Hour of Glory

The Hidden Glory Of The Cross

3.21.21 [John 12:20-33] River of Life (5th Sunday in Lent)

Most every year, young people from across the country fight for a few inches of twine. Well, technically, it’s nylon. But that doesn’t make it anymore intrinsically valuable. Every year, after college basketball teams win important games, coaches and players climb a ladder, scissors in hand, to cut off a piece of the net from one of the hoops. They’ll do nearly anything to secure that scrap, including sacrificing their own sweat, tears, and blood—if it comes to that. It’s that important to them.

That piece of the net is a personal symbol of the glory of March Madness more precious than the banner that will hang in their home arena’s rafters or the trophy the team wins. That piece of nylon will always stay with each player as a symbol of their glorious victory.

And around that same time, each year, we gather together to consider something even more strange. A cross. Like a snip of a net, the cross is recognized symbol of the season. But imagine explaining to someone why the cross is so important to Christians. Well, Jesus died on it! you might say. Why not a manger? Why not an empty tomb? Today, in John 12, Jesus highlights the hidden glory of the cross. The cross brings glory to God and eternal life to mankind.

John 12 is Jesus’ last public word to the world before his crucifixion. Shortly before this, Jesus had made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem—what we refer to as Palm Sunday. Later that day, or maybe on Monday, some Greeks came looking for Jesus. Perhaps it was seeing this evidence of the expanding impact of his Messianic work, but something prompted Jesus to look to the end of this crucial week. (Jn. 12:23) The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Then he makes a cryptic connection to a kernel of wheat. (Jn. 12:24) Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. In case there were any doubts about the identity of that seed, Jesus reveals his own internal struggle. (Jn. 12:27) Now my soul is troubled! As Jesus contemplated his suffering and death—what it would take to atone for the sins of the entirety of human history—he was overwhelmed. It was an imposing challenge. But he wouldn’t be intimidated. (Jn. 12:27) What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? No it was for this very reason I came to this hour. As frightening as it may be, why would I ask my Father to save me from this hour when he sent me for this hour, for saving the world? No, now is the time for God to be glorified. For his plan to be carried out. (Jn. 12:31-32) Now is the time for judgment on this world. Now is the time for the prince of this world to be driven out. Now is the time for me to be lifted up from the earth and draw all people to myself. Then John tells us what all this means. Jesus was speaking of (Jn. 12:33) the kind of death he was going to die.

Here we come face to face with the great paradox of Scriptures. Jesus speaks of his suffering and death as the hour of God’s glory. Jesus points to the cross as his chief purpose and his highest glory. Why? Surely there were more glamorous parts of Jesus’ life and ministry. Wasn’t his glory on full display as he fed the 5,000 or calmed the wind and the waves of the Sea of Galilee with a single command? Was there ever a sick or dying person he could not immediately and totally heal? He even had the power to raise back to life! Surely, bringing Jairus’ daughter back to life, or the young man at Main, or Lazarus of Bethany was the greatest wonder he had ever done!

While each of those miracles is impressive, they cannot hold a candle to the crucifixion. Just because Jesus did these things—and they were good—does not mean they are the chief purpose of his life. And we should be able to see that as easily as we do with far lesser figures. Take firefighters for example. Firefighters do many things for their community. They rescue injured hikers and respond to heart attacks. They educate the public about the dangers of fire. They walk through buildings and make sure everything is up to code. Occasionally, they use their ladders and expertise to pull foolish felines from the tops of trees. But none of that is their chief function. They run into burning buildings to save lives. It’s a scary job. It could cost them their very lives. But it was for this very reason that they trained and prepared. This is what they have been commissioned to do by their community.

In a far greater way, Jesus came to earth to be Christ crucified. Not just a symbolic figure, but a real substitutionary sacrifice. We must recognize what this says about the condition of our world and our own souls. If all we needed was healing—whether that be physical, emotional, or spiritual—Jesus’ greatest glory would have been in serving as the Great Physician of Body and Soul. We do need healing, but our problem is more than just being sick.

If all we needed was education--to learn how God wants us to live and behave and advice on how to do that better—than Jesus would have stayed on the hillsides and lakesides that he taught from. We do need instruction, but our problem is much deeper than that. We are sick. We are foolish. But we are also cosmic rebels. We are each guilty of high spiritual treason. Because by nature we do not love God with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength. By nature, we only love God when he is blessing us, helping us, or improving our lives in some way.

This is why, by nature, we detest Christ’s call to (Jn. 12:26) follow him. We are repulsed when Jesus says we must (Jn. 12:25) hate our lives in this world. Our instincts are deeply insulted. We know Jesus is not saying, Go get yourself killed for me! In many ways, that would be simpler.

Instead, the Son of God is calling us to put to death our desires to live as we wish. Even when it’s painful. Even when it’s counter-intuitive. Even when it’s costly. We cannot live our lives looking to advance our own agendas. We cannot expend all our energy trying to get every last dollar we can. We cannot scratch and claw for the respect, honor, and glory we think we deserve. We cannot let our physical wellbeing, our pleasure or our personal fulfillment be our prime concern. As hard as it is to hear, we must not even make having a happy family or high-achieving kids our foremost aim. There is nothing sinful about earning money, gaining respect, honor, or even glory. There is nothing inherently wicked about being healthy, experiencing pleasure or personal fulfillment—or even having a happy family or high-achieving children. But whenever and wherever any these become our chief aim, we have made ourselves our chief end.

Now, few of us would say we live like this. Sure, we could find other people who do, but not us. We have our priorities, but God is always and only number one. How I wish that were really true in our hearts and minds! Since we cannot see it so readily in our lives today, let’s look back a calendar year. It was a little over a year ago that we suspended public worship services and we all had to worship from home. At first, maybe the newness of that was a breath of fresh air. Worshiping from your couch felt intimate and sincere. But after a few months, you found the fast forward button. You realized you didn’t like hearing yourself sing by yourself. You abused the flexibility that pre-recorded worship provided and suddenly found yourself promising, I’ll catch it next week. Why did that happen? Because you weren’t getting out of worship what you were looking for.

None of that is to say that we should or even could recreate everything public worship can and should be digitally. Being the church, the body of Christ, means being connected together.

But even as we tried to make the best of a bad situation, we saw ugly, self-serving habits develop. Worship became about us, instead of about what God has said and done for us. Can’t you see when worship has become about you, you have made yourself like God?

In countless ways, we made ourselves our chief end. We have become gods in our own eyes. And the one true God simply cannot allow that kind of cosmic rebellion.

But instead of making an example of cosmic rebels like us, he sent the Son of Man to stand in our place. God showed us the soul-troubling nature of our sin and his eternally glorious nature in the hours the Son of Man suffered and died on a cross. The end of the most crucial week in the history of the world.

The cross was the reason the Son of God was sent into this world. When the Son of Man was lifted up on the cross, we see God’s fullest revelation of himself—all that we can stomach and more than we can comprehend. In response to countless centuries of cosmic rebellion, God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement. Like the Passover lamb, he was spotless and without blemish. He resisted every temptation. He rejoiced in God’s righteousness and pursued opportunities to glorify his Father and serve his neighbor. He was irreproachable. Even his enemies could not come up with a single thing he had done wrong. He was entirely innocent. But this blameless Lamb of God took upon himself the sin-guilt of the world. He was treated as a cosmic rebel. He died as an accused Roman insurrectionist. The Prince of Peace paid the ultimate price for our treasonous trespasses.

God did this because he is holy. The one, true, holy God cannot turn a blind eye to our sin, so his Son became sin in our place. It is in this sacrifice that we see God’s greatest glory. (Is. 6) The God who is holy became the Sin-Bearer for us and for our salvation. (2 Tim. 4:1) The God who is the Judge of the living and the dead stood condemned for our cosmic crimes. (Ps. 107:1) The God who is good was treated as one who is wicked, so that we might be made good in his eyes. (1 Jn. 4:8) The God who is love loved those who hated him enough to make atonement for all their iniquities. (1 Cor. 15:28) The God who is all in all gave himself up for us all so that we might be (Gal. 3:26) sons of God.

That is the glory God has hidden in the cross. When God brings to life, he does so by killing. When he justifies, he does so by accusing us. When he brings us into heaven, he does so by leading us through hell. On the cross, we see God’s finest hour, his ultimate glory.

And embedded in the cross, we see God’s faithful children, his ultimate prize. Knowing what God has already gone through to make us his own, once again, is it really any surprise he wants us to stay near him? Is it really any surprise that he calls us to follow him? Should it really shock us that our Savior says we must hate our lives in this world—how our sinful minds think and react, how our world glorifies what is wicked and shames what is righteous, how even the good things in this world cannot last—when we have come to see the costly price of our redemption?

Following Jesus means that he goes first. Serving Jesus means that he sets the agenda for my life. I think as he has thought. I speak and he has spoken. I live, love, and sacrifice myself for others as he has lived, loved, and done for me. I tread where he has trod. Sometimes, following and serving Jesus will make me the object of scorn in this world. They hated my Savior, first. Sometimes, following and serving Jesus means I will ditched by those I considered close friends. A close friend betrayed my Savior. Sometimes, following and serving Jesus means I will be renounced by relatives. Our Great Prophet had no honor in his hometown and his own flesh and blood felt Jesus was (Mk. 3:21) out of his mind. Following and serving Jesus means telling a lot of people what they don’t want to hear and doing so in a way that is still loving and truthful.

But most of all, following and serving Jesus means that I have to tell myself no more than anyone else. I must have knowing and serving God as my highest priority. And that will mean missing out on some things I would really like to do. Husbands will strive to live as sacrificially as Christ has for them. Wives will serve the Lord by honoring their own husbands, not because they are so wise or thoughtful, but because this is how Christ has called you to follow and serve him. Each of us will honor and respect the authorities God has established, even when they make life more difficult than we think it needs to be. Following and serving Christ means spending more time in quiet contemplation, searching my heart and mind and life for sin, than finding reasons why I’m not getting what I think I deserve. Following and serving Christ means putting a sock in our incessant need to complain and striving to think and talk and act in a more contented manner.

This is soul-troubling difficult and painful work. But there is a glory implanted in this pattern for life. At each turn, we are experiencing God’s power and love. We see how Christ restrained his power when he confronted sin and sinners. We see God’s love in how he continues to forgive frail and foolish sinners like us, day after day.

And our God has also given us a piece of the glory as our own, too. In our Baptisms, God has put to death the Old Adam which once ruled all our thoughts, words, and actions. He has washed us clean with a little water and renewed us with his Holy Spirit. We are not given a snippet of a net, but we take the cross with us. In your Baptism, you were marked with the cross and the Triune name was spoken over you as you were baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. On that day, God glorified his name and placed it upon you. That promise was for your benefit, to assure you that Christ Jesus has lived for you, died for you, and rose again so that you are kept safe for eternal life. Amen.