Pastor's Sermon - September 14th, 2025 - Holy Cross Sunday
John 12:20-33
Stepping out of Luke for this Holy Cross Sunday, we enter into John and he sets the scene for us. He places us in the midst of Christ’s Passion Week. He has triumphantly entered into Jerusalem during the Passover Festival and He has been widely welcomed as the Messianic King. Religious opposition is intensifying as the chief priests and the Pharisees are plotting His death. Our text for today takes place very near Jesus’ crucifixion, and it is evident by Christ’s Words that His very crucifixion and death is what is on His mind.
Greeks come to Philip. These are likely Gentile converts that are visiting Jerusalem for Passover. With apparent religious interest, they seek to meet Jesus. It seems likely that Jesus, being a Jew and His ministry being first aimed at the Jews, is somewhere like the Court of Men, or some other temple location that Gentiles were not permitted to enter. Even though they shared in the faith of the Jews, the Gentiles were likely uncircumcised and were not permitted to enter into certain places reserved for the circumcised Jews. So, they ask Philip to organize a meet-and-greet. Philip, likely hesitant since Jesus told His disciples to first avoid the ways of the Gentiles and focus on the Jews, grabs Andrew, and together they get Jesus.
Rather than a personal meeting with these Gentiles, it seems Jesus chooses to make a public moment of teaching. And Jesus takes the opportunity to announce, post-triumphant entry, that as their Messianic King, which they have rightly labeled Him, He must now complete that which He came to accomplish- He must die.
Indeed, do not view this death as a forlorn or tragic event. Do not view the King of Kings dying as a moment of weakness or defeat. No. This death is a splendid and gory victory. And Christ gives the well-crafted example of the wheat seed- an example that would be familiar with both Jew and Gentile at the time.
If a grain of wheat is going to produce in abundance, the seed must die. For if it is not placed into the earth and die, then it can not produce crop. However, if it is placed into the soil to die, it no longer remains alone, but brings forth life in abundance. Likewise, if the Christ were to hold onto His life and not die, then He would do so for Himself alone, remaining alone and not accomplishing His purpose. But if the Messianic King dies on the cross as is prophesied, then His life is taken, but by it, He shall bring forth life in abundance.
Christ was teaching the very purpose of His cross. Of His death. Jesus’ death wasn’t a moment of defeat nor is it a meaningless show. By dying on the cross, bearing the very sin of the world that causes death, He put an end to death, and like the wheat seed sprouts into a field of wheat, so too did Christ rise again from the dead and bring life in abundance for all who call upon His Holy Name. Christ’s purpose, even in death, was and is to bring life to all.
And as Christians, we are to bear a similar cross. We must also forsake our earthly life in order to gain life in abundance. He who passionately loves his life in this world will surely lose His eternal life. He who clings to this earthly life and treasures with passionate attachment, Jesus says, y that very act of clinging to it with such love loses it. It cannot be held thus and kept indefinitely. It is temporal and will slip away. However, in a great reverse just like Jesus’ cross and death, if one despises His life in this world and clings to the eternal life promised in Christ, this is the man that Christ says shall gain life and life in abundance.
It is important to understand that the Greek word used for “life” is PHYSCHE, meaning not just physical life, but the self-centered life of this world, one’s own desires, and sinful attachments. Christ is not calling His believers to self-loathing or the intentional destruction of one’s life or body. To “love” this life is to cling to self-preservation, worldly comforts, and autonomy over God’s Will- this is what Christ is calling us to forsake and put to death. Such clinging surely leads to eternal loss. Instead, we are to “hate” such things, that is, we are to reject the sinful nature and worldly priorities, and cling to God’s gift of life.
We as Christians do not cling to the glories of this world. We do not live like the seed of wheat that remains unplanted for self-preservation. No, we look to and cling to the cross. That ancient instrument of death, sanctified by the very body and blood of Christ, to be an instrument of eternal life. And by clinging to Christ and His cross rather than self and this world, we are gifted with the promised life of abundance- the very eternal life won by Christ for all who believe.
We wish to see Jesus too. And by His mercy and love, we will. He will come again to harvest the fields, and by grace, we who call upon His Name shall be reaped for eternal life with Christ. Those who cling to this world, never having produced the fruits of faith, shall find themselves having lost their lives.
Praise be to God for His mercy shown in Christ.
In His Holy Name,
Amen.