‘The Hour Has Come’

If you were reading along through the Gospel of John, and you heard Jesus say, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (John 12:23), a part of you would think, Oh. Now we find out what it is that He’s actually talking about.

This is true because all through John’s Gospel, things happen, and Jesus says, “My hour is not yet come.” And he says that with no explanation. And that leaves us with What does he mean? What’s ‘his hour’? What is he talking about?

Honoring His Death

But now, something new has taken place. The sign, of course, is the hunger of the Gentiles. The Greeks say, “We wish to see Jesus” (John 12:21b). The shift has happened. The spiritual balance of the world is beginning to move in a direction that reveals something new. And the newness is Jesus as Messiah, not just for his own people, but literally the whole world. So that what results is a kingdom that looks like every tribe, tongue, language, people and nation.

But Jesus does more than say his hour has come; he describes what’s going to happen in it. “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” And again, to the shock and surprise of many, glorification looks like death. Death itself is the place where the Son of Man is glorified. And this says something clear about the very nature and character of God: that the glorification of God is actually expressed in humility, in sacrifice. In fact, the very outflowing of God’s glory, to quote the book of Hebrews, is supremely expressed in betrayal, bruising, beating, suffering and death.

The center of it is the cross of Christ. The resurrection is the outwork, the natural, logical conclusion to what we see in the cross. But it is the cross that is, in fact, the supreme expression of his glory.

It’s a mistake, in other words, for people to say, “Why do Christians wear crosses around their neck? They ought to have empty tombs.” There’s something in the cross itself that, in fact, expresses the very nature of God. It’s a sacrificial life best expressed in death that God chooses to raise up in triumph.

In other words, in the end, Jesus says, “Whoever serves me, the Father will honor” (John 12:26). The resurrection is the statement of the Father honoring the death of Jesus, honoring his sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.

Losing Your Life

But you see, Jesus doesn’t just use this as a way to define what’s going to happen to him, rapidly at this point. He expands it. He makes it, in fact, a spiritual principle that He, in fact, applies directly to his followers:  “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24b).

Here, Jesus is not only defining the outworking of his own death and resurrection, but also saying, “If you want to be one of my followers, this is the path to which you are called as well.” Which is why he goes on to say, “ Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:25).

Here, the word “life” does not mean “body,” but refers instead to the very essence of who we are. That self that, in fact, wants to live life on its own terms. That self that wants life to go, my way. That’s the self from which we choose to part company. That’s the self about which we say to God, “Lord, I can’t deal with this rebellious so-and-so who lives inside me. I want you to come and to conquer it.”

Expressing His Resurrection

And that’s because this self is far bigger than any efforts I might make to try to control it. And in the end, self is not conquered not through coercion, but by displacement. The displacement of Another, with a capital A.

In other words, displacement happens. And that’s what we’re asking for: for the Holy Spirit to come in and build into us the life of Jesus. We need this because our own efforts to exhibit some level of self-control only go so far, and we are inevitably dashed upon the rocks of our own desire to do what we want.

That’s the nature, the seductive power, of sin: The very thing that could kill the good is often the thing we deeply desire. And therefore God has to come in and express his death and resurrection in and through us. This gives us, in fact, the power to both be changed and to say yes to God’s call: “Those who love their life lose it” (John 12:25a).

All of this represents an expression of God’s work that must happen if we are, in fact, going to live in any way that reflects the life of Jesus.  And that is the life to which we are called.

How does your life display Jesus’ death, his life and his resurrection? Share this blog and your response on Twitter. Please include my username, @revgregbrewer.

(This post is an adaption of Bishop Brewer’s sermon on December 22, 2016, in the Bishop’s Oratory of the Diocesan Office, Orlando.)

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.