<p>12:26- see on Lk. 9:54,55.</p><p><i>If anyone desires to serve me, he must follow me</i>- Whoever serves Gk. &lsquo;is a deacon of&rsquo; the Lord Jesus must follow Him, and the idea of following Him is usually connected with His walk to death on the cross (Jn. 12:26). We are all asked to follow Him, it is all part of being His disciples, and so we are all asked to be &lsquo;deacons&rsquo; in this sense. Our service is of <i>each other</i>; to walk away from active involvement because of personality clashes etc. is to walk away from true, cross-carrying Christianity. In unfeigned humility, let us by love serve one another, and in so doing know the spirit of the Lord who served, and thereby share together His exaltation.</p><p>I have suggested that John's Gospel record had a missionary intention and background. It was the transcript of how John preached the Gospel to a particular Jewish interest group, and he backed it up by his three letters which are full of allusion to the Gospel. The Greek for &quot;serve&quot; here is elsewhere translated &quot;use the office of a deacon&quot;. There could well be a specific localized point being made to the Johannine community of converts- any desiring to be a deacon in the church community must be aware that such service is all about sharing in the spirit of the Lord's cross. Truly, &quot;If anyone serves me as a deacon, in this initial context, the Father will honour him&quot;. Honour is what church servants receive (1 Tim. 5:17)</p><p><i>He must follow me- </i>&ldquo;Follow me&quot; is usually used by the Lord in the context of taking up the cross and following Him. True service is cross-carrying. It cannot be that we serve, truly serve, in order to advance our own egos. It is all too easy to &ldquo;serve&quot; especially in an ecclesial context without truly carrying the Lord&rsquo;s cross.</p><p><i>And where I am, there shall also my servant be- </i>Where He was right then was at a place where He saw so clearly the cross beckoning, and desperately wished there might be another way. When there was not. We can know something of the spirit of His cross. We can be where He was and where He is, in spirit. The life of cross carrying, devotion to the principles of the cross, will lead us to be with Him always wherever He leads us. In John 12:24-26 losing life as the Lord lost His, serving Him, following Him, being &ldquo;where I am&quot; are all parallel. &quot;I am&quot; can legitimately be read as an allusion to the Yahweh Name, and this was manifested supremely in the Lord's death. The sense is therefore that where &quot;I am&quot; would be, i.e. on the cross, to there those who follow the Lord will also come.</p><p><i>If anyone serves me, the Father will honour him- </i>It makes an interesting exercise to compare all the Lord's references to &quot;<i>My</i> Father&quot; and to &quot;<i>The </i>Father&quot;. So much of what He says about His relationship with &quot;My Father&quot; He says about our relationship to &quot;The Father&quot;. He was seeking to inculcate an awareness of what He finally states in so many words in Jn. 20:17- that His Father is our Father. His relationship with the Father can be replicated in ours with the same Father, through the spirit of adoption which makes us His dear sons too.</p>