Bigger than just you, Bigger than just me: John 12:20-33

The more I read the Bible, and the longer I am a Christian, the more I realize that God’s intention and hope for the world are simply bigger and more expansive than I can imagine. Just as Jesus words in last week’s lectionary passage point us to something bigger, so also does this week’s passage- John 12:20-33¹. John is focused, yet again, on the immense implications of Jesus life, death, resurrection, and ascension. This is not solely about individual salvation². There are cosmic repercussions.

This passage has what seems to be an odd beginning (v 20-22). “Greeks” want to see Jesus. Knowing what has come before in John’s gospel helps make sense of this. At the beginning of the Gospel (1:35-46), Philip and Andrew are early disciples who bring other disciples to Jesus. Andrew and Philip are still, evidently, the ones to ask if you want to meet Jesus.

Just before this section is John’s account of Jesus entry into Jerusalem. Recall that a “great crowd”(v12) of Jews goes out to meet Jesus on his way into Jerusalem. The Pharisees “then said to one another, ‘You see, you can do nothing. Look, the world has gone after him!” (v19). Immediately John tells us about “some Greeks” who wish to meet Jesus. The world has indeed come to follow Jesus.

Often when Christians talk about the meaning of Jesus’ death, we talk about it in personal terms- what Jesus did for me. That’s not wrong, but as John points out, we are not thinking big enough if that’s the only way we understand Jesus death. John does not separate Jesus’ death from his resurrection and ascension, although sometimes we do. In John’s gospel, these are not distinct events but they belong together as together they demonstrate and reveal God’s purposes in and for the world³.

God and Jesus speak of God’s name being glorified (V23,28). The word “glory” is a way of expressing the revealing of God’s presence and purpose in the world.⁴ We see God’s glory, God’s presence and purpose, in Jesus life, death, resurrection, and ascension.

Jesus statements in this section are not focused on what happens after we die. Jesus is talking about life in this world as followers after his death, resurrection, and ascension. The single grain falls into the earth but bears much fruit. What is this fruit? Life in the community of faith. Those who love the status quo of this world lose true life but those who follow the way of Jesus live in the age of God. Remember that “eternal life” is not simply life after death in heaven, but rather is life lived now in the age or time of God⁵. Jesus brings this new age to us. The ruler of this world is driven out and Jesus draws all people (or all things) to himself, into this new kind of life, in his death, resurrection, and ascension.

Jesus again talks about life in the light (v35-36). While you have the light, believe- entrust yourselves- to the light, so that you may become “children of light.” Notice the connection and continuity between these verses and John 3:16 -21.

I encourage you, as Easter draws near, to spend some time thinking about what it means for us to become children of light? What does it mean for us to serve, follow, and entrust ourselves to the way of Christ? What does it mean for us to have eternal life- living in and into the age of God? What does it look like, this way of life that began long ago, continues with us and moves into the future? Can we imagine something bigger than we understood before?

1. https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=577621793 I linked you to John 12:20-36, three more than the lectionary because stopping at 33 cuts Jesus off, mid discourse. ↩︎
2. The fancy theological term for thinking about what Jesus death, resurrection, and ascension mean is “Atonement Theory”. There are, in fact, many Atonement theories. The Church Universal has never declared any single Atonement theory to be “the” correct and true answer. In the US currently, a version of what is called substitutionary atonement is what many Christians are familiar with. But it is not the only way to think about Jesus death, resurrection, and ascension. Certainly the Biblical witness is multi dimensional. I think that one theory, or even two cannot capture all that happened and continues to happen. ↩︎
3. John, Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist, p 204 ↩︎
4. John, Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist, P 206 ↩︎
5. See last week’s post, https://conversationinfaith.com/2024/03/08/re-reading-john-316/ for a short discussion of “eternal life”. ↩︎