The setting for today's Holy Gospel is Palm Sunday. The Lord had just made His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Those gathered in the holy city for the festive Passover celebration greeted the Lord Jesus with their jubilant shouts of "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." The word that just a few days earlier Jesus had raised Lazarus from the grave was getting around. People were eager to see Jesus. This was not a welcome turn of events for the scribes and Pharisees who had been plotting to kill Jesus. For them it appeared as if all the commotion surrounding Jesus would make it impossible for them to discreetly dispose of Him. In fact, in the verse that comes just before today's Holy Gospel, John reports that the Pharisees say to one another, "we are accomplishing nothing...the whole world has gone after Him."

Once again the Pharisees speak more truth than they realize. Indeed their plans are accomplishing nothing, for the Son of God is not a victim of their designs. He willingly goes to Jerusalem to lay His life down for the sins of the world. No one has the power to take Jesus' life from Him. He lays it down and He will take it up again. And, yes, the world is going out after Him. He will be "lifted up", that is, He will die on the cross to draw all people unto Himself. The coming of the nations to the tree of the cross is prefigured in the coming of some Greeks. These Greeks come to the disciple Philip with a request: "Sir, we wish to see Jesus."

Who were these unnamed Greeks? John tells us that they were Greeks who "came up to worship at the feast." Therefore they were most likely so called "God -fearers" or "proselytes of the gate." That is, they were Greeks who believed in the God of Israel and accepted the teaching of the Old Testament but had not taken the final step of actually becoming Jews by the rite of circumcision.

No doubt they had heard of how Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead. Now they wanted to see Jesus for themselves, so they come to Philip, a disciple with a Greek name, and they ask for a personal meeting with Jesus. We are not told whether or not these Greeks ever had that meeting with Jesus or not. But more important are the words which our Lord spoke to Philip and Andrew when they relayed to Him the request of the Greeks. These are the words of Jesus and they interpret His death on the cross even as they also show us the meaning of discipleship.

Verse 23 of our Gospel Reading is crucial. Jesus says, "The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified." At the wedding in Cana of Galilee when Jesus performed His first miracle, He said, "My hour has not yet come" (2:4). Several times throughout the course of His ministry when His enemies attempted to kill Him, John notes that they were powerless to harm Jesus, for His hour had not yet come. In other words, Jesus moves steadily and deliberately toward His death on the cross, demonstrating that His death will be a sacrifice that He willing makes in accordance with the Father's plan. He is in control. He will lay His life down for the sins of the world. But this will happen at the right time; the time appointed by the Father. Now at the approach of Passover Jesus has arrived in Jerusalem, the place of the temple where sacrifices are offered. Now He announces that His hour has come.

This was the hour for which He came into the world. He came to suffer and die as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. What the world would judge to be an hour of shame and suffering, of defeat and death, Jesus calls the time of His glorification. In fact Jesus prays: "Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour? But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name" (12:27).

Jesus will be glorified on the cross, for His glory is to do the work which His Father sent Him to do, namely, shedding His blood to redeem us from sin, death, and hell. Then Jesus goes on to interpret His death, to show us what His death on the cross will produce. He says, "Most assuredly, I say to you unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain." In other words Jesus is saying that He is like a kernel of wheat that will be planted in death, and yet, just as that solitary seed brings forth a harvest of much grain, so His death will issue forth in a resurrection that will bring life and salvation for all who trust in Him. St. Augustine put it like this: "The death of Christ was the death of a most fertile grain of wheat." Planted in death, Jesus is raised to life on the third day, becoming, as Paul says in that great resurrection chapter of the Bible, I Corinthians 15, "the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep" (I Cor. 15:20).We are the harvest that is produced from Jesus' death. His death has destroyed our death. And by His rising from the grave, He gives us the pledge of our own resurrection to life eternal.

We share in the glory of Jesus by being joined to His death. Baptized into His death, we are made partakers of His resurrection from the dead. Hang on to your life and you will most certainly lose it. Die with Christ and you will most certainly live with Him. The mortality rate is still 100%. Every human being who is born will die. Those who hang on to their life, literally the Greek uses a phrase here that says those "who stand guard over" their lives will lose their lives. Those who love life more than Christ will not be able to cling to that which they so cherish. It will be taken from them. They will be robbed of their dearest treasure. They will die in their sin. But there is another way to die. It is a truly blessed death. It is to die to your sin. And those who die to their sin will live. They will be given what they could not gain for themselves. They will be given the One who is the Resurrection and the Life. Death cannot rob them of this treasure because they are with Jesus who has defeated death. Knowing this Jesus enables us to sing as we did in the hymn before the sermon: "Satan, I defy you; Death I now decry you; Fear, I bid you cease. World, you cannot harm me. Nor your threats alarm me while I sing of peace. God's great power guards every hour; Earth and all its depths adore him, silent bow before him" (270:3 LW).

Follow Jesus. He has endured the cross and the grave for you. And in His resurrection from the dead, He gives you life. He says, "...where I am , there my servant will be also." And so we come this morning to His Supper, for He is here in His body and blood given and shed for the forgiveness of our sins. Luther once said, "Come to the Lord's Supper as though you were going to your death so that when you come to your death, you may go as though you were going to the Lord's Supper." Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.