The Perplexities Of Life

John 12:20-33

"To be, or not to be; that is the question; --
Whithr' tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them?"

These few lines of Shakespeare are probably the best known of all of his sayings.
He was saying something similar to a 20th century French writer, named Albert Camus.
After staring hard at what he considered the absurdities of human existence,
he concluded that there is only one really serious problem that a human being must solve.
He must decide whether life is or is not worth living.

To be or not to be; that is the question.

Jesus raises the same issue in John 12, although from a different point of view.
Suicide is not the question, but the meaning of life and its relation to death is.
He turns a simple request for a visit ("Sir, we would like to see Jesus")
into a probe of the reason for His imminent death.

He doesn't have time to chat with these Greek petitioners right now because He is getting ready to die.
He doesn't speak of that death as defeat, strangely enough, but as a supreme honor.
"The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified." (John 12:183)

With a characteristic reversal of human expectations, Jesus transforms apparent failure
into God's great triumph.
Jesus claims that His crucifixion is a victory.
In these few verses, the Lord of Love provides the divine rationale for His death.

To succeed, we must be prepared to lose.

We can hardly think of an execution on a cross, a fate fit for criminals,
as a way for the Lord to be "glorified."
"Glory" conjures up visions of a regal coronation or an angelic anthem
filing the heavens with mystery.
At the very least many would think, "glory" should refer to
some revolutionaries' successful coup, like the overthrowing of the hated Roman overlords
by someone like Jesus.

It would never lead us to praise a crucifixion.
You just don't become a success by the way of a cross.
Yet, crucifixion is exactly what Jesus is talking about.
He must die in order to succeed.
Further, He implies that this is the natural sequence in God's economy.
In what really matters, to succeed, you must lose.

For this to make any sense, we must first decide what we mean by success.
Gary Bettenhausen will help us to understand that.

In an Indianapolis 500 race some years ago, veteran driver, Al Unser, lost control of his race car,
which then skidded into the track wall, and exploded in flames.
Seconds later, another driver slammed his vehicle to a stop and rushed
to pull Unser out of danger.

That driver, Gary Bettenhausen, had been giving everything he had for months
so that he would be ready to compete and win in the 500.
But in a split second, he chose to let his chances die in order to save Unser.

That day, he failed as a driver, but he succeeded as a man and as a friend.
Someone else won the trophy that day.
It appeared that Bettenhausen lost.
He considered himself a winner because his friend was alive.
That was glory enough.
He was a winner!

Don't you like being around winners.
They exude a vitality and optimism that is contagious.
They seem to have excess energy.
When you leave them, you leave with more zest in your own spirit.

There is something we can learn from them, and that is, that almost all of these winners
have lost at one time or another in their past.
And, if necessary, they are prepared to lose again.

Success is not so dear to them that they will sacrifice everything else for it.
They are ready to lay down their achievements, if they have to, for the sake of
what is even more important to them.
They will lose a race to save a friend.

The teaching of Jesus in this passage flies in the face of the customary counsel of our age, doesn't it?
"Watch your step, "we are warned.
"He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day."
"Discretion is the better part of valor."
We have these and similar bits of advice lodges in our memories.

But more life has been lost in the cause of discretion than probably has ever been taken by recklessness.
Timid souls who tip toe through their days on earth exist by the millions.
But we can't call this living.
Far better to give the soul wings, to feel the thrill of the challenge, and to run the risk of defeat.

In 1948, the American Presidential race should have taught us something
about the dangers of too much discretion.
The upset victory of President Truman over Governor Thomas E. Dewey was
the biggest political surprise of the century.

For years, pollsters and politicians have analyzed that campaign to find the secret
of Truman's return to the White House.
Maybe the best explanation was offered by McGeorge Bundy, who was a chief aide to Dewey.
He said that the governor's strategists ran the campaign on the principle that if their candidate
made no mistakes, he was certain to defeat the unpopular president.

So while Truman came out fighting, speaking boldly on issues, running the risk
that he would offend the American populace even more than his outspokenness had already done.
Dewey's camp sat around concentrating on making no mistakes.
They succeeded in that goal.
They were very discreet.
They were the epitome of caution.
But they lost the election.

It's all in the goal, isn't it?
What is really important?
Hanging on to your office, or your money, or your reputation, or even your life?
Are you afraid what people will say?
Are you afraid of change.

Then listen to Jesus.
To live, we must be prepared to die.

John 12:24: "I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies,
it remains only a single seed.
But if it dies, it produces many seeds."

Jesus doesn't even blink at the fact that He must give up His life.
If He refuses His cross, His mission on earth fails.
He will be nothing more than a footnote in the history books, if even that.
Only His death can convince the world that He is, indeed, the Son of God.

Jesus is not speaking only of himself here.
He has moved from the Son of man to man.
What is true of Him is true of all mankind.
For us to live; to live as God means us to live, we must die..

That is true of love itself.
Love doesn't bloom unless first, there is a death.
That means the death of one's dominating ego.
If your ego comes first, then you won't commit yourself to anyone or anything else.
You won't let anyone come close to you because you don't want to get hurt.
The self-protecting ego holds others at a distant.
That kind of ego won't love because it knows that where there is love, there is also pain.

That is why there cannot be love without the death of the ego.
The ego protects itself so fiercely that it kills relationships.
But love reaches out, knowing full well that it can be badly bruised, but that it can never be destroyed.
You can count on it.

If you reach out to another person, he may very well move away from you or turn you down
or betray you or dessert you.
If you depend on him, you will probably be hurt.
If you sacrifice for him, he may take an unfair advantage of you.
But, if you are determined to keep yourself from getting hurt, you will die.

As a young man, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, gave up his brilliant career on the organ
and as a writer and teacher.
It was a costly decision.

When on October 13, 1906, he sent letters to his parents and closest acquaintances
announcing that he would enter Strasbourg University as a medical student to prepare
for his missionary career.
They were appalled.
One of his valued teachers wrote him to say: "You're like a brilliant general who exposes himself
as a common soldier on the front line.,"

Most of his friends thought that he had gone mad.
One later suggested that if he wanted to help the Africans, he could study in Europe
and give lectures and concerts on behalf of the natives of Africa, and send them money to help them.
That would be good enough.

Yet, Schweitzer continued with his decision.
His correspondence shows that he was not blind to the possible consequences.
There was every possibility that the diseases he was going to treat in that far-off land
could attack and kill him.
Then, his long years in medical school would have been in vain.
But he was ready to die.

The kind of sacrifice that Sweitzer was prepared to make may not be required of all of us.
Sometimes, it is just a simple matter of giving up an immediate reward in order to be true to our convictions.

Schweitzer must have readily identified with the words of Jesus:
"Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say?
'Father, save me from this hour'?
No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.
Father, glorify your name!" (John 12:27, 28)

Verse 31 explains the words of Jesus.
"Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out."
God had chosen the death of Jesus and possible failure to defeat His chief enemy.
When Jesus dies on the Cross, Satan appears to win.
But appearance is not reality.

God raises Jesus from the dead to prove that to die in the will of God is to live.

Then, to love, you must hate.

The principles that we find in these few short verses of John 12 are really variations on a theme.
Each is a different way of saying the same thing:
"To succeed, you must be prepared to lose."
"To live, you must be prepared to die."
"To love, you must be prepared to hate."
These are facets of the same teaching.

Each one forces a choice.
Each one presses for a decision.
Each one requires a willingness to deny oneself in order to find oneself.
"The man who loves his life [that is, who puts himself first] will lose it,
while the man who hates his life in this world [that is, puts his interest last]
will keep it for eternal life." (John 12:25)

Jesus has no use for an exaggerated self-love.
The me-first-ism is very popular in our secular society, but receives no encouragement
from the Lord of Love.
To the contrary, He teaches that we must "hate" ourselves.
This is a hard saying, but only because we misunderstand His meaning.
"Hate" does not connote self-contempt.
It is anything, but suicidal.

Jesus means that we need something or someone outside ourselves that means so much to us
that we forget all about ourselves.
And that we become indifferent to questions of personal comfort or security in our concern for another.

Jesus is our supreme example.
He cared so much about completing His mission on earth that He lets himself be killed.
That total commitment to the will of God literally cost Jesus His life.
It also saves it, as proved by His resurrection.

There are many examples from Christian history of those who have proved Jesus to be true.
One of those was William Wilberforce, the famous British Parliamentarian of the 18th century.

As a youngster, Wilberforce was an indifferent student.
He wasted his way through school, and then through St. John's College in Cambridge.
Upon the completion of his formal studies, he plunged into the social world of London,
and entertained himself for three years in ways that he deeply regretted later.

To other members of his crowd, however, he seemed to be the successful young man about town.

In 1784, he went to Nice France with Isaac Milner, an old friend, who cared enough about him
to ask what he was going to do with his life.
Milner hated seeing a person of such potential just wasting it the way he thought Wilberforce was.
He admired the talents that God has given his friend, and he wanted him to use them.

When they returned to England, Wilberforce gave himself completely over to God,
and to whatever purpose God would use him.
Within just three years, he knew what God wanted of him.
He knew that God wanted him to bring an end to the slave trade of England.

The leaders of the British Empire sincerely believed it could not survive without slave labor.
The animosity that Wilberforce called down on his head took him to the brink of death.
No one was more devoutly hated than he.
He could very well die in his struggle because of his effort to free the slaves.
Then he would die for God had called him.

It took 46 years, but God gave the Wilberforce the victory.
Twenty two years before the United States emancipated the slaves, the British Parliament declared
every slave in the Empire free.

It happened because one man was ready to die.
It happened because he was indifferent to his own fate.
It happened because he loved.

Wilberforce loved God, and loved what God loved, and hated what God hated.
Things like selfishness, sinfulness, and our cozy, but cruel disregard for injustice.

To serve the Lord, we must follow Him.

This is the summary of the matter.
John 12:26: "Whosoever serves me must follow me;
and where I am, my servant will also be."

Like Wilberforce before the English Parliament, or like Sweitzer in disease-ridden jungles,
or like a disciple of Jesus who follows Him and is faithful in His service, no matter what it cost.
Following Jesus may lead us to our own cross.
This is a fact of which Jesus takes great pains to alert us.
And there are many who would rather not face up to it.

I read of a young couple preparing for the mission field.
They were going to Brazil, and they were taking their three young school children with them,
much to the horror of one of their favorite relatives, a beloved, Aunt Fanny.

You can understand her dismay, since she was far advanced in years, and will be deprived
of their company, although as it is, she lived in another state and seldom got to see them.
But she wrote them regularly, and expressed her disapproval.
She sent clippings of every newspaper article that said anything negative about life in Brazil.

They are going anyway.
They love their Aunt Fanny but they love the Lord even more.
They must follow their Lord.
They know that there is no real safety apart from Jesus.
There is no other security.

One of the most touching stories to come out of the Nazi Holocaust is about a father
who went to Palestine in 1923 with the idea of buying some land and eventually moving there.
He returned to Poland because he didn't want to be the farmer that he would be forced
to become in the Holy Land.

Their son had gone to Israel earlier, in 1919, and after working there
for a few years, moved to Australia.
His mother was always complaining about his absence from them.
She feared for his safety in that far-away land.
She was afraid that she wouldn't ever see him again.

After a while, her grumbling wore him down, and he returned to Poland where he married
and had two children.
When the Nazi's invaded Poland, he was among the first Polish Jews to be killed.

His mother wanted him home where he would be safe.
There is no ultimate safety on this war-porn globe.
Our only as security is in the Lord Jesus.
So we will follow Him wherever He leads us.

"It may not be on the mountain's height, or over the stormy sea;
It may not be at the battle's front my Lord will have need of me;
But if by a still, small voice He calls to paths I do not know,
I'll answer, dear Lord, with my hand in Yours,
I'll go where You want me to go.

Perhaps today there are loving words which Jesus would have me speak;
There may be now, in the paths of sin, some wand'rer whom I should seek.
O Savior, if You will be my Guide, though dark and rugged the way,
My voice shall echo the message sweet,
I'll say what You want me to say.

There's surely somewhere a lowly place in earth's harvest fields so wide,
Where I may labor through life's short day for Jesus, the Crucified.
So, trusting my all unto Your care, I know You always love me!
I'll do Your will with a heart sincere,
I'll be what You want me to be.

I'll go where You want me to go, dear Lord,
O'er mountain, or plain, or sea;
I'll say what You want me to say, dear Lord,
I'll be what You want me to be."


Sermon was adapted from several sources by Dr. Harold L. White