Daily Devotional • March 2
A Reading from John 12:24-32
24 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. 25 Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.
27 “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. 28 Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” 29 The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” 30 Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
Meditation
We meet Jesus in the week leading up to his death. John writes, “They … said to him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew, then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus doesn’t directly respond to this request, instead explaining both that he will die and that his followers must model his willingness to relinquish his own life. “Now my soul is troubled,” he admits. And yet, Jesus resolves — he will undergo what he must to glorify his Father, to “draw all people” to himself.
Ultimately, Jesus is able to pray: “Father, glorify your name.” A voice answers from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The confused crowd listening in tries to make sense of this exchange. As bewildering as hearing Jesus’s words and the voice from heaven really must have been, I wonder if the crowd’s explanations are attempts to distance themselves from Jesus’s message and the dangerous implications of his message for their own lives. That’s what I would do (and have done).
Jesus has proclaimed not only that he will die, as a grain of wheat must be buried to bear fruit, but that whoever loves their life will lose it, and whoever hates their life will get to keep it. Whoever serves Jesus will have to follow him to the death.
I don’t want what Jesus is saying to be real for me. I want Jesus’s words to be for him and him alone; I don’t want a voice from heaven to back his words. Jesus seems to sense and reject this attitude in his reply to the crowd: “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine.” And then: “Now is the judgment of this world.”
Now is the judgment — every day, Jesus draws us to himself and offers us life to the full, despite and in the midst of all the suffering that living by his rule of love in a fallen world entails. Now is the judgment — every day poses the question of which runs deeper: our aversion to difficulty and suffering, or our devotion to a self-sacrificing God?
Laura Howard is a writer from Dallas, TX, now based in Wheaton, IL, where she works in Student Wellness at her alma mater, Wheaton College. Laura’s portfolio of writing, teaching, and artwork can be found at letmebeheavy.substack.com.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
The Anglican Church of Burundi
Christ Church, Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
