A corn of wheat falls into the ground and dies!
Certain Greeks who had come to worship at the feast desired to see Jesus. Philip informed Andrew about this and Andrew and Philip then informed Jesus. Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it: and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall also My servant be: if any man serve Me, him will my Father honor….” (John 12:21-26)
When the Greeks came to see Jesus, He gave them a message of loss and death, and not a message of joy and prosperity. He told them about the consequences of following Him in unambiguous terms. He did not promise a life of ease and enjoyment. He told them that a corn of wheat had to fall into the ground and die.
In this regard, I testify to a dear servant of God who had served one of the toughest mission fields in India two decades ago. There was a deadly disease caused by a mosquito called “Kalahazar”. People afflicted with this disease would die in that mission field for want of proper medical care. One Jeyaraj, a missionary of Friends Missionary Prayer Band was serving God along with his wife and his young son. The son was first afflicted with this disease and died. Then Jeyaraj also fell ill and died. His wife boldly faced all these tragedies by the divine strength. Then the bodies of the father and the son were buried there as the same could not transported to his native place in the South India, which was 2000 kilometers away from the mission field. In that mission field, Jeyaraj could not win many people to Christ and had been upset on many occasions.
The villagers, to their great surprise, saw a man who looked like an angel, sitting by the side of the graves and weeping. That man was restless and was moving in the graveyard here and there. After some days, the Campus Crusade for Christ showed a film on the life of Jesus to the villagers. When the film was being shown, the villagers asked the missionaries to stop the film, and informed them of their intention to become Christians. When the missionaries wanted to know the reason for this sudden change of their mind, they informed that the Man in the film was the same Person Whom they had seen near the graves of the dead missionary and his son. In fact, they had seen a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief in the graveyard (Is.53:3). Many people accepted Christ that day. Then a revival broke out in the mission field. Today there are thousands of people who have become the children of God.
There are many servants of God like Jeyaraj who had fallen into the ground of India and died, who had not loved their life, and who had followed Jesus and chosen to be in a place where Jesus wanted them to serve Him.
- Job Anbalagan