We begin Passiontide today, the week before Holy Week, the last week of Lent. There is a whole bunch of getting ready for this huge event on Good Friday.  Although of course this Good Friday event does not make sense without Easter Day. The death of Jesus does not mean much by itself, it only makes sense when it is connected to the resurrection. But you know this. We cannot disconnect any one event from the others.
Creation only makes sense once there is incarnation, God becoming human, the Son of God becoming like us. The incarnation only really makes sense on Good Friday, when like us, Jesus suffers and dies. But this is just another death and only makes sense on Easter Sunday, when death becomes nothing in light of the Love of God. The resurrection in turn only makes sense on Accession, when Jesus returns to his Father’s side in heaven and that in turn only makes sense on Pentecost; when Jesus sends the Spirit freely to whoever desires it without prejudice; enabling us to become like him. And that finally only makes sense today, in us, in your life and my life.

We are sat here at the beginning of Passiontide on the brink of the biggest festival in the Christian calendar and it only makes sense because of you.

It relies on you making sense of Jesus’ charge to us. And during our lent readings it is right that we are reminded of these charges. To pick up our cross and follow, to be prepared to be last instead of first, and today in our reading: 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. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

Leaving aside the cultural explanations and the literary analysis about why Jesus is using these particular words, these kind of statements are just impossible. What does it mean to hate my life, or pick up my cross, or be last, or die to self and give it all up for others. These are just massive, impossible statements.

And so is running a marathon. You are all wise enough to know that setting yourself impossible tasks and trying to do them by sheer will is just asking for failure. I cannot decide to go and run a marathon this afternoon, just as much as I cannot decide to give my life away, pick up my cross, live for others and hate my life here in this world.

But I can train. The running analogy is brilliant because it make such sense of the spiritual life. Paul uses it time and time again, and we’re using it today. Following Jesus is like training to run a marathon. Not trying to run, but training to run. You have to do it a bit at a time.
It might look like, being prepared to be wrong for the sake of a friendship. Who cares if my side of the story is accepted as true if it means losing a friend or a potential friend.

It might look like putting your task off to another day, in order to assist someone else. How often does my own personal agenda and to-do-list mean that I miss out on the life giving opportunities to help someone else.

It might look like giving something away because it would be more useful in someone else’s hands than in mine.

These small, although sometimes difficult tasks are great training for following Jesus. It is when we can handle, without thinking about it, these small chances of preferring one another’s needs, that we might be ready to notice when someone else is in real need, and have the strength of character to do something about it.

Palm Sunday, Holy Week, Good Friday, the Resurrection, it only makes sense if in our lives the marks of Jesus can be seen and witnessed; if just as we have benefited from the life, death and life of Jesus, others will benefit from that same life, death and life of Jesus in us.