[Living Life 03/27/2018] John 12:24 – 12:33 The Cross of Christ

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Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground, it remains only a single seed.  But if it dies, it produces many seeds. (John 12:24)

Death or loss seem so final to us, yet Jesus showed us another way of looking at it.  Death or loss can be the portal to new beginnings.  When we are in the middle of loss (of a loved one, of our dreams, of material possessions or our health), we see it as final, but God always redeems these deaths and losses.  We can think of these sad events as the result of our own failures or the result of the evil one’s influence in the world, and we can also have hope that the loss will be redeemed by God in ways that work out for good.  The forces of evil and our own fallen natures conspired to kill Jesus on the cross in the most horrible of deaths.  In the face of all this evil, Jesus responded with love and asked God to forgive those who killed Him; his actions in death were consistent with how Jesus lived his entire life.  After death, Jesus was lifted up, conquering death and evil for good.  His rising gives us hope that we too will have new life.  (In fact that new life is available even now.  We need only to surrender our false notions that we are in control of our lives and trust that God will guide and protect us, no matter how bad things look.)