There’s a definite moment in many stories when the sense of inevitability sets in. That moment when the plot commits itself to a certain trajectory and you just know it when you see it, even if you don’t know where the story is ultimately headed. The window of possibility narrows down and the story orients itself in a particular direction. It’s like in The Lord of the Rings when Frodo finally reaches Rivendell bearing the One Ring, believing that his part to play has been fulfilled. His mind drifts back to his home in the Shire. And from what you know at that point, you’d be forgiven for believing that too. But then you do a quick flip check and realize that you still have about 700 or so pages to go. There must be more to this story. Among the elves at Rivendell, in perceived safety, Frodo and his companions discover another dark layer of meaning about this unassuming ring which will alter their courses dramatically. Frodo begins to see the ring working its discord already amongst the fellowship before it has even been officially formed -- the ring corrupts even the question of what to do with it -- and he puts himself forward as the one to resume the journey, carrying the Ring all the way to Mordor to cast it back into the flames from which it came. What makes Tolkien’s narrative so brilliant is that you do not yet know what
awaits Frodo on account of his fateful choice, but by that point in the story, you know enough about the world, the big picture, to have an intuitive sense of what this choice will require of him. Given the state of Middle Earth in which Frodo receives the Ring, you know that Frodo will have to undergo great suffering and perhaps even a certain kind of failure before the end is reached. The unsettling thought behind The Lord of the Rings is that the evil of the Ring is actually more definitive of Middle Earth than the righteous intentions of any one individual or group. The Ring cannot be destroyed while Middle Earth is allowed to continue on being the same as always. Both are tied together in the same fate. There is something similar going on in John Chapter 12, where today’s gospel is found. More than similar, actually, as I could just slightly edit what I mentioned about Frodo and the Ring and end up with something pretty close to the point I want to make today. Given the state of the world that we have built -- which is the world that Jesus came to dwell in and the world in which he fulfills his purpose -- you know that Jesus must undergo great suffering and, ultimately, a certain kind of failure before the end is reached. From here on out in John’s Gospel, that is the recurring theme. Jesus himself doesn’t change; he remains as resolute as ever in his perfect obedience to the Father’s will, but those who surround him, particularly the Pharisees and the Romans, have officially had more than they can handle from him. And like a slow motion trainwreck, you can watch the inevitable conflict approaching. Jesus is inducing a crisis. The fundamental incompatibility of the way of Jesus and the way of the world is becoming ever more intense. It is why the way of Jesus necessarily becomes the way of the cross. We can see it here. In the chapter prior to today’s passage, Jesus has just raised Lazarus from the dead, which is what finally pushes the Pharisees over the edge and directly sets in motion their plot to arrest and kill Jesus. And here we are on the Fifth Sunday of Lent. Next week is Palm Sunday and the onset of Holy Week. Today is the breath before the plunge. The inevitability is setting in, the inevitability of our realization that the way of Jesus is necessarily the way of the cross. I think many of us have a hard time really grasping this. I know I do. Christians are people of hope, after all; we possess a fundamental optimism that at the end of all things all will be made right, that all tears will be wiped away. But hope is not naive. It is not about a sentimental search for a silver lining or a “looking on the bright side.” Hope makes no compromise with the way things are, settling for mere “positivity.” Rather, Christian hope is grounded in the most sober realism about the nature of the world around us and what love and virtue demand within that world. In fact, it is only from the basis of such a realistic assessment of the world that hope can turn its gaze to God. As one writer puts it rather bluntly, “this is no world for love,” which he continues: There is a twist or contradiction in our human life that means we build a world unfit for humans. The only way to get by in it is to restrict your humanity rather carefully, otherwise you will get hurt. The world is not totally unfit for human habitation, but it can take just so much of it. You have to ration your love, keep a wary eye out for enemies if you want to survive. Now Jesus did not ration his love, so naturally he didn’t last. Jesus knew this all along, but here in today’s Gospel he recognizes that the time of the reckoning has arrived. It is what prompts him to announce that “the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” But this hour of glory is no hour of triumphant heroism. On the contrary, Jesus immediately follows that up with what is said in many places throughout the gospels, and is a prominent theme in Lent, that “those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Jesus is not waxing poetic here; he is describing the nature of life itself. Grains of wheat bring forth abundant harvests only insofar as they cease being single grains. They must die that wheat might grow. It’s a part of the order of nature. And we’re no less a part of that order ourselves, which means that abundant life paradoxically consists in embracing our mortality and renouncing ourselves. Love God. Love your neighbor. Pass from death into life. This is the first of two meanings. The second meaning is that though we all will die, we live in almost constant denial of that fact; we fear death, which leads us to build a world of violence in which people must suffer and die. Our fear of death feeds on death. Which is why Jesus could not be tolerated. I say all of this to emphasize the unity between the crucifixion of Jesus and the season of Lent. Lent may come before Good Friday in terms of the liturgical year, but the logic of the cross is what grounds this season of penitence. Lent is the season of inevitability, the time when, unlike the disciples, we know the manner of glory that Jesus will receive. “And I, when I am lifted up, will draw all people to myself.” Which sounds really great at first if you’re not in on the cruel joke that is crucifixion. So we know that he doesn’t get out alive, that the world is not hospitable enough for the love of God incarnate to be glorified on the world’s terms. “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out,” Jesus says. That ruler is the devil, of course, and it is as though Jesus is saying that this world isn’t big enough for the two of us. By the way, St. Athanasius had this great bit about how it made perfect sense that Jesus would be lifted up from the ground on the cross in order to do battle with the devil, since the devil was thought to inhabit the lower regions of the air after being cast out of heaven. Anyway, Lent is the season for contemplating how we are bound to both the fate of Christ and the fate of the world. Our souls are troubled with the soul of Christ, and rather than searching for the immediate comfort as usual, we see in the hunger, the boredom, the discomfort, and the awkwardness of these Lenten disciplines a small glimpse of the reason we have been brought into Christ, that we have come to this hour. To carry the cross and follow him as his disciples. After all, what do we all pass under on our way up to this altar to commune with Christ? Look up and see the Christ that has been lifted up; he draws you to himself. Amen.
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