Talking about dying is troubling.  Do we deal with it or just deny it even though it happens?  We know death. We know it all too well.  Yet it is harder to imagine the truth of resurrection.  In the reading this morning from John 12: 20-33, we learn that this is God’s way of telling us that the cross (death) is not the end.   Rev. Dimock reminded us to think of dying as that grain of wheat - as it dies it bears much fruit.  But is it the end?  Regardless of what it looks like, this is not the end.  Resurrection is always hidden within death.  We might survive but we aren’t really alive.  Jesus did not ask to be saved from death. He is unwilling to settle for survival when the fullness of God’s life is before him. Grains of wheat. That is what we are. Through death, however, we can become the bread of life.

Jeanie H.