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Holy Tuesday – John 12:20–36

Yesterday, we stood in a house filled with fragrance. Mary kneeling. Perfume poured out. Love extravagant and defenceless. Today, the mood shifts. We move from intimacy to inevitability.

“Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks.”

It sounds like a passing detail. But in John’s Gospel, this is a seismic moment. The Greeks have come. Not Jews from Galilee. Not villagers from Bethany. Not even curious Pharisees from Jerusalem. But Greeks. Outsiders to the covenant story. Representatives of the wider world – the intellectual, cultural, philosophical horizon beyond Israel. And they say, simply: “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

It is one of the most disarming requests in the Gospel. Not to debate with him. Not to trap him. Not to test him. To see him.

Philip tells Andrew. Andrew and Philip tell Jesus. And Jesus does not say: “Bring them in.” Instead, he says: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” The hour has come.

The hour has come

Until now, in John’s Gospel, the hour has not yet come. At Cana – not yet. At earlier confrontations – not yet. The tension has been building, but the hour has been deferred. Now it has come.

And what triggers it? The widening of the circle. When the world begins to knock, the cross becomes unavoidable.

‘Glorified’. It is a dangerous word. We hear ‘glory’ and imagine radiance, victory, applause. But in John, glory means crucifixion. It means the lifting up of the Son of Man on a Roman cross. Glory is revealed not in domination but in self-giving.

Jesus continues: “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

Here, the imagery changes. We move from fragrance to soil. From perfume poured out to seed buried. If Monday’s sermon was about costly love, tonight’s is about costly transformation. A seed clutched in the hand remains intact. Preserved. Secure. But it remains alone.

For fruitfulness, it must fall. It must disappear. It must enter darkness. The soil closes over it. From the outside, it looks like loss. Erasure. Failure. And yet beneath the surface, something is happening.

Long dark night

This is not romantic language. This is agricultural realism understood by any gardener or farmer. The seed must rupture. The outer casing must break. What protects it must give way for life to emerge.

Holy Week is moving us from devotion into disintegration. “Those who love their life lose it,” Jesus says, “and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

These are not easy words. They are not an endorsement of self-hatred. They are an invitation to relinquishment. To loosen the grip on self-preservation as the ultimate good.

Because there is a kind of life that is merely survival – guarded, calculated, protected. And then there is a deeper life that is born through surrender.

Here the connection to Dolly Parton’s “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” becomes illuminating. The song begins in darkness: “It’s been a long dark night and I’ve been a waitin’ for the morning. It’s been a long hard fight. But I see a brand-new day a-dawning.”

Dolly wrote it at a time of upheaval – long-drawn-out painful lawsuits following her ending of that professional partnership that we heard about yesterday, stepping into uncertainty. The song was not naive optimism. It was hope wrestled from instability.

My soul is troubled

It’s been said that: “Country music is 3 chords and the truth.” And this song does not deny the night. It names it. Long. Dark. Hard. And yet – it dares to anticipate dawn. John’s Gospel does something similar. Jesus does not pretend this is easy: “Now my soul is troubled.”

That line is vital. The Son of Man who speaks of glory is troubled. Disturbed. Agitated in spirit. Holy Week is not stoic. It is not detached. “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say: ‘Father, save me from this hour’?”

We hear the echo of Gethsemane already forming. But then: “No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.” This is not fatalism. It is vocation. He does not seek suffering for its own sake. He does not glorify pain. But he does not evade the path that leads through it. “Father, glorify your name.”

And then – a voice from heaven. “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” Some hear thunder. Some hear speech. Ambiguity surrounds revelation.

And Jesus says something astonishing: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” Lifted up. In John, this phrase always holds double meaning. Lifted up on the cross. Lifted up in exaltation.

The cross becomes a magnet. The place of apparent defeat becomes the place of gathering. The Greeks wished to see Jesus. They will see him – not merely teaching, not merely healing – but lifted up. The hour has come. And the hour is the seed’s falling.

Fruitfulness requires hiddenness

It is striking that fruitfulness, in Jesus’ imagery, requires hiddenness. We are uncomfortable with hidden seasons. The Church prefers visible growth. Immediate results. Public affirmation. But the seed does its work in obscurity. In darkness. In silence. Holy Week invites us into that soil.

The movement from Bethany to Golgotha is not straight-line triumph. It is downward. The perfume is fading. The seed is buried. And yet Jesus insists – fruit will come.

Dolly’s lyric continues: “Everything’s gonna be all right. It’s gonna be okay.” It is not denial. It is defiance of despair. And John’s Gospel is not sentimental. It is unsparing about suffering. But it refuses to let suffering define the final horizon.

Invited to follow

There is another dimension to this passage that deepens its challenge. “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.”

We are not invited to admire the seed from a safe distance. We are invited to follow. Which means that Holy Week is not theatre. We’re not spectators. It is participation.

Where are you and I being invited to let things fall into the earth? Where are we clinging to preservation at the cost of fruitfulness? Where are we protecting reputation, comfort, certainty – when surrender might lead to life?

This is not some abstract spirituality. Perhaps it may look like forgiving when we would rather hold grievance. It may look like speaking truth when silence would be safer. It may look like letting go of control in a relationship, a role, a future.

Seeds do not sprout while clutched. They must fall. And falling feels like loss. Jesus does not romanticise it. “Those who love their life lose it.” The instinct to preserve the self at all costs can shrink the self into isolation. But to entrust oneself into God’s purposes – even through darkness – opens into something larger.

The Greeks wanted to see Jesus. And what they are shown is a man walking steadily toward surrender. Not coercion. Not violence. Not spectacle. Surrender.

Judgement – is unveiling

As you might guess, there is yet another layer here. Jesus says, “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.”

Judgement, in John, is not primarily condemnation. It is unveiling, exposure. The cross exposes the world’s systems – violence, scapegoating, domination. And it exposes our complicity in them. But it also exposes the heart of God. Because glory is revealed not in crushing enemies but in absorbing hostility without retaliation. The seed falls into soil that is hostile. And yet life emerges.

The voice from heaven says: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” Past and future glory converge in this hour. Holy Week stands at that convergence. We live between fragrance and dawn. Between falling and fruit. Between night and clear blue morning.

“Walk while you have the light,” Jesus says. “Believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.”  The light does not eliminate darkness instantly. It accompanies us through it. And this is crucial. Christian hope is not escape from darkness. It is light within it. The seed does not avoid the soil. It transforms it.

Long hard fight

Dolly’s song holds that paradox beautifully. It does not skip from night to sunshine without struggle. It acknowledges the long hard fight. But it refuses to let night be ultimate.

Holy Week will grow darker still. There is betrayal ahead. Arrest. Trial. Crucifixion. The seed will indeed be buried. And yet Jesus speaks of fruit before any sign of it is visible. And this is the daring of faith. To trust that falling is not the end. To believe that buried love is not wasted love. To walk toward the hour not because it is painless, but because it is purposeful.

On Monday, we watched Mary pour out perfume. Today, we watch the Son of Man prepare to pour out himself. The house was filled with fragrance. Now the earth will receive a seed. And somewhere beneath the surface of this week – beneath anguish and fear – something is germinating.

The Greeks wished to see Jesus. They will. Lifted up. Drawing all people. And on the other side of the long dark night, there will be a morning no darkness can extinguish.

“Everything’s gonna be all right. It’s gonna be okay.” Not because suffering is trivial. But because glory has chosen the cross as its dwelling place. And the seed that falls will not remain alone.

A Blessing for Wanting to See

Blessed are you in the quiet of your asking,
when all you can say is:
I wish to see.

Blessed are you
when the answer comes not as clarity but as a falling,
a letting go,
a seed surrendered to the dark.

May you trust
what is being given beneath the surface,
where life is taking shape
beyond your sight.

And when the path turns
toward shadow and unknowing,
may the light find you there –
not to dazzle,
but to guide
each next step home. Amen.

‘Glory in the dark earth – or “Light of a Clear Blue Morning”‘ was delivered by Ian Banks at St Katharine’s, Blackrod on Holy Tuesday, 31st March 2026. It was based on John 12:20–36. It was the second in a three-part sermon series for Holy Week.