” Jesus
replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you
the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains
only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds...”
( John 12:23-24 NIV )
( John 12:23-24 NIV )
Devotion:
In today’s reading Jesus foretells His death. He likens His death with the death a wheat kernel must undergo in order to produce a crop. He places His own ”lone-someness” against the rich crop (harvest) - the plenty. A wheat kernel is planted – many wheat stalks is the result if the corn dies. In the same way Jesus would die alone, but His life would be raised up in many- in His new body, the church, that the Bible refers to as ”the body of Christ”. In I Corinthia ns 12:27 Paul speaks to the Christians in Corinth and says: ” Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it”. The bountiful harvest of Jesus’ death is you and me and all Christians throughout the earth. We are not Christ but we are of the same substance as He. Alone, we are incapable of accomplishing the acts He performed, we are but a small part. However, together we constitute, the church, His new body on earth.
In today’s reading Jesus foretells His death. He likens His death with the death a wheat kernel must undergo in order to produce a crop. He places His own ”lone-someness” against the rich crop (harvest) - the plenty. A wheat kernel is planted – many wheat stalks is the result if the corn dies. In the same way Jesus would die alone, but His life would be raised up in many- in His new body, the church, that the Bible refers to as ”the body of Christ”. In I Corinthia ns 12:27 Paul speaks to the Christians in Corinth and says: ” Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it”. The bountiful harvest of Jesus’ death is you and me and all Christians throughout the earth. We are not Christ but we are of the same substance as He. Alone, we are incapable of accomplishing the acts He performed, we are but a small part. However, together we constitute, the church, His new body on earth.
Thank you Jesus for your willingness to be like an exposed kernel of wheat that fell to the earth and died, in order that there should be a harvest, a people, a church- Christ’s body, where I can be a part. Help me today, to fulfill my role in the body in union with all the others who have received a new life through Your death.
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