Lent 5 B: The Great Inversion

John 12:20-33

Dear Partner in Preaching,

I’ll just confess it: I’ve never known quite what to do with this passage. It is, like so many passages in the Fourth Gospel, so symbolically and theologically rich (or, if you’re feeling as I am right now, dense). One thing I do notice however, is a series of interesting inversions.

The scene starts with some Greeks wanting to see Jesus. Just what the Greeks represent is not entirely clear, but I tend to think it means that word of Jesus, and simultaneously Jesus’ word of grace, has reached far and wide enough for him to feel confident that this part of his mission is complete and he can now move to Jerusalem sure that he has drawn, and will draw, all persons to himself (12:32).

Their request, transmitted through Philip and Andrew, sparks a series of reflections made as pronouncements, and here’s where the inversions come in. First, Jesus declares that the hour has come, the hour of his glory. We’ve been waiting a long time for this hour and time, mainly because Jesus keeps saying it “has not yet come” (see John 2:4, 7:6, 7:8, 8:20). But now it has – the hour/time of glory has arrived. But “glory” is not what we might think, which is the first inversion. It is not, that is, Olympic glory, or Super Bowl glory, or promotion glory, or Valedictorian glory. It is cross glory, suffering glory, obedience glory. It is not, in short, glory as the world would define it, which is the heart of these inversions.

This pattern continues, as Jesus next pronounces, “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (12:25). Again, not what we would expect, and certainly not what the world promises. “Hate” in John is not so much the sense of “detesting” someone or something as it is “rejecting” something or someone. In this sense, v. 25 represents a summary of the inversions Jesus offers, as he says that those who do not reject the material values and world view of the present age will, like the material things they love, eventually pass away. Those who realize there is more to this life than the trinkets and fading accomplishments the world offers will enjoy eternal rewards.

Jesus then rejects – and thereby inverts – the understandable reaction of most persons (including the Jesus portrayed in all the other gospels!) facing his immediate future: “What should I say – “Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.” (v. 27). Jesus rejects fear at losing his mortal, physical life because he knows that God is with him, that, indeed, God sent him for this purpose, to reveal God’s abundant life, something more than the usual symbols of life – wealth, youth, power – that the world offers.

In these and other “inversions,” Jesus invites us to consider with care what we have come to value, what we have come to accept as “the way of the world,” what we have come to define as desirable. Moreover, Jesus promises that God is always at work, drawing life from death, calling what looks shameful something beautiful, turning suffering and desolation into a time and place of revelation. All of which can give us a new perspective on those parts of our lives – and ourselves – that we feel are dying, shameful, or desolate.

So part of what we might proclaim from this passage is that God is at work…even in the darkest, hardest, loneliest parts of our lives. That God can bring something good and beautiful from suffering. That God not only does not abandon us during the painful times of our lives but is at work using those moments for something good.

But… and this is a really important caution!… saying God is at work in and through the difficult and tragic elements of our lives is not the same as saying God causes them.

If there is a danger in Fourth Gospel, it is perhaps that sometimes this author seems so intent on revealing God’s unexpected and surprising presence in suffering that it almost can seem as if what Jesus undergoes only “looks like” suffering (but is really glory), and that, combined with Jesus’ words about “his hour,” can make it feel like suffering, loss, tragedy are all part of God’s plan and truly faithful Christians would realize this and, like Jesus, show no signs of struggle. John’s Jesus does indeed seem nearly unaffected by what happens to him, which is why I am so grateful that we have four gospels, and in this case especially Mark who displays the more “human” side of Jesus more fully.

My caution here is simply that John’s desire to have everything fall together, for everything to make sense, to not only assure us of God’s presence but also lend a divine order to the chaos of our lives not tempt us to imagine that the God causes the pain and suffering and tragedy of our lives as part of some larger plan. That interpretation does indeed lend order and meaning to what can feel chaotic and meaningless, but only at the price of rendering God unsympathetic, indeed rather heartless, and simultaneously silencing our cries of disappointment, hurt, and despair.

With that caution in mind, John’s portrayal of the inversions Jesus offers can help us proclaim and promise what I would call “the great inversion” of the Fourth Gospel: that amid the material and ever-decaying physical world of our universe there is a God who embraces the God-rejecting world (kosmos) in love (3:16), who continues to be at work wresting life from death, and who surprises us by being able to redeem even the deepest pain, assuring us that while God never desires that we suffer, yet God can work through that suffering for good.

God is here. God is at work. God is not afraid of those parts of our lives that frighten us. God does not value us as the world does. God will not give up. God is on the side of life and love. And the love, mercy, and life God offers is stronger than the hate, judgment, and death that too often colors the world. This, Dear Partner, inverts all the meager promises of the world and gives us something worth climbing into the pulpit to declare. Thank you for your boldness in doing just that, and blessings on your preaching this week and always.

Yours in Christ,
David