A vision of life through death

“Truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces much fruit.”  (John 12:24, CSB)

These are the words of Jesus telling a short parable to his disciples explaining the spiritual significance of his forthcoming death. The grain of wheat is the life of Jesus. From Jesus’ self-sacrificial death will come new life for many people - “much fruit”. However, if Jesus doesn’t die, the seed remains alone “only a single seed” (NIV version).

For the apostle John, and us, looking back, the parable is clear – Jesus’ death was required, then his resurrection, which henceforth brought life to all those who put our trust in Jesus.

We take these words seriously - this is the Gospel! But do we take as seriously what Jesus says next? Because Jesus immediately draws a parallel between his self-sacrificial death and how we should live our own life:

“The one who loves his life will lose it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” (John 12:25, CSB)

Jesus presents his life as a prototype for us. In verse 25 Jesus extends the parable’s life-giving principle from verse 24 and applies it to his disciples; “unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself”. In other words, both for Jesus and us, dying-to-self proceeds life. We won’t experience life without first dying.

Jesus then makes it explicit; “the one who loves his life will lose it”. No one wants to hear this!

Self-sacrifice is one thing, but, surely, I am meant to love my life, have a vison for my life, pursue my dreams?

This is an example of the Semitic tradition of contrasting absolutes - love/hate, lose/keep (Matt 10:39, Mark 8:35, Luke 9:24, Rom 9:13). What does Jesus mean by this? He means, you won’t find spiritual life while you’re envisioning living the same way ‘this world’ does. The world’s vision of a fulfilling life is a self-centred pursuit. It is the pursuit of my vision, my dreams, my destiny, my fulfilment, my self-actualisation and all with me at the centre. For the more ambitious and self-driven amongst us, we are also the hero in our dream. We are the one who inspires and is admired by others.

In contrast, Jesus’ version of a life well lived is the selfless pursuit of dedication to God.

Ironically, to the world, embracing Jesus’ version of the true life makes you appear a loser. Likewise, resisting the temptation of showing yourself as a success is living proof, to the thinking of this world, you are indeed a failure. The world evaluated Jesus as a loser and a failure hanging on the cross, however, we know what happened: Jesus rose from the dead! Thus, it is only through death that we can experience life. We know this, we believe this, we preach and teach this, but why don’t we live like this? Why do we as Christians still take the measurements of a successful life from the world rather than from Jesus?

As Paul identifies, human perception is polluted by the world. Therefore, our minds require constant renewal so that we can be transformed to live a life that is pleasing to God (Rom 12:2).

“The one who loves his life will lose it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

These words of Jesus need to be chewed over again and again and internalised in us until they are not just words we say we believe or words we preach to others, but words we live. This is a life-long project.

In God’s kingdom, the more we die the more we live. We need to repeat this to ourself daily.

The seed of our real-life in God is germinated by us dying; we die to our self-centred dreams and we come alive to God’s dreams for us. In essence, Jesus is saying, the pursuit of your self-centred dreams will kill you, whereas the pursuit of God’s dream for you guarantees true-life, eternal life. The dreams we create for ourselves are often created to fortify ourselves from the insecure thoughts and doubts of our own self-worth. Our identity is largely still a construct of this world. When we allow these self-centred dreams to die, we also die to the self-doubt that created them. We also continue to die to our worldly identity. We begin to rely on God for our sense of security and value and our identity is reshaped into the image of God. Jesus’ self-sacrifice brings life to many; our self-sacrifice brings life to ourselves.

The path of pursing God’s dreams for our life is the path of selflessness. The path that Jesus walked to the cross is the same path that we are to walk as his disciples. However unlike Jesus, our self-sacrifice is not (usually) an earthly death, but it is the sacrifice of our self-centred life for the sake of an eternal life with God.

“If anyone serves me, he must follow me. Where I am, there my servant also will be. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.”  (John 12:26, CSB)

Is your dream to serve others or to be served by others?

Is your dream to impress others or be devoted to God?

Is your dream to be honoured by people or by God?

And as we envision our life as a Christian, we should also clearly see our proximity to Jesus: “Where I am, there my servant also will be”.

When you envision your life, do you see yourself where Jesus is or somewhere else?

A desire to be valued and honoured is something we all carry within us because we were created in God’s image and designed to share in God’s glory (John 17:22, Rom 8:18-21, Rom 8:30). However, the wonderful promise that Jesus gives those who follow him in self-sacrificial service to others, like he demonstrated, is to be honoured by our heavenly Father.

God has given us an imagination to see, to visualise, to dream. Allow the vison of your life to be transformed by the dying of the seed of the dreams of self for the germination of a new life living the dreams of God.