Genetic Modification

 

Today is the first day of Lent, a sacred time of drawing close to God, reflecting on Christ’s suffering, sacrifice and death on the cross and culminating with a celebration of Christ’s resurrection.  Many people will be giving up indulgences as an act of self-denial attempting to tame the rebel will as part of their sacred journey.   It’s a time where we practice dying and this is good.

In John 12:23-27, Jesus begins to prepare His disciples for what is going to lie ahead.  He tells them that it is time for Him to be glorified.  He describes the glorification process as one that is like a kernel of wheat that has to die in order to produce a great yield.  Despite the severity of the situation, Jesus knows that death is essential for glorification.

We don’t like to think about death, it is not a rapturous topic of conversation, but as Christians, unless we think about death, not just in the physical sense, but in the spiritual sense, as well; we cannot produce fruit.  Jesus teaches that unless a kernel of wheat falls in the ground “and dies”; it remains only a single seed.  We would rather be more like a genetically modified kernel of wheat that is taken into a laboratory and pampered to produce a higher yield than to fall into the darkness of the ground and have to die.  The laboratory does indeed produce great quantity, but death produces something organic—something real, not artificial.

When I live my life with little regard to myself…hating my life, so to speak, valuing eternal/heavenly interests above those of my own little world and place little importance on the things the world values, then I have begun the art of dying.  I have begun the act of following Christ who chose death despite his troubled heart.

There will be times when doing the right thing, the thing that requires my own personal sacrifice, may be troubling; but in these times, I am identifying with Christ.  I am taking up my cross and following  after Him and in all this dying, there is the hope of glorification.  We bring glory to God—you can’t manufacture that in the safety of a laboratory.

Lord, when our hearts are troubled, when we struggle to "hate" our lives and cling to the things the world loves....comfort and safety, remind us that You also were troubled and bringing glory to God by dying to ourselves is of great eternal value.