The ultimate freedom

‘… And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’. (John 12:32)

John 12:20-33 (Year B: Lent 5) 

Curiosity

Some people from another tribe and culture – the Greeks – were curious. They put a word in with Philip who – like Jesus, Andrew and Peter – were ‘Northerners’ from the territory of Galilee. Northerners were probably more exposed to Greek influence and places such as Bethsaida and Nazareth and their environs would have been a busy place – a kind of cross-roads with people and trade crossing from North to South and from East to West. The foreigners who didn’t quite belong to the Jewish culture or faith wanted to know more and to have some part in the festival of the Passover. Jesus did not prevent them. John uses the occasion to report yet another riddle – to live we must die; to flourish we must lose; to grow we must be cut down.  The ‘hour’ was approaching. Jesus would have preferred to escape this. But he knew he had to go through with it.  His dying and suffering would be the sign for all the people including those on the margins that life was open to all. For when he was lifted up from the earth he drew all – all – people to himself.  In other words, Jews, gentiles, people living then and people living ever since.

It is when Jesus was lifted up that many came to recognise him (like, for example, the Roman Centurion) – “So Jesus said, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.” (John 8:28). The other moment that Jesus was recognised in a special way was at the breaking of the bread with the disciples in Emmaus (Luke 24:31).  It was for this he had come and it was for this that he would die. As we say in the Holy Communion:

Father of all, we give you thanks and praise, that when we were still far off you met us in your Son and brought us home. Dying and living, he declared your love, gave us grace, and opened the gate of glory. 

It is the paradox and the riddle of life that for those who wish to live, to flourish and to give life it is necessary ‘to die’ by shedding what we cling to – including even things that are good and wholesome but which are shed for a greater good.  The 20^th century martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, lived and died understood this when he spoke of death in his poem, ‘The Stages of Freedom’, in the following terms:

Come now, highest celebration on the way towards eternal freedom,
death, put down the heavy chains and walls
of our transient life and our deluded soul,
so that we may finally behold what we are not given the chance to see here.
Freedom, we sought you long in discipline, action and suffering.
Dying, we now recognise you in God's countenance.

The freedom gained in dying sets other free. The gospel speaks of ‘hating’ one’s life only in the sense of loving it less than the life that God gives.  In living that new life we are lifted up with Christ who is our light and our strength all the way. As the prayer in the Holy Communion goes on to say:

May we who share Christ's body live his risen life; we who drink his cup bring life to others; we whom the Spirit lights give light to the world. Keep us firm in the hope you have set before us, so we and all your children shall be free, and the whole earth live to praise your name; through Christ our Lord.

The fruit of Jesus’ abandonment and our abandonment too is renewed life in us and in others. The goal of Jesus’ life, ministry, suffering, death and resurrection was and is to set people free and to bring the scattered children of the One Father together into one family. Unity in diversity is the aim. 

Lifted up..

When Jesus was ‘lifted up’ or ‘exalted’ (hypsóōi ) as its says in the Greek version of this gospel, we might picture Jesus being lifted up on the cross with a small band of disciples, family and friends at the foot of the cross and a huge, limitless sea of bystanders standing in all corners of the world and in all future moments of history. The cross is visible from everywhere so to speak. This is a good and true image. However, it is also the case that Jesus, who now ‘sits at the right hand of God’ to quote the creed or as is written in Acts of the Apostles (2:33):

Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.

The exaltation spoken of here is not just a one-moment-in-time exaltation as happened nearly 2,000 years ago. It is that. It is also a presence and a reality that is beyond time and space and is very close to our hearts if we listen and look.  Jesus’ exaltation is like a magnetic field drawing a countless number of people into communion with him and through him with the blessed trinity of God – a communion of three persons in one God. Put another way, the disparate children of God are drawn together by this same Jesus who shared our lives, our worries, our pains, our limitations and our hopes. The closer we get to this presence the closer we get to each other. John’s gospel is marked by the truth that God has taken flesh in becoming one of us and is now exalted, risen to a place where we have lasting access. It is not a physical place such as the holy of holies in the Jewish temple of Jesus’ time. it is the place you and I can go to at any time and in any place. It says free entry – all welcome. We find in psalm:

‘The Lord's is the earth and its fullness, the world and all its peoples. It is he who set it on the seas; on the waters he made it firm.’ (Psalm 23:1-2)