Two men went up in a hot-air balloon one May morning. Suddenly they were enveloped by clouds and lost track of where they were. They drifted for what seemed like hours. Finally the cloud parted, and they spotted a man below them on the ground.
“Where are we?” one of the passengers hollered down. The man on the ground looked around, looked up at the balloon, looked around some more and then yelled back, “You’re in a balloon.”
The two balloonists looked at one another and then one of them yelled down again, “Are you a philosopher?”
“Yes,” the man hollered up from below.
The other balloonist said, “How did you know he was a philosopher?” His friend replied, “No one else could give an answer so quickly that’s so logical and yet tells you so little about where you are and where you want to be!” (“On Being Religious”, Donald J. Shelby, May 27, 1984).
I don’t want to be hard on philosophers. But if that story has any hint of truth, Jesus was not a philosopher. He did deal in paradox which is a favorite tool of philosophers, in seeking truth. Yet, he had a way of using the simplest examples from daily life to make plain the truth of his paradoxes. If you’re going to find your life, you’re going to have to lose it, he said. “It is only in giving that you receive.” “If you want to be first, you must become last.” “If you’re going to be master, you must become a servant.” And all of those paradoxes are wrapped in one: We must die if we want to live.
This paradox Jesus made plain in our scripture lesson today. The crowd had gathered. It was the Feast of the Passover. Some Greeks had come to the Feast. They were the philosophers, and they wanted to see Jesus. Jesus was the center of attention. His raising of Lazarus had intensified interest and brought the curious from every corner. The Pharisees almost despaired, saying, “You see that you can do nothing; look; the whole world has gone after him.” (verse 19)
The question was, “When was Jesus going to make his move? When was he going to go public and fully claim his position as Messiah?” People were asking, “Is this the time?” “Will this be the day?”
Jesus said, “The hour is come.”
Loosen up a bit now — use your imagination can’t you just see all those reporters getting their little pads and pencils ready — can’t you see the camera — man focusing in for a tight shot a full-face of Jesus over the shoulders of the on-lookers and then getting ready to span the crowd, and then to focus on the disciples. Everybody gets quiet. It’s like one of those E. F. Hutton commercials. Everybody’s quiet and everybody’s listening. This is it. The reporters are gleeful — just in time for the evening news!
Then came Jesus’ word, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit”. (verse 24).
There must have been an awkward moment of silence. No one wrote anything down. Everyone just looked at each other. No scoop here! Nothing for the evening news. But I’d say it was rather plain. It wasn’t worth a headline for the Jerusalem Dailey News, but it is the headline of the Gospel. It is the heart of Jesus’ call: we have to die to live.
That’s our theme today “DYING TO LIVE” and Jesus leaves no doubt about what he means. He began with the saying which everyone expected — in fact they were waiting for it “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified.” He finished with a series of sayings which no one expected, and no one wanted to hear.
I
To understand the shocking nature and the powerful impact of these words of Jesus, we need to understand something of what the Jews understood by Jesus’ first claim: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” That term, “the Son of Man”, had become a key-term in the Messianic thought of Judaism. As they looked forward to a deliverer, it was the “Son of Man” that they were looking for.
The term had its origin in the Book of Daniel. In Daniel 7:1-8, the writer describes the world powers which had held sway — the Assyrians, Meads, and Persians. These powers were so cruel and savage, so sadistic and merciless that they could only be described with the imagery of wild beasts. So the writer talked about the Lion with the Eagle’s wings, the Bear with three ribs between his teeth, the Leopard with four wings and four heads, a terrible beast with iron teeth and ten horns – a ghastly sight, something like that which might come out of one of our modern terror movies. These were symbols of the powers which prevailed in that day. But the prophet dreamed of some new power coming into the world, and that dream is captured in verses 11-14.
I looked then because of the sound of the great words which the horn was speaking. And as I looked, the beast was slain, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire. As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.
And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. (Daniel 7:11-14 RSV).
Note in this translation that I’ve read, the Revised Standard Version which scholars believe is the most precise translation of verse 13 – Daniel says that one “like a son of man” comes to the Ancient of Days. Now the Authorized Version translates that the “Son of Man” (in capital letters). I think if you really reflect upon the passage you see the point that is being made.
Do you get the picture?
The prophet foresees the time when a new power is going to come into the world. Unlike the grotesque powers of terror and savagery and cruel destruction, this new power is going to be gentle and gracious. So the new power is depicted not with any symbol of a savage beast, but of a man. And what Daniel is saying is that the day of savagery and inhumanity and cruelty and bestiality is going to pass, and the day of humanity is coming.
That dream was kept alive and the Jews built upon a dream of a day when a new age would dawn, when the lion would lay down with the lamb, and there would be no more war. It would be a golden age, and life would be sweet. Their nation which was small and without power could not bring about that new age. It would have to come by the direct intervention of God. God would send his champion, his conqueror, his redeemer, his messiah, to bring in that age.
So they built upon that picture in the Book of Daniel and they began to refer to their messiah, their champion, as the son of man. The phrase which had been a symbol became a person.
As is the case with the building of symbolism, that symbol grew. In between the Old and the new Testaments, there arose a whole series of books which talked bout the Golden Age and how it was to come. In the midst of the troubles and the sufferings, the subjections and the slaveries, the Jews never forgot and they never gave up that dream.
One of the books that was written between the Old and the New Testaments and did not get in the Canon was the book of Enoch. In that book the son of man is described as a tremendous giant of a figure, being held in leash by God. When the day comes – the Day of the Lord – God will unleash that son of man and he will come with divine, super-human power. No man and no kingdom can stand up against him. He would smash every kingdom under foot and bring a world empire for the Jews.
So, can’t you see how the Jews were waiting, waiting — longing, at times standing on tip-toe — for the Son of Man to come. So, when they heard those words, “The hour has come when the Son of Man must be glorified,” they waited, and they were ready to participate in whatever way Jesus directed them. For them, “the trumpet-call of eternity had sounded, and the might of heaven was on the march and the campaign of victory was on the move.”
But what they expected didn’t happen. Because what Jesus meant by “glorified” was not what they meant. They thought that all the kingdoms of the earth were going to be subjected under the son of man’s feet. But Jesus meant that he was going to the cross, and He was going to be glorified by being crucified.
He was not going to be lifted up and crowned King. He would be lifted from the earth up on the cross as a crucified Lord.
Do you get the feel of it now? When Jesus spoke that first sentence the hearts of all the listeners began to pound excitedly. An then Jesus staggered them, left them amazed and bewildered by what he said. His conquest would come, not in terms of over-powering the enemy with might and main, but by sacrifice and death.
The messianic dream of conquest was transformed into vision of the cross. Is it any wonder that they didn’t understand Him? Is it any wonder that they did not want to understand Him? And what about us?
That gets us to the heart of the message to we focus on what Jesus said.
II
He said two big things. First, you have to spend your life to find it. Now that’s not the way of the world. I heard a wonderful story the other day about Pete Rose. There is something challenging about Pete Rose. For you who are not up on your baseball, he played with the Cincinnati Reds, the Philadelphia Phillies, then Montreal, and now he’s a player-manager with the Cincinnati Reds. He’s one of the few gray- haired baseball players around. One night he was in New York City for a banquet in his honor and one of the gifts they gave him was a grandfather clock. He returned to his hotel, carrying the grandfather clock awkwardly in his arms. As he entered the revolving door of the hotel just as another man was leaving you know what happened. The door jammed. After they finally got it unstuck, the other man said to Rose, “Why can’t you wear a wristwatch, like everybody else?”
The way of getting on in the world is to be like everybody else, and everybody else is not excited about spending their life in order to find it. The “grow rich along with me gurus” teach us to look out for number one and to win by intimidation. Jesus says we find our lives by spending them.
I visited a man recently who was in the hospital, being treated by a psychiatrist for a severe case of depression. It was a sad visit. The man is near retirement; in fact he could retire anytime. Yet, he’s overcome with fear. He has nothing in store where the future is concerned — or so he thinks and feels. He’s paralyzed really, impotent, unable to make decisions.
As we shared together, it became clear that this fellow had never really committed his life to anything - he certainly had never committed his life to Jesus Christ. We talked about that, and the man began to quiver, and his voice grew quiet and shaky, as he began to express his reservations. They were more than reservations. He had great fear about what the Lord might require of him if he yielded his life to Him.
Here was a man who had come to the verge of retirement lifeless, without meaning on which he could lay hold, and without purpose that could propel him into the future. As I left him that day, I remembered the famous evangelist called, Christmas Evans. He wore himself out, always on the move, preaching the Gospel. His friends kept advising him that he should take things easier. His answer always was “It is better to burn out than to rust out.”
We need to learn from Jesus. We must die if we want to live. We will find our lives only by losing them.
III
Jesus said a second thing. It’s really a variation on his primary theme: “If any one will serve me, let him follow me.” And we know what following him means. It means that we serve him by serving others, and Jesus would say that it’s only by service that greatness comes. You remember that word of His when He was trying to make it clear to his disciples what discipleship meant: “Whoever would be great among you must be servant of all”.
I could catalogue scores of people who stand out as radiant examples of what Jesus is talking about. I remember one who was one of the very few people in our upper-middle community in Southern California. Her total income was the $107 social security check she received monthly. Of that she paid $55 for rent, leaving $52 for food, clothing and bare necessities. Her apartment was always cold and dimply lighted. I had her do typing for me in order that I could provide her some additional income. Hardly ever would she receive an outright gift of money. Only once did I see her sorely depressed, then she had little food, and no money for two weeks. Despite her destitution, her attention was always fixed on something or someone else, always seeking ways to give herself to others. She taught Mexican-Americans to read and speak English through the Laubach method.
I remember my last visit with this lady before she moved from our city. She showed me a little coat and two dresses he had purchased at Goodwill Industries with money she could ill-afford to spend. They were gifts for the daughters of one of her Mexican-American students. I lost contact with my friend and knew nothing of her whereabouts for over a year. Then came a marvelous letter in which she told me that she had entered junior college. Imagine that. Nearly seventy, in very poor health, but still alive! Here are some excerpts from that letter.
“I’m very happy here, among all the interesting young people, (I feel much more at home with them than with people of my own age — maybe I’m retarded!) I was afraid of the youth — that they would make fun of me, and my clothes, and being old, but they are far more broad-minded than older people. I do some tutoring in Spanish, not for money for these are poor people, and it wouldn’t be right. Once again, I’m back in the “eye” of the cyclone, more or less. Amid the Black Panthers, the Black Muslims, The Chicanos and the Brown Berets and the peoples from all parts of the world. I attend, when not too weary, all the meetings I can, from BSU to MASA to lectures by biologists (about which I know nothing). It is rough going it alone, but I am thankful I am here where I can at least get intellectual stimulation.”
I must close now. I don’t know any way to do it, but to put the claim of Christ in the most challenging and penetrating light. Some thirty years ago, a dramatic court trial took place here in the United States. Alger Hiss was accused of being a communist and his trial was one of the media events of that day. Whitaker Chambers was the primary witness in that case. Chambers had been a communist, but broke from the party in 1938. In his book, Witness, Chambers tells of an incident which is the most graphic meaning of commitment I know.
One day in the great jury room of the Grand Jury of the southern district of New York, a juror leaned forward slightly and asked, “Mr. Chambers, what does it mean to be a communist?” Chambers hesitated for a moment, trying to find the simplest, most direct way to convey the heart of this complex experience to men to whom the very fact of experience was all but incomprehensible. He gathered his thoughts and said: “When I was a communist, I had three heroes. One was a Russian. One was a Pole. One was a German Jew. The Pole was Felix Djerjinsky. He was ascetic, highly sensitive, and intelligent. He was a communist. After the Russian revolution, he became head of the Tcheka and organizer of the Red terror. As a young man, Djerjinsky had been a political prisoner in the Paviak Prison in Warsaw. He insisted on being given the task of cleaning the latrines of the other prisoners. For he held that the most developed member of any community must take upon himself the lowliest task as an example to those who are less developed. That is one thing that it meant to be a communist, said Chambers. (What was that that Jesus said about the first being last and the last being the first?) The German Jew was Eugene Levine. He was a communist. During the Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919, Levine was the organizer of the Worker and Soldiers Soviets. When the Bavarian Soviet Republic was crushed, Levine was captured and court martialed. The court martial told him: “You are under the sentence of death.” Levine answered: “We communists are always under the sentence of death.” That is another thing that it meant to be a communist, said Chambers. (What was that Jesus said about “IF any man come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow.”)
The Russian was a pre-communist revolutionist named Kalyaev. He was arrested for a minor part in the assassination of the Tsarist Prime Minister, von Plehve. He was sent into Siberian exile to one of the worst prison camps, where the political prisoners were flogged. Kalyaev sought some way to protest this outrage to the world. The means were few, but at last he found a way. In protest against the flogging of other men, Kalyaev drenched himself in kerosene, set himself on fire, and burned himself to death. That also is what it meant to be a communist according to Mr. Chambers. (What was that Jesus aid about “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for a friend.”) After sharing the story of those three men, Mr. Chambers added this penetrating word: “That is also what it means to be a witness.”
I share this story from outside the Christian faith to make the question more graphic. Where are we as we consider our call in relation to that kind of commitment, “Whom will I send, and who will go for us?”
Are you listening? Are you really listening? Do you hear? Really hear?
Jesus said, when we follow him in dying as style of life, when we finally die we will be where he is – that is we will live with him eternally. That clinches his argument. I’m convinced – Are you? Dying we live!
