We could spend our sermon time talking with you about John's Christology and how our text indicates Jesus' understanding of his impending death, but after a brief period, I would begin to see in some of your eyes that glazed look that would tell me you had gone off to a faraway place. It's true; this text is about Christology, but a Christology that comes with our names on it too. Says Jesus, "Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also" (v. 26). Read this to mean: "What I am saying about myself applies to you also, even you living in the infancy of a new millennium." 

Here's what Jesus says: "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" (v. 24).  One …