life-giving or simply death-dealing.
loves … hates: “Semitic usage favors vivid contrasts to express preferences. Deut 21:15; Matt 6:24; Luke 14:26 are more examples of this” (Raymond E Brown, The Gospel according to John (I–XII): Introduction, translation, and notes (Vol. 29), New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2008, 467).
Living needs dying
In today’s Gospel – John 12:20–33 – we hear one of the most oft-quoted sayings of Jesus: “I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit”. Beginnings assume endings. “Hello!” contains “Goodbye!”. Arriving implies departing. Night gives way to day, day to night. This is reality’s greatest paradox: Living requires dying. We feel it every day – when we wake up and get out of bed, when we go back to bed at the end of the day, when a pleasurable moment ends, when we see our children grow and leave us, when summer gives way to autumn and so on, when we outgrow our childish ways, when we submit to the necessities of daily living, when we let go of ourselves long enough to care for another.
Our graced emergence as human beings will involve many stages of growth in which something ceases and something begins, in which we must let go of the familiar and allow the unfamiliar to happen, in which we must choose to die in order to live. It is tempting to resist this law of existence, seeing it as a threat rather than a promise. Maybe because it reminds us that we are not in control? Whatever the reason, the consequences are significant. It leads towards a deepening and expanding attitude of death denial. That death denial can be recognized in every act of selfishness, meanness, judgementalism, violence, and hatred. And it is almost certainly the main driver of the individualism, materialism and hedonism that pervade our society.
The English poet, Robert Browning, in “The Ring and the Book”, writes: “You never know what life means until you die;/ Even throughout life, ’tis death that makes life live,/ Gives it whatever the significance”.
Dying is not just the “thing” that happens at the end of life. Dying is the flip side of living and living is the flip side of dying until that “thing” happens at the end.
St Irenaeus of Lyons (130-202) wrote a treatise in 185, entitled Against the Heretics. In that treatise he made the memorable statement: “Gloria Dei vivens homo” – “The glory of God is the fully alive human being”. We cannot even approximate the ideal of being “fully alive” without relinquishing the unhelpful – even destructive – baggage that we all accumulate along the way. The dying that is a natural – though at times very painful – part of daily living, is enabling us to do the relinquishing so that we may be fully alive. The dying is purifying. It is liberating.
Show me a mean-spirited, selfish individual and I will show you someone who is carrying a lot of unlived dying within them. Show me someone who is transparent, at ease in themselves, compassionate and caring in a way that liberates the one being cared for, and I will show you someone who has died many times.