The Magnetic Cross

John 12:20-33
Now there were some Greeks who were among those coming up to worship at the festival. So they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
Philip went and told Andrew and Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Then Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Humanity to be glorified. Truly, truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat, falling into the earth, dies, it remains only a grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit.
“Those loving their lives lose them, and those hating their lives in this world preserve their lives forever. If anyone would serve me, let them follow me and where I am there will be my servant also. Whoever serves me the Father will honor.
“Now my soul is disturbed and what should I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ No, rather it is because of this that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.”
Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it and I will glorify it again.”
Now the crowd standing there heard it and understood it to be thunder; others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”
Jesus responded, “This voice has not come for my sake but for yours. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to myself.” Now this he said to signify what sort of death he was to die.

It was the week of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and the religious leaders were terrified. That may sound as if I’m referring to myself getting ready for Holy Week, but it’s not. I’m talking about the religious leaders of Jesus day – the folks who watched him ride into town to the shouts of “Hosanna!” and waving palm branches and felt as though their whole world was crumbling around them.
Just what was it that made them so afraid? Was it Jesus’ message? It wasn’t that unusual. There had been prophets and zealots before – people like John the Baptist who led people off into the wilderness and told them to get ready because the savior was coming. But they had been dealt with. Not easily, but they had been dealt with. Jesus could have been another one of those troublemakers, but, no, that wasn’t it. There was something else about Jesus.
It wasn’t his disciples. Some of these wild-eyed leaders had formed armies and threatened to topple the Roman Empire or at least its rule over Israel. They carried weapons or stones. But this Jesus had an army of fishermen and fools…women and tax collectors. Who were they in the face of the Empire? No, the disciples were no threat.
No, what frightened the leaders was Jesus’ refusal to submit to the power of death. This was a man who seemed to be drawing a following by promising life. Only a short time before he had been at the tomb of one of his friends, Lazarus. Four days dead Lazarus’ sister, Martha, had begged him to acknowledge the reality of death. “Four days he’s been in there, Lord,” she said to him. “Imagine the stench.” But Jesus was undeterred and he called his friend’s name – “Lazarus, Lazarus come out!” – and out he came still bound by the cloths meant to preserve him in his deceased condition. That’s what frightened the religious leaders who had spent their whole careers helping people accept the power of death over life. Jesus was turning the tables, as he did in the Temple, and declaring that life trumps death. There would be no stopping him now.
So there they were as the crowds gathered to welcome Jesus into the city. They heard what they said. “Jesus is coming! He’s the one who raised Lazarus from the dead! Can it be? What’s next? How can he top that?” And it was because of these stories and this expectation that the religious leaders had made plans of their own. They were determined to kill Jesus, this death-defying rebel. And for good measure they were going to kill Lazarus as well. Who says you can’t keep a good man down? If his first death didn’t take perhaps the second would!
But as they watched the procession their determination faltered. They began to waver a bit in their conviction. If so many people were attracted to this man perhaps there was no point in their plan. “Look,” they said to one another, “you can’t do anything with this guy. The whole world is going after him.” Little did they know! Like a coursing stream seeking its mouth, the world was following Jesus, even though they had no idea what was being asked of them.
As if to prove the point, a group of Greeks approached Jesus’ disciples. Greeks! What were Greeks doing in Jerusalem? Sure, it was the Passover and there were Jews from all parts of the known world there, but Greeks? Perhaps a few Greeks were intrigued enough by Judaism to become proselytes – observers – but not many. And the other Greeks? They had their own gods, their own philosophies. They were far too cosmopolitan to follow after a Jewish prophet like Jesus. But there they were like New York socialites at a NASCAR race asking where they could find this Jesus guy.
Philip and Andrew, the two disciples with the Greek names, were the ones who carried the word to Jesus and when he hears it Jesus knows that something is changing. When the Greeks show up, you know the story’s going to turn. It’s not just a simple little Jewish drama being played out in a neglected little corner of the world any more. It’s not a human interest story to fill out the news if you’ve got a little extra time. This Jesus story is something that is commanding attention beyond the home crowd. Like George Mason going to the Final Four, he can’t be ignored anymore.
So Jesus starts to speak openly about what is going to happen. “The hour has come. Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies it just remains a seed. But if it dies it will bear much fruit.” There is a chill in the room now. This is a test for all of those who saw Jesus defeat death once before. It’s one thing to raise Lazarus. It’s another thing to face it yourself. What is Jesus talking about?
“Now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be driven out.” Satan can’t stand. Evil has had its day. God is not going to allow its reign to continue and it certainly cannot have any power any more. But how does this happen? “When I am lifted up,” Jesus says. When he is lifted up? He’s talking about his ascension right? But, no, it’s something more than that. When he is lifted up? When he is lifted up on the cross. Does it end there? Is that it? Do those who want to reassert the power of death get their way? Is Lazarus’ resuscitation crossed out by Jesus’ crucifixion? Is that how it stops? All those people who have followed him. “The whole world is following after him,” the Pharisees said. Is that when they turn back?
No. “No,” Jesus says, “When I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself.” That cross is magnetic you see. It’s irresistible. It has “a wondrous attraction for me” and for you. I know what I said I few weeks ago. I know what I said. I said the cross was an embarrassment. It’s a reminder of weakness and shame and death and powerlessness. But I’m telling you it is calling out to you and to me. The cross may not be the thing you pull out to impress the neighbors, but it may be just what the neighbors need to find salvation. The cross will not be ignored. It may be misunderstood and misused. It may be lost in the midst of the feel-good religion we sometimes preach. But it can’t ultimately be ignored because all of eternity is turning on what happened on that cross. And what happened on that cross, Jesus says, is that all people are being drawn to him.
Friday I did something I shouldn’t have done. It was a beautiful day and the sun was shining and it was warm and spring was in the air and I was on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, God’s favorite place on earth. It was a bit too windy and the water is still a bit cold and I hadn’t checked the tide charts and I didn’t really know where I was going and I still hadn’t learned from my capsizing in Nassawadox Creek last November, but I went kayaking. Hede was kind enough to let me borrow her kayak and I went up to Gargatha Landing to explore the marshes.
It was amazing. Five minutes in I saw two oystercatchers poking in the marsh flats. They didn’t seem disturbed by me at all and, in fact, this pair guided me along throughout the morning. I paddled out past duck blinds and was surprised by a great blue heron that flew up from the grass not five yards from me.
Eventually I got into a cut that wound through the marsh. I saw hundreds of fiddler crabs who would flash their yellow claws and then scurry away into their burrows. It’s mating season for them. In the water below me I saw clams and mollusks and other shell-y things that I can’t yet identify. Periwinkle snails moved up and down the salt grass. Two Canada geese scared the life out of me by flying right over my head.
When I finally made my way to the other side of the marsh I was amazed to hear the sound of waves breaking. I was only 20 yards from Metompkin Island and the temptation being what it was, I let the strong current move me down to the end of the island where I could see the breakers rolling in.
This is when I realized that I was in trouble. One thing I am beginning to learn about tides is that they can be very strong. And what I hadn’t realized is that that current that moved me easily to the inlet was the result of water rushing away from the shore. Now that I wanted to go back to the shore I was going to have to fight it. My first attempt was not successful. I tried to find the calmer water along the western side of the channel but when I got to the point where Big Gut entered into the channel, it turned me right around. I was beginning to think I would have to go on up to Wallops and get a ride back with Mickey.
But I gave it another go, this time cutting across to the back side of Metompkin Island. For 30 minutes I struggled to go the little bit of distance that would take me back to the cut I had come through. I was exhausted when I finally got into the sheltered area where I had come through earlier. I thought I could relax. That’s when I realized that the water was still rushing toward the sea and this cut was much shallower than it had been an hour before. The bottom of the kayak was scraping against the mud. At one point I thought I would have to get out and pull the kayak along, but my leg quickly went knee deep in the muck and I realized that wasn’t going to work either. I was beginning to think I was going to have to wait until the next high tide when I got into a deeper channel and was able to get back to shore.
The point of all this being: 1) I am going to get some kayak lessons, 2) Don’t try this at home, and 3) when the water is moving toward the sea it is very difficult to fight and you do so at your own peril. The religious leaders who watched Jesus enter into Jerusalem were the smartest people in the crowd. They had correctly identified what was going on even if many of the people around them, including Jesus’ disciples, couldn’t. They knew what this flow of people following Jesus meant – the tide was going with Jesus. They could see that what Jesus represented was a threat to their status quo. If someone could end the stranglehold death had on the world, it was inevitable that everyone would be drawn to him.
Now what does that mean for us? We are people who live in a society that still believes that death has the last word. We may say that we are a Christian nation but we are not Christian enough to live as if we believe that death has lost its hold on us. We still accumulate stuff and insulate ourselves from others and lament the loss of youth as if things could ultimately satisfy us, as if security could ultimately save us, and as if age were a threat instead of a blessing. We invest a lot of our time and our wealth in protecting ourselves from the possibility of really living.
But if this itinerant preacher from Nazareth is who he says he is and if this life he offers is what he says it is then the lives we live ought to be different. If the cross is the inescapable reality on which all our self-delusions die, then it is confronting us with a different sort of life. The part of us that knows death has lost its power…the part of us that is fitted for heaven to live with God there…the part of us that knows we are not really powerless but filled with potential…the part of us that suspects that the best the world has to offer is far less than the best God has to offer…the part that is ready to offer up your sins because you know they are keeping you from something marvelous…the part that wants to be holy despite how ridiculous that sounds given our current condition…the part that is in touch with the mighty current flowing through your soul, carrying you into the ocean depths of God’s love…that part is not going to be content with anything less than the cross of Jesus. To go against that tide is to put yourself in peril.
And I’m telling you this not only for your own sake but for the sake of those around you. I believe…I truly believe that there is within each one of us an inexorable flow that leads us to the Christ we know on the cross. Your neighbor, your family members, your children, your parents…all of them are being called to life and drawn to the Jesus who was lifted up. It’s not a desire we have to implant in others so that they will respond. They have the desire. We just have to welcome them to the table. To show them where the real food is so that they won’t be addicted to the junk that this society feeds them. We just have to be the people God calls us to be and keep the doors open.
You know somebody who needs to hear this. You know somebody who is hurting and lost and unsure about where to turn. You know somebody who needs the food on offer on this table today. Bring them with you this morning. Bring them here in your heart. And then, as we move to Holy Week next week, invite them to come themselves. We are going to be rehearsing the most important story we have as we move from Palm Sunday to Holy Thursday to Good Friday to Easter morning. Somebody you know needs to hear it because they are being drawn by that magnetic cross. Bring them.
As the waters rush to the sea, so our souls run to their author. Jesus is calling us. Jesus is welcoming us. Jesus brings us home. Thanks be to God.