If you would, please turn with me in your Bibles to John chapter 12, beginning at verse 20.
Now, among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So, these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’ Philip went and told Andrew. Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.
And Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 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. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 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.
Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this purpose, I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.’ Then a voice came from heaven. ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’
The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, ‘An angel has spoken to him.’ Jesus answered, ‘This voice has come for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgment of this world. Now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’
He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Let us pray. Lord Jesus, we gather to hear you speak. We come to you like the Greeks and like the disciples, drawn to you by your Holy Spirit, drawn to your word, and drawn and built up in faith of you. We ask that you fill us with your spirit, and that you open our hearts to receive you and our ears to hear your word. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
So, during the three primary feasts, 1st century Jerusalem must surely have been a sight to behold. I mean, this was the height of Judaism’s public and social influence. This was the height of visible Jewish devotion, unmatched even today by the 20th century expressions that have happened following the present nation of Israel’s establishment in 1948.
I mean, the law of Moses declared, ‘Three times in the year shall all of your males appear before the Lord God,’ requiring their attendance as mandatory at the tabernacle, the temple for the three feasts of Passover, of Weeks, and Tabernacles. Therefore, every year, the population of Jerusalem swelled three times as every adult male Jew in Judea and many Hellenistic Jewish men traveled there from across the Roman Empire.
This exceptional population increase created an extremely volatile situation since there were far too many people in way too little space. These festivals brought an influx of belligerent and possibly rebellious men of military age without the calming presence of their wives and children.
The Romans under Pontius Pilate, in response to this cycle, would regularly increase their military presence in Jerusalem, reassigning the legionnaires from their principal post in Caesarea Maritima here to Jerusalem. They would have been stationed or quartered in the fortress Antonia, located just outside the Temple Mount, or in the governor’s palace itself that had previously belonged to King Herod, which was located in the western part of the city.
And during these times, then, Jerusalem was a powder keg. It was ready to explode. But never more especially than during Passover. Jerusalem now was filled with young and angry men, a social group that felt oppressed by foreigners and pagans, men who were dreaming about national freedom and Jewish self-rule, and were utterly convinced of the singular truth and rightness of their faith and religion.
The historian Josephus records an incident that occurred shortly after Pilate was appointed that’s helpful for us to understand really just how tense the social, religious, and political situation was on that day when Jesus had entered into Jerusalem just before the Passover.
Josephus writes, ‘But now Pilate, the procurator of Judea, moved the army from Caesarea to Jerusalem to take their winter quarters there in order to abolish the Jewish laws. So, he introduced Caesar’s effigies, which were upon the ensigns, and brought them into the city, whereas our law forbids us the very making of images. On which account the former procurators were want to make their entry into the city with such ensigns as had not these ornaments.
Pilate was the first who brought these images to Jerusalem and set them up there, which was done without the knowledge of the people because it was done in the nighttime. But as soon as they knew it, they came in multitudes to Caesarea and interceded with Pilate for many days that he would remove the images. And when he would not grant their requests, because it would tend to the injury of Caesar, while yet they persevered in their request, on the sixth day, he ordered his soldiers to have their weapons secretly, while he came and sat upon his judgment seat, which seat was so prepared in the open place of the city that it concealed the army that lay ready to oppress them.
And when the Jews petitioned him again, he gave a signal to the soldiers to surround them and threatened that their punishment should be no less than immediate death, unless they would stop disturbing him and go their ways home. But they threw themselves upon the ground and laid their necks bare, and said they would take their death very willingly, rather than the wisdom of their laws should be transgressed.
Upon which Pilate was deeply affected with their firm resolution to keep their laws inviolable, and presently commanded the images to be carried back from Jerusalem to Caesarea.
So, you see, the Jews were upset because Pilate had ordered the soldiers to carry images of Caesar into Jerusalem and place them atop their standards. The Jews were upset because such images were considered idols and were therefore a violation of the Second Commandment. Earlier, the Roman authorities had respected this Jewish attitude. But Pilate chose to rule forcefully and provocatively.
These Jewish men were willing to follow the political process, first by petitioning and asking the governor to change his decision. But when Pilate refused to change his mind, and when he threatened their lives, they were willing to accept death rather than to see God’s law broken and the Lord dishonored by the Romans. That is how important the Second Commandment was to them.
And how far were they willing to go to ensure faithfulness and obedience to God? These Jews were willing to live for their faith and to die for their faith.
So, on that day, when Jesus had received—when Jerusalem had received Jesus like a king or Caesar, it was like a match being struck. However, the Jewish worshipers and Roman soldiers were not the only people in Jerusalem at this time. For among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks.
And these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’ Now, the presence of these Greeks suggests several things. They may have been Greek pagans visiting Jerusalem to offer sacrifices, perhaps thinking to cover their spiritual bases, much as their fellows in Athens were doing with their altar to an unknown God.
They could have been wanting to meet with Jesus to philosophically discuss or to compare and contrast his doctrine against the temple’s orthodoxy. Or they may have been legitimate God-fearers like Cornelius, who believed in the Lord but had not yet been circumcised. As such, while sacrifices could have been offered on their behalf, they would not have been allowed to eat the Passover meal.
But whoever or whatever these Greeks were, their desire to see Jesus demonstrates that the Holy Spirit was already at work drawing Gentiles to Christ. So, after he received their request, Philip went and told Andrew, and Andrew and Philip, they went and told Jesus.
So, the Greeks came to Philip. Philip went to Andrew, Peter’s brother. Then together, they both went to Jesus, but John doesn’t tell us if they actually did bring the Greeks with them, though I expect that he did. And so, they came to Jesus.
And Jesus answered them, answering probably the question that they were wondering of why these Greeks were interested in Jesus. Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.’
Now, the hour is something that John has mentioned three times before. First, at the wedding in Cana, when Jesus answered his mother, ‘Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.’ Then, while teaching during the most recent Feast of Tabernacles, where they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come.
And again, after he claimed God as his father, and these words he spoke in the treasury as he taught in the temple, but no one arrested him because his hour had not yet come. But finally now, Jesus says that now the hour has come, the hour for the Son of Man to be glorified.
The celebration in Cana was not the moment when Christ was meant to be glorified. Christ was not meant to be glorified during the Feast of Tabernacles or just thereafter. Now was the time. Now, during the Passover festival. Now, during the remembrance of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt. Now, on the anniversary of Israel being constituted as a people. Now, during the memorial celebration of Israel’s national freedom, their independence day.
Now, that is when the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. And Jesus explained what this hour was and what it means to be glorified by God. He told them, ‘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.’
So, this hour would be his death. And this glory would be the fruit that comes from the fruit that comes as the result of Jesus’ death. Now, although this metaphor is used by Jesus was easily understandable to his audience, it is kind of less so for us.
But if we reframe it slightly by replacing the image of wheat with corn, we do have a visual that becomes far easier for us to imagine. I mean, most everyone likes to eat corn, don’t we? Whether it’s sweet, yellow, or flint corn, many of us like to eat it right off the cob. But we forget that every tasty kernel is itself a seed.
We forget that every stalk in our cornfields reaching up to the sky grew from one tiny kernel. We forget that if we want to eat corn on the cob next season, then a kernel of corn must first be buried and die before that stalk can burst forth from the earth, carrying with it an abundance of life.
A tiny kernel of corn may be ordinary, plain, and simple, but a 9-ft tall stalk with golden ears bursting out to the left and to the right is truly glorious. Just as a caterpillar dies so that a butterfly may roam the skies, Jesus was talking about this kind of change, right?
As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, ‘You cannot step into the same river twice,’ because the water is constantly moving, changing, and transforming the river. Jesus was talking about how we grow and we change through life, right? Just as how who we are today is not who we were 10 years ago, right? Wrong.
Jesus continued, ‘Whoever loves his life loses it. And whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.’ I mean, who said anything about losing our lives? Nobody wants to sign up for that, do we?
But if you are confident enough in the truthfulness of your faith, then you’ll be willing to both live and die for it. The distinction that Jesus is making concerns whether we prefer a life of wicked worldliness to righteous faithfulness, whether we prefer the domination of the usurper Satan or obedience to our heavenly Father.
Jesus was saying that everyone who prefers the slight joys experienced within a life dominated by sin’s corruption will lose even the little good and enjoyment that they have. Whereas those who recognize the wickedness of the world, who confess and repent of their own personal sins, who turn to the Lord Christ in absolute faith, they will be saved, persevered, and preserved into living life eternal with God.
So, what do you want more? The fallen world as it presently is, or the redeemed and restored world that is to come? Which do you want more? Satan’s sinfulness, or Christ’s righteousness?
Then Jesus goes on to declare, ‘If anyone serves me, he must follow me. And where I am, there will be my servant also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.’
Concluding with a train of logic that unites his prior statements, saying, ‘If anyone serves me, he must follow me.’ Jesus’ use of service here carries the same sense as the Hebrew avod, the sense used to describe the religious service of the Levites and God’s command to Adam to work and keep the garden and all creation.
Jesus’ use of follow is interpreted in the sense of discipleship. Because the term used literally describes a sequential or routine following. It describes the same kind of echo or copying that is done by dance students who are learning a new routine from their instructor.
Jesus’ use of follow means to do as he does. So, if we are serving Christ rightly, then we will be doing what he does in the same way that he does. And this is where we generate the ideal of servant leadership from, of leaders who lead by example in leading for the good benefit of their followers.
And where I am, there will be my servant also. Now this statement actually makes logical sense to us because obviously, if we’re going to serve someone, then we kind of do need to be with them. But it’s also an expression concerning humanity’s possession of the image of God and of a Christian’s union with Christ.
Cuz Jesus Christ is both God and man. He is both God and God’s image, his representative. So through our charitable and merciful service to others, to others who possess God’s image, we are also serving Christ.
And since we as Christians are united into and united with Jesus Christ, whenever we are doing those merciful and charitable works of service, we are doing them alongside Christ as his image. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.
So if we are truly obedient followers of Jesus Christ, then we will love the Lord more than we love the world. Then we will gladly die to ourselves and live for Christ. Then we will be willing to suffer oppression, persecution, and even a martyr’s death like Jesus died because of what we believe, because of the courage in Christian conviction and confidence in God’s promises.
So we trust and we believe that God our Father will glorify us as he’s glorified God the Son, Jesus Christ, the Logos who is Theos and Anthropos. We believe that we shall be glorified in our bodies as Christ was glorified in his resurrection body. We shall be glorified in the fruitfulness of our works as Christ’s work is fruitful. And we shall be glorified as we glorify God.
As we share in Christ’s glory because it is all our Father’s glory. But still, what is glory? What does it really mean to be glorified? Worldly glory is found in fame and fortune or in power and influence. But godly glory is found within the Father’s love and in him being well pleased.
And after his initial response to Andrew and Philip, Jesus next pensively states, ‘Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this purpose I have come to this hour.’ ‘Father, glorify your name.’
John shows us here another glimpse into Jesus’s humanity, of Christ being troubled. He was nervous, concerned, or perhaps even worried about everything that he knew was soon to happen, wondering whether he should ask and pray, ‘Father, save me from this hour.’
As if God the Son could step away from his chosen path, one bound to by eternal covenant with God the Father. But no, Jesus knew that he would do what he needed to do, explaining that for this purpose I have come to this hour.
This hour has been the whole point and purpose of his entire ministry. Every miracle, every moment of teaching, every word he spoke, and every action he took was done in anticipation and in support of this hour, of this hour of glory.
And then Jesus concluded his response with ‘Father, glorify your name.’ Reminding us all and perhaps using it to comfort himself that everything would be purposefully done to and for God’s glory.
Then amazing, then a voice came from heaven saying, ‘I have glorified it and I will glorify it again.’ As God the Father spoke. The Gospels record the Lord speaking three times during Jesus’s life and ministry. Following his baptism, and behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.’
Following his transfiguration upon the mountain, and a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my beloved son with whom I’m well pleased. Listen to him.’ And now this. While there was no reaction from the crowd recorded following his baptism, when his disciples heard the voice on the mountain, they fell on their faces and were terrified.
But this crowd, the crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said an angel spoke to them. So those who heard it either had ears to hear and believe or they did not, excusing the voice as a mere natural phenomenon.
Jesus told them, Jesus answered, ‘This voice has come for your sake, not mine.’ Cuz Jesus was and is the eternal God. He did not need divine affirmation, but those around him needed confirmation. So the Lord spoke to testify to Jesus’s truth.
Finally, Jesus concluded that now is the judgment of this world. ‘Now will the ruler of this world be cast out, and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’
This was not the first time though that Jesus spoke about this. This is the judgment, the crisis. This is the decision point that Jesus had described earlier to Nicodemus. It was not the moment of decision, but it was the time of the eternal decisions’ implementation.
Cuz Jesus had told Nicodemus, ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world, and people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his work should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.
So now, now the Logos who is Theos and Phos had come into the world not to condemn it, but to save it. And now the ruler of the world would be cast out as the darkness flees before the light.
Meanwhile, as Moses lifted up the serpent of the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. So everyone who loves the darkness, who belongs to the darkness, shall flee from the beneficent presence of the Son of Man, condemning themselves before God the Son.
And so everyone who loves the light, who belongs to the light, shall be drawn closer into the loving beneficent presence of God. And through this conclusion, Jesus said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.
Christ prophesied about a time coming soon when he would be lifted up from the earth, a time like when Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, a time when he would draw all people to himself, and a time when whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
However, when Jesus said, ‘When I’m lifted up from this earth,’ the disciples and the crowd, they heard, ‘When I am exalted,’ rather than when I’m crucified. But afterwards, when the Holy Spirit came, then they remembered and were caused to understand.
After having repeatedly noted that it was not yet Jesus’ hour, when Jesus finally declared, ‘Now the hour has come.’ We may be surprised. We may be surprised to discover that the hour of his glory was not during the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, but was his death on the cross.
Christ’s hour of glory was the crucifixion, the work he came to do for the purpose of our salvation, to save sinners, a status which we are all in competition to be the foremost.
What a great and glorious piece of good news. I mean, finally, after now connecting these dots, we begin to better see how all of the different threads of redemptive history converge at the cross. Our redemption and merciful deliverance by Jesus Christ as the only atoning substitute is such glorious news that it’s worth living for.
The joy and gracious benefits we receive in the forgiveness of our sins and our justification as righteous through repentance and faith in Christ. Now, we get to enjoy fellowship with God. And that glorious news is worth dying for over surrendering and compromising its truth.
Well, other religions may command a person to die for their faith. Christianity is the only religion that commands we live for, but also since the Christian life is a life lived in consequence of our faith, we do the things we do because of what we believe Jesus has done for us, we risk dying for living our Christian faith.
So, we may live now confidently in hope, because this is the only religion worth dying for because of all God’s promises.
So, love the light and come into it. Repent of all your past sinfulness and wicked deeds. Trust Jesus Christ and believe that he has done what scripture records, and that he will do all that scripture promises.
Trust Christ and serve him by obeying. Love Jesus and God our Father by loving others. Share this wonderful and good and glorious news with everyone that you can.
Proclaim how one death on a Roman cross, something that the world considers to be the greatest shame, was the hour of God’s glory. Show all the world what has happened to you because the Son of God, God the Son, lived and then died on that cross, so that you would be forgiven of your sins, so that all of your shame would be washed away, so that you could experience joy and hope, all because God loves you.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Amen.