Hebrews 5: 5-10   

John 12: 20-33         

March 17, 2024

Rev. Dr. Galen E. Russell III



“Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.”

Prayer: As we deepen our insights into following you, O Lord, may we find our way into serving you with humility and joy. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

People love seeing celebrities. I was reminded of just that this week. Paparazzi went crazy this week trying to “see” Kate Middleton coming out of the hospital after surgery. And when people did see the princess and her kids in a doctored picture, all kinds of conspiracy theories started to fly. Or, I think of adoring fans and screaming teenagers waiting for hours, sometimes days just to see Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce walking hand in hand after a concert or a football game.

Nowadays if you can’t “see” someone in person, you can simply “follow” someone on social media, like Instagram or Tik Tok. Because you can ‘see’ them on your phone or computer screen. Well, maybe not Tik Tok, if that gets banned. That would affect a lot of people’s livelihoods.

Now, I’m the first one to say that I know very little of how this works, but as I understand it, celebrities and so-called “influencers” and micro influencers can make lots money when people follow them on social media. For example, if an “Influencer” has over 100,000 followers on Tik Tok, that person is part of Tik Tok’s “Creativity Program.” So when someone out there watches and “likes” a video or a post created by an influencer in , Tik Tok pays the influencer cash. That’s one way to make money on social media.

So, I’m thinking that we’re Following Jesus (our Lenten theme), and Jesus has over 100,000 followers, and he’s a pretty big INFLUENCER. So, those of you on YouTube and Facebook, be sure to click your “Like” button right now, and the money will come pouring in to Christ Church! What? You’re saying it doesn’t work that way? Oy! Sigh.

Well, at this point in his ministry, Jesus, was a celebrity. A rock star! He had many followers. He had organized this movement called “The Way,” and it brought him to Jerusalem right before the last week of his life. Most of the people wanted him to lead a military and political revolt against Rome and bring back Israel as a nation. That was dangerous stuff.

But, Jesus discerned God’s call differently. His was a spiritual call to bring God’s eternal salvation. To establish a new covenant that God wanted with people. A binding covenant that is everlasting and is based on God’s love, not God’s law. God’s grace, not God’s wrath. But that was equally as dangerous. Because this would revolt against the religious establishment in Jerusalem that had lost its way. So, Jesus knew that his time in Jerusalem could end disastrously.

John tells us that Jesus’ soul was troubled about the likelihood of his death. He was human. He didn’t want to die. And I believe that God didn’t want him to die, either.

Just parenthetically, Jesus teaches what feels very counterintuitive to me—that any attempt to hold onto life is the quickest way to lose it. But to die for God’s cause is the quickest way to truly find life.

I think it’s important to say that Jesus could’ve held onto his life and avoided Jerusalem. He had choices. He could’ve walked away. But, he would have been no better than a grain of wheat that sits out and is only good for show and simply atrophies. What good is a grain of wheat if it isn’t crushed and made into flour and then into bread? Or, what good is it if it doesn’t get planted in the earth to bear more wheat? So, if Jesus walked away, he would have been no more than a footnote in history, only good for show, would have atrophied, and be nothing to us.

And worse, perhaps, more importantly, he would have died on the inside of his heart.

So, it was better for him to follow God’s will, take his chances, and trust that God, who has authority to give life and death, would lead him to true, eternal life. Death was a risk Jesus was willing to take in order to be faithful to God’s call to bring about God’s eternal salvation for the world. I think that’s the way he understood it. And that glorifies God.

So, when the non-Jewish Greek folk want to “see” Jesus, he responds rather indirectly and says that the hour has come when everyone will “see” him glorified. Everyone inclusively will see that Jesus is God’s humble, devoted servant, willing to let go of his self-interests, and seek values greater than his own. Dedicated to God’s new covenant that salvation is to come to all people, Jew and Greek alike. Those in the center and on the margins, alike. You and me, alike.

And Jesus, like that grain of wheat that must die in the earth to bear many more grains of wheat, glorifies God not by a life cut short, but by the new life that grows from him. God’s full, wide-reaching, everlasting, new covenant comes from him. So more people to follow and serve him, come from him. More people God can use to share the good news of God’s saving grace. More humble servants like him. Which is where we come in.

Here we are deep in the heart of Lent, we come to this question about following Jesus: Are we willing to follow Jesus into humble servanthood? Are we willing to let go of our own self-interests and seek values greater than our own for the greater good? Are we willing to yield to God and God’s ways?

Yielding is an interesting concept. When we yield to something, we let it influence us. It’s a choice in our inner spirit. We let it place demands on us. We give that thing energy and power in our lives. And we end up serving it.

Sometimes it can dominate our lives. In the negative sense, it can become habit-forming. Some people have yielded to the power of substances, or money, or laziness, or apathy, or convenience, or the love of privilege, or most commonly, we’ve yielded to the power of ourselves. Me first. Look out for number one. And, these can be the most enchaining tyrannies we ever face. That’s why some habits are so hard to break. Because we’ve yielded to them in our inner spirit.

When we yield to God, though, the same thing happens. Only it’s in the positive sense. We give God energy, and dominance, and the highest influence in our lives. We let God’s demands affect our conscience. We decide to follow Jesus, and it takes us into humble servanthood. Where we let go of our self-interests and these get balanced out with God’s greater good. We serve Jesus. Jesus says “Whoever serves me, God will honor.”

I have to believe Jesus totally yielded to God. And to be honest, I don’t know if I can, or any of us can totally yield like Jesus did, but I think that following Jesus into humble servanthood includes the promise that not one bit of our efforts will go wasted. I think, people who’ve yielded to God can stand up against injustice, even though there could be painful resistance and consequences from even close friends and family.

I think of parents who instill good ethics and morals in their kids even though it’s so tempting to cut the corners when no one is looking, and let self-interest rule the day.

Dave Andrick offered a devotional story at our Consistory meeting last Thursday night. The abbreviated version of the story is that a dad took his young son fishing at a family pond just before the fishing season opened up. And sure enough the young boy caught the biggest, most beautiful bass he had ever seen. But, he caught it an hour before the season officially opened. And his dad said, “We must put him back.” The boy protested. “It’s our pond. No one’s around. Who’s going to notice?” But, the dad insisted. And the fish was put back and swam free.

Years later, that boy still comes and fishes at the family pond with his young son. And every once in a while he’ll see that big fish swim by, and he’ll re-tell the story of how his dad instilled a good ethical and moral base within him, how he chose the greater good of ethical and moral learning over and above self-interest.

Those are just a couple of ways others can see how you decided to yield to God in your life. How you can choose to be a humble servant of Jesus striving for God’s greater good.

So my guess is that each of us may wish to see Jesus. But, thanks be to God that we can walk our life’s journeys with Christ, following him. Serving him. And whatever comes next, he sees us. And we can see him in us as his humble servant for God’s greater good.

Let’s be quiet and think and pray. Amen.