Jeremiah 31:31-34 Hebrews 5:7-9 John 12:20-33
“Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies it produces much fruit.” The paradoxical wisdom of the Grain of Wheat is “emptying” in order to become full of dying, so that we might be raised to new life.
The great film director and producer Cecil B. DeMille was not only a great talent but also a man of keen insight. Mr. DeMille shared this observation with friends:
While canoeing on a Maine Lake, he noticed a horde of water beetles just below the surface of the water. One of the water beetles came to the surface and slowly crawled up the side of the canoe. Finally, struggling to the top, the beetle grasped the wood and died.
DeMille forgot about the beetle. But a few hours later, in the hot sun, the dead beetle’s shell had become very dry and brittle. As DeMille watched, its shell split open and a new dragonfly emerged. The dragonfly then took to the air, its magnificent colors illuminated in the sunlight.
The dragonfly flew farther in an instant than the water beetle had crawled in days. Then it circled back and swooped down just above the surface of the water. DeMille noticed its shadow on the water. The water beetles below might have seen it too, but now their erstwhile companion was in a world beyond their comprehension. They were still living in their very small, limited world while their winged cousin had gained for himself all the freedom between earth and sky
When he told his friends of what he had seen, DeMille concluded with this penetrating question, ‘Would the great Creator of the universe do that for a water beetle and not for a human being?”
The water beetle’s struggle to become a dragonfly mirrors our own struggle to become all that God calls us to be. In dying to our own worst impulses, our disappointments, our sometimes-overwhelming sense of hopelessness, we can rise to the heights of the life and love of God.
To transform our lives in order to become the people we are meant to be begins by dying to our own self-centeredness and obtuseness to the needs of others. Our Gospel today asks us that values and purposes do we want to center our lives on in order to make them what we pray they will be; what we are willing to let “die” in our lives in order that what we seek in the depths of our hearts “to live” might grow and blossom. We further ask what we would put aside and bury in order that the justice and mercy of God might be here with us now.
Jesus readily acknowledges that such change is hard. The struggle to change is, in its own way, an experience of dying. ---- Such transformation can be an experience of resurrection as well. The Gospel of the Grain of Wheat is Christ’s assurance of the great things we can do and the powerful work we can accomplish by dying to self and rising to the love and compassion of Jesus who is the Servant Redeemer.
So as we have come to this fifth Sunday, and almost the end of Lent, we are asked to leave behind our old behaviors and wants and to embrace all that is good and affirming about the times we have been given.
We are called in these last weeks of Lent to live on in the hope that the struggles we encounter now will return us to the fullness of joy in the time to come. It is Jesus who is the Divine Physician. It is Jesus who brings to all the healing and hope of the water beetle. That the love of God transcends all of our despair and disappointment and will one day bring us to the fulfillment of the Easter miracle.
We pray today that the God of compassion heals us of our selfishness, cynicism, hatred and fear. That God breaks open the hardness of our hearts to receive His grace. That we always realize our potential for goodness, for healing, for forgiveness, for transforming our homes and our hearts in His love.
Amen. Amen. Msgr. Tom, Pastor Christ the King