Last month, the bishop of the New Jerusalem Church of God in Christ opened his sermon at the Virginia Beach church with the story of his birth 63 years before, and closed with these words:

“Some of us think we’re going to live forever. Because you’re not sick, because you have good health, and you think you have plenty of time. But you don’t know where death is standing. Just because you come to church today doesn’t mean death is not out there waiting for you . . . . Today is here, but tomorrow is not promised to you.”

He said, “Get right with God!”

The congregation responded, “Amen!” He sat down.

And died.

He just slumped in his chair and died. The paramedics were called, of course, but he was gone. He had no previous health problems; he just . . . died. As we all will.

In John’s Gospel Jesus asks, “Yet what should I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour.”

We grieve a sudden death, thinking it’s somehow unfair. We’ve heard the scripture about not knowing the day or the hour but we feel that we really should be given some kind of warning so we can get ready. But that’s not the way it works. We share Jesus’ uncertainty about when and where. We have to be ready all the time.

If your community doesn’t already know a setting of John 12:24—“Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies”—find one. It’s useful not only in the context of today’s Gospel, but throughout the year.

M.D. Ridge