Mar 20, 2012
Death brings life!
Focus reading John 12:20-33
The church season of Lent is our journey with Jesus to Jerusalem and the cross. Each week for six weeks we look at what the cross might mean. This week we think about one of the strangest ideas of our faith: Death brings life! This is almost impossible to understand. To help us Jesus uses the idea of a seed. Many plants including wheat die after they produce their seeds. It seems as though the story has come to an end. The seed falls into the ground and is buried. The plant disappears. All seems lost - dead and buried. But then some amazing happens. That one buried seed germinates and grows; it breaks out of the ground. At first it is only a tiny plant but it grows, flowers and bears fruit and from that one seed 30, 60, or even a hundred more seeds are produced. 2000 years ago Christ died. Without that death we would not know God’s love or forgiveness and the new life that sprang from it has not been for 30, 60, 100 or even 1000 people. On this very day al around the world, in almost every language, on every continent. Hundreds of millions are worshipping our Risen Lord and that number grows daily!
Questions for thought and discussion.
What do you think of the idea that life springs from death? How do you respond to the imagery of the seed falling into the ground? What is the place of Christ's death in the Christian's new life? Where do you fit in to this story?