Whoever Serves

What happened to the Greeks? They just disappeared from the story. They told Philip that they wished to see Jesus. Philip told Andrew, and the two of them went to Jesus. Jesus answered them. Really? That was an answer? What was the question? Jesus takes this moment of potential hospitality and turns it into an invitation to die. “The hour has come,” he says. Why because a couple of tourists from Greece show up?

Well, sort of. Step outside the action for a moment. For John, there are always layers of meaning. Yeah, it seems a bit clumsy in terms of action, Greeks show up and are never heard from again. But on another level, they represent the world. They represent the rest of the world that is clamoring to see Jesus. Jesus has been limited by geography and by history. He has been confined to a little plot of ground and a group of people. But he now knows that his mission is to go to all the world. Philip and Andrew see two nondescript tourists who want to see Jesus. Jesus hears a world crying out in need.

And he is ready to go. Even though he knows how this is going to happen. “It is for this reason that I came,” he declares to a bewildered couple of followers who aren’t quite sure where he is going. To move beyond the limitations of the flesh. To step outside the confines of time. To reach beyond the span of my arms. They can only go so far. And to show them, he stretched them out. “See,” he told them that quiet afternoon, “see; how can I embrace the whole world with arms that only go so far?”

“That’s my son,” came the voice from above. That’s what it meant anyway. “Father, glorify your name,” declares Jesus. “I did,” says the Voice. “I did in you; I did when you became flesh and dwelt among them. I glorified my name in the life that you lived and the words that you spoke and the deeds that you did. I was glorified in your every act, in the breaths you drew, in the light you showed forth.” And there must have been a pause here, “I will glorify my name again.” There had to be a hush in the heavens as those words were spoken—a divine hesitation before declaring what was to come. “I will glorify my name again,” the Voice whispered, the Voice thundered, the Voice wept in the gentle rain that fell.

“What was that?” the folks standing around wondered. A sudden rumble of thunder, and a few drops of tear-shaped rain. “Maybe,” some ventured, “Maybe it was an angel speaking to him.” Jesus smiled that wistful smile as they once again missed the point, and said, “The Voice was for you, not for me. To ask you to raise your eyes and see beyond yourself, see something more significant, see the big picture. The Voice was confirmation that I will indeed be lifted up, hung on a cross to die so that I can live. To die so that you can live.”

See, I skipped over that little bit in there. Went from vanishing Greeks to Jesus’ conversation with God about his true purpose, his burden, and his joy. Skipped right over the middle bit where he talks to us. Where he invited us to follow him, invited us to hate our lives.

Excuse me? Why would the one who came that we might have life now want us to hate it? That seems counterintuitive, to say the least. OK, he doesn’t really want us to hate living; he doesn’t want us to despise ourselves and run around beating our breasts and ringing our bells and calling ourselves unclean. What he wants is for us to hold our lives lightly, to hold ourselves lightly. It is not all about us, despite what various and sundry advertisers what us to believe. It is about something bigger than us. It is about giving ourselves over to a larger truth, a deeper reality, a more profound life than the one we find at the end of our noses and fingertips. He wants us to extend our reach, just like he is about to extend his.

In fact, he says that very thing. “Where I am, there my servant will be also.” Where he is when he says that is looking at giving his life away for something bigger than his own flesh and blood. And that is exactly where he wants us to be—living beyond ourselves, living more deeply, living through surrender, living through giving ourselves away, living through service. “Whoever serves,” he says. We can find our lives by holding them lightly enough to lose them - not always physically. You know that something really profound is going on when you lose track of time, lose track of yourself because you are wrapped up in something beyond you. It might be art or beauty; it might be nature in its wonder and majesty, in its terror and power; it might be in the love and laughter of a soul friend; it might be the tears shed in sympathy with one you call brother or sister. But you can lose yourself if you learn to let go, to hold yourself lightly.