17 March 2024 Lent 5
Jeremiah 31.31-34; Psalm 119.9-16; Hebrews 5.5-14; John 12.20-33
Our passage from John starts with a request to see Jesus. But we are not told if these Greeks ever get to see him, yet this passage is central to the Gospel of John. There are many occasions in John’s Gospel where he tells us Jesus has said ‘my time is not yet come’, but today, in this passage, he tells us ‘the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified’. So what has changed, what has happened that Jesus tells us now is the time. Well, the answer is in the opening request – some Greeks asked to see him. And while you may say, yeah, so what, we just have to cast our minds back through our Jewish Scripture and remember the prophesies about gentiles coming to Jerusalem to seek the Lord. Zechariah tells us “Many nations shall join themselves to the Lord on that day, and shall be my people”, and elsewhere, “Many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to entreat the favour of the Lord’.
This passage is an important turning point in John’s gospel, it contains a key announcement about Jesus’ identity and then it is immediately followed by an assertion from Jesus that he will suffer and die, and anyone who wishes to follow him should expect to join him in suffering. And there is also a play on the word exalt – lift up. Jesus will be exalted/glorified (lifted up in glory) at the hour when his is lifted up physically on the cross. The path to life eternal winds unavoidably through death – for Jesus and for anyone who wishes to follow him.
And then the passage reveals to us Jesus as a ‘troubled man’- “Now my soul is troubled”. Yet at no point does Jesus ask God to save him from his troubles, and he tells those to whom he is speaking that his troubles are the reason he came to Jerusalem. But I find it an uncomfortable idea that Jesus was ‘troubled’, that he felt fear in same way we do. I have to deal with the ‘human’ Jesus at the same time as I see him as the ‘divine’ Jesus. And any temptation to ‘airbrush’ Jesus’ humanity away so that we are only left with his divinity takes me too close to the slippery slope of Docetism. In the movie The Last Temptation of Christ, Jesus confesses his sins; fears insanity; wonders if he is ‘just’ a man; and anguishes over those he did not heal. And his ‘last’ temptation is a hallucination where he wonders what his life would have been like if he had chosen the path of an ordinary person; he fantasises about marrying Mary Magdalene, growing old, and having kids. When this movie was released, it outraged many people and some video stores (remember them) actually refused to stock it. It seems that what upset people was the suggestion that Jesus was fully human and experienced trials and temptations in the same way we do, experiencing torment, doubt, loneliness, confusion, despair, erotic dreams, and, in his final hours, feeling abandoned by God.
But we read in Hebrews that Jesus was ‘tempted in every way, as we are – yet he did not sin’. And since Jesus was subject to the same weaknesses that we are, we are assured that ‘he is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray’. We can see in this troubled Jesus the human face of a compassionate God. And if we cannot yet see Jesus the miracle worker (and I pray that we will some day), at least we can take solace in the deeply disturbed Jesus.
There are hints in this passage that Jesus would like to be able to avoid suffering, yet he also recognises that he must follow his vocation, even if that means suffering and conflict and crucifixion. He has come into Jerusalem for ‘this reason’, yet this reason is not pre-determined. Jesus has options, he has choices, and those options and choices could lead to his avoiding conflict in Jerusalem. Throughout Jesus’ ministry, God’s vision has been ‘written on his heart’, he has been transparent to God’s vision. And even though it is hard for us to accept that God would want his son to suffer, God’s vision includes Jesus’ ministry among those who hold religious and political power, and that means he is putting himself in the middle of very risky business. Out of conflict, God will be glorified, God will be ‘lifted up’.
As I said, none of this was predetermined, the cross of Jesus, and even our own struggles, hold no value or purpose if they are ‘predetermined’. God takes the initiative, but God’s initiative strengthens both Jesus’ and our freedom and ability to accept and welcome our destiny in partnership with our Creator. When we are open to God’s wisdom, we will find God’s vision written on our hearts and embodied in the works of our hands. We can lose our lives, sacrificing our personal self-interest for the greater good of God’s kingdom. And in so doing, we will find our ‘selves’ expanded and we will gain new life.