Scripture:
Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.
Jesus answered [his disciples], “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, 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. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.
“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.”
~John 12:20-28
Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade others; but we ourselves are well known to God, and I hope that we are also well known to your consciences. We are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you an opportunity to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast in outward appearance and not in the heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.
So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
~2 Corinthians 5:11-21
I am haunted by that question Jesus asks in our gospel passage. He’s been talking to his disciples about what’s coming, and it’s coming fast. Jesus is already in Jerusalem for the Passover, it’s the week we know as Holy Week, and what’s coming is the cross. And he asks, “What should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’?”
He says that in the other gospels—in so many words. “Father, let this cup pass from me.” But John’s gospel is different, and here, Jesus doesn’t want to say those words. But even in refuting them, he says them, and I’m so glad. Because I need the humanity of Jesus to show through. We need his humanity, side by side with, inextricable from, his divinity. His humanity is what makes all this so powerful and awful. His humanity is what makes his death meaningful. Important. Central to our understanding of what God is all about.
Jesus centers his crucifixion, even before it has happened. He says, “It is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” And, again, he is talking about the cross.
The cross is the point, that and what will follow. And, in logic-defying language, all throughout John’s gospel, Jesus uses a confounding word to describe the crucifixion: Glory.
Someone asked me recently to define glory, and I have to tell you, I find it very difficult to do. For me, its meaning is tied to beauty and brilliance, and also to a kind of majesty. If you look it up in the dictionary, you learn that honor is a central meaning of glory, as well.
How on earth can Jesus apply this word to the most shameful, the most terrible, and the most painful form of capital punishment the world has ever known? A punishment that was intended, first and foremost, to shame and degrade the person on the cross? You remember all those people who mock Jesus in the gospel stories? The soldiers encouraged and provoked that. They urged on the shaming and humiliation of the person who was dying that agonizing death. The state didn’t just allow it; it insisted on it.
And Jesus calls it “glory.”
Paul’s letter can help us to understand.
Paul is writing to the church in Corinth again, a group that has really struggled with community life. Over the years they’ve had factions arise between the well-off and the working poor; between people who were baptized by different preachers; even between people who had different kinds of spiritual gifts. They’ve managed to find a lot of reasons for being so divided; in that way, they’re not that different from us 21st century Christians.
In this, his second letter, Paul’s on the defensive—not just about his advice to them, but also about exactly what constitutes his authority to give that advice.
Here, he’s making an appeal that goes something like this:
The whole point of Jesus’ saving work is that it reconciles us to God.
Therefore, we have to be reconciled to one another. Otherwise, we can’t effectively be God’s witnesses in the world.
He writes, “For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.” (2 Cor. 5:14-15)
One has died for all, Paul writes. I want to stress two aspects of this statement. First, Christ has done something extraordinary: he has died, for our sake. And second, he did this not only for us, but for all.
One way of thinking about this considers Christ our substitute on the cross. He steps in for us, like an understudy who steps onto the stage when the actor isn’t available. He does this, so that we don’t have to. I have to admit, I have a hard time comprehending this. The scholars behind it—it’s called, “substitutionary atonement”—believe that Christ must substitute for us, to satisfy God’s requirement for justice. Someone has to pay for our sin. That’s the idea.
We generally really approve of the idea of someone paying for sin when we consider, for example, prison sentences for those convicted of crimes. We definitely think those people should pay for their sins. For the record, I’m with the Presbyterian Church (USA), as well as the majority of Americans, in that I’m opposed to capital punishment. The story of Jesus as well as statistics kept by our own Justice Department show us that innocent people are sometimes put to death by the state. That alone is reason enough to stop it, in my opinion.
Whether or not God wants somebody to be punished—whether or not God requires that—is central to this understanding of the cross. What should I say?, Jesus asks. Should I say, Father, save me from this hour? And his answer is no, because he is prepared—he is willing—to die so that we don’t have to. That’s the understanding behind substitution.
I woke up this morning, thinking about someone on my Twitter feed. His name is Andrew Kaczynski, he’s a television reporter and anchor, and last month, his 9-month old baby daughter died of a rare brain cancer. Her name was Francesca, but her family called her Beans. And I thought of families who are faced with the particularly brutal experience of helplessly watching their beloved child suffer. And I thought of the many times I’ve heard such parents say, “If only I could take her pain away, I would. If I could take it on myself, make it be me, I would. Let it be me, God. Let it be me.”
And for the first time, I began to have a tiny inkling of what might persuade the God of the universe to want to intervene in human suffering in such a way. The willingness to sacrifice omnipotence, and instead let Godself, in the person of Jesus, suffer on the cross, so that we, God’s beloved children, would not have to suffer.
This is why we so need to see Jesus’ humanity, inextricable from his divinity. His humanity is what makes all this so terrible and beautiful. His humanity is what makes his willingness to suffer and die—for our sake—meaningful. His love—the love that leads him to the cross, and lets him call it “glory,” is central to our understanding of what God is all about. Even if we see him as one who came to bear the consequences of sin, as Paul says, so that we wouldn’t have to, it’s still all about love. God’s love. Jesus’ love, like the love of those parents who can’t bear to watch their children suffer. Which becomes, crucially, our love, sent out into the world in witness.
The love of Christ urges us on. We no longer live for ourselves, but for Christ and the people he loved to the end.
Thanks be to God. Amen.