People would have more friends if they could only learn to die. If this seems counterintuitive, it is not because the truth is strange but because man is. The wheat fields have taught this lesson from time immemorial: “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:24). The seed that insists on clinging to the inside of the sower’s pouch is a lonely seed. All of his friends have gone full send into the soil. All of his friends are growing up in the resurrection together.

This truth can make your knees wobble. But there’s no sense in playing dumb. If this generation protests on the final day that it had never heard of death and resurrection, the acorns will rise up in the judgment and condemn it (Matthew 12:42). The peculiar thing is that this truth, which is taught every spring, cannot merely be grasped by the mind; it must be obeyed. Man must die and rise again daily in preparation for the big show, when he goes through the dirt to rise again at the resurrection of the just.