The house I grew up in had been built in an old pecan grove, and we had seven mature trees in the yard. Every fall, we would gather up paper grocery sacks full of nuts, which mama would put into her pies, candies and cookies. It’s hard to beat the taste of freshly cracked pecans.

But every year, some of them would escape our notice, or perhaps be buried by forgetful squirrels. So in the spring you’d see tiny pecan seedlings coming up, especially in the flowerbeds and along the fence row.

But we never thought about digging up those seedlings to eat the nuts underneath. That’s because in order to sprout, the husk had to rot away. In order to produce a new tree, the seed had to die, at least in its initial form.

So, you’d think that the way to maximize pecan production would simply be to gather up all the nuts you can and keep them safe in those grocery sacks on the porch. But that won’t work – the reason fresh pecans are so good is that, even if you keep them dry in the hull, the oil in them will eventually turn rancid. The only way to have fresh pecans next fall is to gather more of them.

And pecan trees don’t live forever. As the years went by, we’d have fewer and fewer nuts to gather. And then the trees began to surrender to the passing storms, and had to be removed one by one. There’s only one left now, and most of the nuts it produces are withered and useless. If I want more nuts now, I’ll have to plant another tree, sacrificing one nut in order to have more years of bountiful harvests.

And Jesus says the same thing is true for all of us. If we love our own lives the way they are, if we try to keep ourselves cool and dry, safely removed from all the dirt of this world, we’ll eventually turn rancid. We’ll die anyway, and we won’t be of any use to anyone else.

But if we follow Jesus, if we die to our own desires, if we surrender ourselves to the glory of God and the good of others, if we aren’t afraid to get dirty, to get involved in the problems lost people have in this sinful world, if we are willing to let Jesus transform us, we can sprout and grow and bear fruit. And this fruit isn’t just the selfless service we perform and the gospel we proclaim. No just as Jesus’ death to Himself has inspired all of us, our selfless example, our dying to self will inspire others to follow Him as we have.

But this is the only way we can truly follow Jesus – the only way to truly be close to Him. And just as a mature pecan tree is so much more glorious than a single nut, dying to ourselves is the only way we can ever receive any honor from the Father.

The watching world is asking the same question the Greeks asked in verse 21: “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Will we die to ourselves, showing His self-sacrificial, unconditional love to them today?

John 12:20-26 (ESV)

20 Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks.
21 So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
22 Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.
23 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
24 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.
25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
26 If 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.