During his last week on earth Jesus said:
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. John 12:24–26
“Hates his life in this world”? What’s that all about? An Old Testament example will help us see the way the bible uses the word “hate.” In Genesis chapter twenty-nine Jacob had gone to the land of his fathers to find a bride. He fell in love with a beautiful young woman named Rachel and worked for his uncle seven years for her hand in marriage. The night of the wedding, his uncle switched women and the unsuspecting Jacob ends up married to Rachel’s older sister Leah. Polygamy was allowed in the culture so the conniving uncle offers Rachel as well and Jacob ends up with two very competitive sisters as his wives. Then we read:
Jacob . . . he loved Rachel more than Leah. . .When the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. (Genesis 29:30–31)
We can see that when the text says that Jacob “hated” Leah it means that she was loved far less than her sister. As used here the word doesn’t mean that he wanted to hurt her, or destroy her divorce her and send her away. Is was just that compared to his love for Rachel, he just had no regard for Leah. She was very secondary in his heart. He seems to have ignored her and focused his love and attention on Rachel. That’s how Jesus tells us we must regard our life in this world. He is to receive our love, attention and devotion. (That is how he related to his
Father.) The life that we live in the world is to be only secondary. . .a necessary inconvenience compared to our love for Christ. Unless we let go of our devotion to our mundane life in this world (a world that constant cries out for our attention, and energy, and resources) we cannot and will not bear any significant fruit for the Master. But if we detach our heart and attention from this world and live as if it doesn’t really matter all that much, then we can fully devote our attention to Jesus, and in Him our lives will bear much fruit. Here’s an illustration:My side yard is a rock-lawn and it’s “just there.” I give it little thought or attention. That’s why I put in the rocks in the first place. When an occasional weed springs up, my wife snatches up her propane burner and incinerates it. But my back yard! Now that’s a different story. When we first moved in I cleared and smoothed the area. I put down a layer of topsoil and then seed. I added an irrigation system which I must run for two hours per day during the hot months of summer. I added additional sprinkler heads as needed and replace the valves when they fail. Each winter I drain the water and wrap the vulnerable components with heat-tape to protect them from freezing. In the summer I mow it and edge it every five days. There’s a return for all this labor, time and attention. Every breakfast, lunch, and dinner when I look out the sliding glass doors of my kitchen I see my lush green carpet of fescue grass and the Sandia mountains in the distance. My time and attention have “born much fruit”. But my dull gray rock lawn remains out of sight and out of mind.
You might say that I “love” my grass lawn and I “hate” my rock lawn. That’s sort of like the balance that Jesus is describing. Once in a while I have to kill an occasional weed in the rock lawn, just as I still have certain obligations in my life in this world. But I don’t “love” my life in this world. That’s reserved to Christ and serving him. I die to my life in this world so that I can live my life in Christ. I hate my life in this world, so that I can fully love my Savior. And when I do that, my life in Christ much fruit. . .in my own life and in the lives of the people that he brings me to help.
At my home, the efforts that I focus on my grass lawn net me a lush green lawn to enjoy instead of the dull gray rocks. With Jesus, if I “hate” my life in this world, if I fully give my “love” to Christ, I net real life—eternal life—that begins in here and now and extends on to its fullness in the age to come. For that to happen, I have to “hate my life in this world.”