Suffering & Salvation

Sermon for The Fifth Sunday of Lent

Saint Peter's | Arlington, VA

Hebrews 5:5-10

John 12:20-33

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“...unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit”

This parable is but one of several compelling images in the lessons we’ve just heard.

Picture for a moment a grain of wheat. Perhaps, you hold it in the palm of your hand. This delicate little thing, smaller than a coffee bean, one of but thousands of others from its stem.

Now, imagine it crushed into pieces, perhaps ground into a powder small enough you might easily pour it out from a jar. And this single grain of wheat—now devoid of the animating life force that once resided within it—this is what we are told will bear “much fruit.”

To paraphrase the Apostle Paul’s words to the Corinthians, “this message about a grain of wheat is foolishness to those perishing on a threshing floor.” In his letter, Paul of course refers to the “message of the cross”—just what Jesus’ word aim to prepare his disciples for.

We have arrived at a point of transition in the Gospel story. Throughout John’s Gospel there is a building anticipation of something to come. And, now, Jesus announces: “the hour has come.”

Our liturgical life reflects this narrative pivot. Throughout this season of Lent, the readings have been preparing us for all that is to come. So, this morning, with Holy Week on the horizon, it is almost as though the lectionary goes into a kind of hyper overdrive: brokenness and wickedness, submission and obedience, suffering and salvation. And just to be sure we leave nothing out: moral perfection, judgement, and a new promise.

What lies ahead will be far from light and breezy. And it will surely hold many paradoxes.

Now, navigating the heaviness and significance of these topics, to say the least, can be a bit precarious. Because how we do so is not without some consequences. So, as we sit with these many paradoxes and implications, it would be wise to pause and turn to insights of those who know about the real effect of harmful biblical interpretation.

Womanist theologians might ask we consider questions like, just what does it mean to “glory in the old rugged cross?”—as the old hymn goes. What “glory” can come from an instrument of state-sanctioned brutality?

Similarly, feminist theologians insist we consider the consequences behind notions of “redemptive suffering.” In the wake of all-too-prevalent domestic abuse and gender-based violence around the world, they rightly insist that valorizing obedience is at best dangerous, and at worst a form of “deadly altruism.”

Indeed, these concerns are right to call our attention to real problems humans face in our lives—which are only further exacerbated by the way suffering is so-easily and carelessly sanctified. So, for this reason, it is worth stressing with unwavering clarity: God is not the source of suffering. And neither does God desire our suffering, nor will it into being.

Rather, God’s feeling towards suffering is made perhaps most evident in a second image provided for us this morning. Picture the scene referenced in the lesson from Hebrew’s:

“In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death…” 

Just as he wept at the sight of his friend Lazarus’ grave, Jesus is again overcome by the reality of death. His soul is “troubled.” Jesus, who is fully God, does not want to die—and he desperately prays the cup of suffering might pass him by.

Having entered human form, God does not want to suffer. It is a profound and disturbing thought. Quite frankly, all of this greatly offends modern sensibilities. Because suffering simply ought not be, not for humanity and certainly not the all-powerful Divine source of Ultimate Reality. How have we not yet managed to transcend this pesky “thorn in our sides?”—in whichever of the many different forms it may take.

For all of our enlightened progress and scientific and technological advances, here’s the unfortunate truth: suffering is inevitable. Unexpected layoffs come. Diagnosis arrive unannounced. Loss and loneliness evade any attempts at control. We know this all-too-well in our own lives. And as the book of Job reminds us, sometimes a reason is simply never provided, and all-too-often the comforting rational we crave is maddeningly elusive.

As much as we do not like to admit it, suffering is part of what it is to be human. We may effectively convince ourselves otherwise, at least for a time, but there’s simply no getting out of it.

If we refuse to see this, we cannot possibly see those who suffer. But worse yet, if we dismiss the experience of suffering as somehow wrong or shameful, we will similarly dismiss and abandon those who suffer. So, with Holy Week nearly upon us, what are we to do with all of this? And what sense are we to make of the inconvenience of Christ’s cross?

Jesus evokes for us one final image to ponder. Speaking to his disciples, he says “when I am lifted up from the earth, [I] will draw all people to myself.”

Somehow, what we might visualize as a grotesque and repulsive scene, John’s Gospel manages to see something quite different—something that has an irresistible appeal. How is it that something of poetic beauty can come out of a moment of profound suffering and death?

We make a few quite radical claims in our Christian faith. That God became human and was then killed by human hands is really no ordinary profession. To many in times both ancient and modern, the incarnation and crucifixion are utterly scandalous. For many of us through they can be so familiar I wonder if they those their salience. Nonetheless, they are profound in their implications for how we understand the meaning of suffering.

“Good news,” as we articulate it in our lectionary and liturgy, remembrance and ritual: is that God so loved creation, God refuses to look away from pain—to abandon us. Instead, God chooses to enter into the fullness of our reality and be limited to the very same incomprehensible wounds and despair of life—and of death.

From a deep, abiding love, God chooses to become vulnerable—knowing that to experience love is to inevitably experience loss. Even when the cost is crucifixion by powers and principalities bent on domination, God chooses to love anyway. It has very little to do with the transcendence of suffering, and everything to do with the transformation of suffering.

It is a perhaps subtle but absolutely profound shift that completely changes the focal point of what is “lifted up” in this powerful image Jesus’ words evoke.

On the cross, it is not suffering lifted up for all to behold—but love.

It is the kind of love that remains proximate to pain long enough to allow something new to emerge. It is a kind of love that demands a “creative maladjustment” to a world of destruction—whose judgement is like a refining fire. It is a kind of love that, when put on display for all to see, promises new life and will draw all people in.

Now, from these great heights where love has been lifted up for all to see, we might imagine again that single grain of wheat. And there it is released, catches the wind, and  is scattered from there across great distances.

Until one experiences the mysterious and inexplicable wonder of germination that calls forth new life, the promise of a once dead grain of wheat bearing fruit is foolishness. So too, the way of the cross is foolishness, until the saving power of love is known.

Beloveds, as Lent wanes and we navigate these great paradoxes, may we hold fast to the love of Christ—and may it resurrect our hearts to also bear great fruit.

Amen.