Day 39 - Lent 2026

Mar 28, 2026 • Beth Long Salaguinto

DYING TO LIVE

23 Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25 Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.

John 12:23–26

Reflection

In this passage, Jesus offers a truth that feels both countercultural and deeply unsettling: life comes through death. Using the image of a seed falling into the earth, He reminds us that growth and fruitfulness require release, surrender, and transformation.

During Lent, we are invited into this same paradox.

We live in a world that teaches us to preserve—to protect our time, our comfort, our identity, and our sense of control. Yet Christ calls us in a different direction: “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” This is not a call to self-rejection, but a call to reorientation—to loosen our grip on what we think sustains us so that we may receive what truly gives life.

In the Reformed tradition, we understand that our lives are not our own—we belong, body and soul, to God. This passage invites us to examine where we are holding too tightly: to status, to certainty, to self-sufficiency. Lent becomes a sacred space to lay these down.

Jesus does not ask of us what He Himself has not already lived. His journey to the cross is not only an act of redemption but also a model of obedience. To follow Him is to walk the same path—not necessarily in suffering for its own sake, but in faithful surrender to God’s will.

And yet, this surrender is not the end of the story.

Just as the seed bears much fruit, so too does a life given over to God’s purposes. What feels like loss becomes the very ground of transformation. What we release in faith, God multiplies in grace.

Let us pray:

Gracious God,

You call us to a life that is shaped not by grasping, but by giving.

In this Lenten season, help us to release what we cling to—

our need for control, our fear of loss, our attachment to comfort.

Teach us to trust that in dying to self, we are being made new.

Form in us the mind of Christ, who humbled Himself in love and obedience.

Give us courage to follow where You lead,

and faith to believe that what is surrendered in You is never lost.

Through Jesus Christ, who bears fruit through sacrifice,

Amen.

Practice for the Week