The passage our deacon just read is the appointed gospel lesson for the Tuesday of Holy Week.  Every year at this time, we hear these 16 verses from John’s account. The paragraphs are full of action and salient points.  We could spend much time studying the nuance and meaning of each statement, but one idea is clearly presented.  Jesus knows that his time on earth is coming to an end.  He is keenly aware that he will soon be put to death and he understands the necessity of his demise.  Jesus recognizes that through his death, his life will have much greater impact.  When the world learns how he was betrayed and sacrificed, his message will take on deeper meaning.  His life and example will be examined even more closely.  His martyrdom will intrigue and captivate potential believers.  Alive, he is a persuasive preacher, an engaging teacher and a consummate healer. But, brought low, hunted down, executed by world powers, suddenly his stature and import grows.  Why would the Romans and Sanhedrin expend energy on a nonentity, on a peasant rabble rouser?  No, only a true threat would garner their attention and compel such extreme reaction. 

Jesus knows that alive and contained, his influence is finite.  Broken down and thus released, he is unstoppable!  He will be remembered and talked about and studied and followed for eons and eons.  In worlds yet undiscovered, his name will be praised.  His words will be memorized and his deeds recounted.  Jesus understands and accepts his destiny and he explains how his way is the way for all those who would follow him.  He presents a clear and effective image:  If a grain of wheat falls on the ground, on rich, watered, tilled earth, and remains in its seed casing, nothing much happens.  Nothing escapes.  Nothing goes deep into the earth, nothing reaches up to the heavens, no stalk grows, no head blooms, no one is fed, no other plants are produced.  In its shell, safe, secure, peaceful, undisturbed nothing is changed, no transformation occurs at all. 

The world is no better.  The grain is no better.  But…if the grain falls on the earth and breaks out of its casing and dies to itself, roots come out and stems grow up and it becomes something of use and strength and beauty.  It becomes all it was meant to be and the world is changed – just a bit, just a bit the world is made better.  Now the grain produces meal to become flour to become bread to become food to give life.  This is what Jesus hopes for all of us.  His deepest, most profound desire is for each one of us to break out of our hard, protective, deceptively restrictive shells.  He prays we will find the faith and the courage to die to our fears and branch out.  This must be a fervent, hard won prayer because we are a timid, worried species.  We use our gift of reason to create impressive rationales to keep us inside our shells.  We resist breaking through the security of worldly warnings.  Don’t rely on God to provide for you – that’s naïve.  Don’t give away so much, you won’t have enough when you need it.  Don’t help those people, they’re undeserving.  Don’t forgive, you’ll get hurt again.  Stay safe.  Stay inside.  Stay with what you know, with what the world says is sensible. 

Following Jesus is not for the timid.  Serving Christ means digging deep and being brave.  Taking risks, breaking out, going to places you’ve not been before, trusting God, this is the Christian life.  This is not the easy way for us, but it is not an impossible way.  We were created in the image of God, strong and mighty, noble and good.  We were made to bust out of shells too small and thin to contain our spirits. We were made to send down roots and reach towards the heavens.  This is our purpose.

Dear ones, we can reclaim that purpose.  We can find our lost confidence and our driving zeal.  We can be brave once again.  To help us locate our strong spirit, to help encourage our growth and willingness to die to self for the larger, greater good, we come for healing this night.  There are many factors at work in the world and in our psyches that make us small and less sure. We experience physical limitations and emotional bruises.  We are broken in different ways, but each one of us is somehow less than we could be.  Each one of us is in need of Christ’s saving goodness and healing balm.  In the recesses of our souls, we know what help, what cure, what soothing we need.  We know the thing that is amiss or we are at least aware that there is something broken that keeps us from living bravely, fully, unfettered in God’s grace and for God’s glory.

So, tonight in this most holy week, we come to God’s table for nourishment and for healing.  We ask the precious Son to touch us with his power and make us strong and sure so that we might burst forth from the small, hard, contained life to the expansive, abundant life we were created to give.

For the wholeness you crave, for the confidence you seek, for the peace you require, come and receive Christ’s healing help.

Amen.