Day 31, Tuesday
Posted on: March 28, 2023
by: Gerrit Dawson, Senior Pastor
by: Gerrit Dawson, Senior Pastor
TUESDAY
How Can You Say the Son of Man Must Be Lifted Up?
John 12:27-36
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. So the crowd answered him, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?” So Jesus said to them, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in[to] the light, that you may become sons of light.
What Prompts the Question?
Jesus’ tone shifts dramatically. The arrival of the questing Greeks signals that his mission is nearly complete. But even as he explains that like a seed he must die in order to be fruitful, Jesus becomes agitated in his soul. He wants to fulfill his hour of glory but grows disturbed over the pain and shame it will require. Newbigin writes, “Death is the visible sign and instrument of God’s judgment upon all our lives and all our works, that they are not fit to endure eternally. Death is the outward form of God’s judgment upon sin.
Jesus, the Son of man, faces that judgment with the clear eyes which only the sinless child of God possessed” (158). The judgment Jesus would face in his own body and soul was not deserved. The breach he would feel with his Father was not natural to his faithful life.
Jesus prayed the psalms all through his life. Their words came readily to his mind and lips. How fittingly Psalm 55:4-8 describes his heart:
My heart is in anguish within me;
the terrors of death have fallen upon me.
Fear and trembling come upon me,
and horror overwhelms me.
And I say, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove!
I would fly away and be at rest;
yes, I would wander far away;
I would lodge in the wilderness; Selah
I would hurry to find a shelter
from the raging wind and tempest.
This scene unfolds in front of a large crowd during the day and before Judas leaves to betray him. Yet we feel the parallels with Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane. Temptation to turn from his hour called to him compellingly: “Fly away and rest. You don’t have to do this. Steal away from the terrors of death. Leave these people to their just desserts.”
Jesus openly tries on the temptation in front of an audience: “And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’?” He looks escape full in the face and then resolutely replies to himself and to God so that the onlookers could hear: “This is why I came! Father, glorify your name.” His words in John are the equivalent of his more famous words in Gethsemane: “Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done.” They echo what we heard him say in John 6:38, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.” They are the essence of the prayer he taught his disciples, “Our Father, hallowed (glorified, made holy) be your name. . . . [Y]our will be done” (Matthew 6:9-10). He would not falter here at the end though his soul and body shook with the agitation of the deep contradiction between the judgment he would endure and the holiness he had lived.
The fear mastered and the question resolved, Jesus returns to his confidence that this hour ahead would be a great victory. The ruler of the world would be cast out. He uses the phrase “lifted up” we heard earlier (John 3:15, Day 7; John 8:28, Day 19). We can put these code words together to express that Jesus’ hour in which he would be glorified—and would supremely glorify his Father—would be his lifting up on the cross. That’s all in the near term of Good Friday. But more was coming. Jesus would be lifted up in resurrection on Easter and then in ascension forty days following.
The crowd understands none of this. The Messiah was to continue on in a kingly reign forever. How could he be lifted up?
Jesus' Reply
Through this lifting up, Jesus would return to the glory he had with his Father from the beginning (John 17:5). Once again, paradox enters. The authorities thought they could dispense with Jesus through crucifixion. But the cross would only lift him higher as the indispensable means to salvation. They wanted to make him an object of shame from which men hide their faces (Isaiah 53:3). Instead, Jesus would become even more magnetic, exerting a powerful attraction on all people. They wanted to sever Jesus’ influence on others. Instead, the grip of the evil one would be snapped, and people would be free to hear Christ’s call to come unto him.
So he exhorts the crowd to realize the significance of the moment. The light of physical presence would be in their midst only a little while longer. Jesus warned them, as Newbigin puts it, “Recognize the light that is shining! This is the time to decide. Keep turning from me and the darkness will eventually overtake you. And then, ‘Meaninglessness is once more in control. In the dark, nothingness reigns’” (161).
Isaiah entered the temple and looked into glory,
“I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up.”
Did he see the Lord Jesus lifted up
On the beams of the cross?
Did he see the Son of God who reigns
When all power has been taken from him,
When his robes are scarlet with blood,
When his crown is piercing thorns,
When his troubled soul bears the shame of the world’s sin
Did he see you, Jesus, in the glory
You had with your Father before the world was made,
When the plan of redemption was formed,
When your way down would be our way up,
When you determined to live faithfulness
In our midst as the truly human new Adam?
Isaiah saw that “the train of his robe filled the temple with glory.”
Did he see that royal train stitched with golden threads of believing saints,
A vast multitude drawn to his royalty?
Did he see you, the eternal one
Who became dead, and behold! lives again,
With the keys of death and hades in your hands
And ruined man streaming toward you?
No wonder Isaiah cried out with the seraphim and the saints,
With all who see the king lifted up on his cross-throne,
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD God of hosts!
The whole earth is filled with his glory!”
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