Now it’s the 5th Sunday in Lent. We were renewed last Sunday on Mothering Sunday! The wisdom of the Church tells us we needed “time off” from the theme of repentance because the journey is about to become more arduous.
We have seen throughout the Lenten season that Jesus is the center, the very top of God’s kingdom on earth. Today’s reading focus on the upcoming death of Jesus, but not only in light of a “priestly sacrifice,” but as the moment of His “exaltation and glorification.” Even so, our Gospel reading is a dark moment at the end of John’s Gospel.
So, for our purposes this morning, we need to focus on what Jesus here declares: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”
It is the time of the Feast of the Passover, and Jesus enters Jerusalem. Pilgrims came from all over the world to celebrate the Passover, including some Greeks who approached the Apostle Philip and asked to see Jesus. The approach of these Gentiles is another foreshadowing of the spread of the Gospel throughout the world, but it also marks a clear turning point for Jesus. Up to this point, the Gospels insist that Jesus maintained steadfastly that “His hour had not yet come.” Here, however, He declares clearly “The hour has come for Son of Man to be glorified.”
It is also clear that Jesus realized a point of crisis in another way, too. His ministry had presented a serious challenge to the religious authorities. All through the readings this season, we find Jesus at odds with the authorities resolving to destroy Him. At the same time, His popularity with the people was increasing. His collision with His enemies was near. The hour was come.”
Our Gospel reading continues with Jesus describing His “hour,” His Passion, in terms of the natural life cycle. It speaks a kernel of wheat which produces fruit only when it dies. Just so, Jesus must lay down His life to fulfill His ministry and vocation to the world.
Finally, Jesus goes to state that judgment has come, and His exaltation on the cross sets the world free from the control of Satan, “the ruler of this world.” The implication is that when Jesus is lifted to the cross, the full extent of God’s love and care will be made visible as He draws the world to Himself.
But no matter how perfect and majestic Jesus comes across in John’s writings, His humanity reveals He is beset by a “troubled soul.” Differing from Mark and Luke’s Gospel account, for John, the darkness is a darkness that reveals the harsh, but redemptive spiritual reality of death and re-birth. In the end, Jesus declines to be saved by the Father from His “hour,” when the Father will be glorified.
Sacrificial love through death? How is it possible that the King of Kings and Lord of Lords can be “glorified” through this disaster? A thirty-year old man being expelled from society, betrayed and abandoned by His friends and followers and going to a gallows cursed by the people and absent of God – this is glory?
Madeleine L’Engel puts all of this in perspective this way: “What did God ask of Jesus? Jesus was God for starters . . . The second person of the Trinity left the Godhead to come to us as a human being, to show us what it is to be human. So we are asked to believe that Jesus was totally human and totally divine. That’s impossible. God is asking the impossible . . .
We can be reluctant. Throughout history, God’s people have been reluctant. We can say, “It’s impossible” and turn away. We can emphasize the divinity at the expense of the humanity or . . . emphasize the humanity at the expense of the divinity. It’s a lot easier. Bu God doesn’t ask easy things, Satan does! . . . And love like Jesus’ is seldom easy, it’s sentimentality, not love.”
The hour has come! The hour has come for us to continue the action of keeping a good Lent. The message we take from today’s Gospel is that we must remain strong and resolute. It’s getting more difficult every week. But the good news is that we are not alone. On our own, our humanity is weak. The answer is not easy. It is to put God’s will before our own and pay attention to what God is teaching us. He who made man became man, but the changeless God remained and changed humanity for the better. Jesus’ life and ministry taught us about hope and how we should love.
We find in our Gospel today words of confidence spoken by the One going to death and seeming defeat. Our Lord made every word of His teaching real in and through the example of His life. His love is revealed by His death upon the cross and it is that love that will draw us to Him at last.
“The hour has come.”
Source: © The Rev. Peter Groschner, March 18, 2018. John 12:20-33. Reprinted with permission from the author.