Vugt: Unless the grain dies – an irreparable choice

JESUS’ life of preaching is coming to an end. John later finds it difficult to understand how God’s chosen people could remain so blind regarding their Messiah. John ties to search out the meaning of this refusal by using two texts from the prophets:

The first is a long poem dedicated to the Servant of Yahweh, a voluntary victim for the sake of his people (Is. 53:1) It shows us that people do not willingly accept a humiliated Savior. The second text shows how the rejection of Christ could have been foreseen. Indeed, the ancient prophets were also ignored while they were living; thus fulfilling a mysterious plan of God.

John stresses the sin of the majority who were not committed to Christ, although within themselves they secretly respected him. Somehow the Jewish people suspected that Jesus came from God, but to believe in what he claimed and asked was another matter.

For us, too, to believe in the Gospel is to take a stand, we cannot pass by the Church Jesus founded even though it may not be totally transparent. His words come to us amidst numerous preoccupations, and most often we feel inclined to respond: “I will see later!”. When we neglect his word, we often think it is not grave. Actually it is God and his truth that we reject and we may not get another occasion to receive it. All eternity is decided today.

There is absolutely nothing in the Bible to support the belief that we will have other lives in order to repair our errors of today. If so many people of our time have grasped this belief in a succession of lives, it is above all, because it encourages them to delay making real decisions; the devil takes charge of spreading this belief.

We really need to believe in the Spirit, who is all around us and present in the whole of creation. God is in charge of everything through his Spirit. We must sit down and reflect on this, so that we may realize that all this is true.

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