“The Son of Man Must be Lifted Up”
John 12:20-43
4/5/09
Some of you may be familiar with the Kennedy Center
Honors. Every year they’re awarded to various actors,
singers, dancers, directors, etc., for their exemplary lifetime
achievement in the performing arts. This year among those honored
were Morgan Freeman and Barbra Streisand. Past honorees have
included Clint Eastwood, Carol Burnett, and Elton John among many
others. Perhaps some of your favorite stars have received such an
honor.
It’s funny, but when we hear the names of
these famous people we think we know them. Oh yes, we might be
able to recognize them. Their faces are definitely familiar to
us. We know who they are, but we don’t really know them
personally. I doubt that any of us here has a friend who’s
a celebrity. And yet, not knowing them doesn’t keep us from
imagining who they are in person. We all have our ideas of what a
star must be like in real life. Sometimes we even visualize what
it would be like to hang out with them. But then when we read a
biography of one of our favorites we’re often disappointed that
they aren’t who we thought they were.
Now, when it came to Jesus, He was a kind of
celebrity to people. He was very popular, even famous.
Known for His healings and miracles multitudes flocked to Him.
Palm Sunday was a testament to this, when crowds accompanied His
entrance into Jerusalem throwing palm branches in His path and
chanting, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the Name of
the Lord, even the King of Israel!” And yet, popular as
Jesus was and as correct as they were in calling Him the King of
Israel, the crowds really didn’t know Jesus. Who they
thought He was and who He really was turned out to be two different
things. Who they thought He was was someone who was going to
overthrow the oppressive Roman government and restore the kingdom to
the Jews. To them Jesus was another King David or King Solomon,
come to usher in an era of peace and restore the glories of old.
Hearing of His reputation and fame even some Greeks
who were in town for the Passover wanted to see Jesus. Imagine if
someone famous came to Pacifica and you knew where they were
staying. You might try to get a glimpse of them yourself. A
private audience with such a person would be even better. And
this is what these Greeks asked of Philip, one of Jesus’
disciples. “Sir, we wish to see Jesus,” they
said. Why they wanted to see Jesus we don’t know.
Maybe they wanted to see Him perform some kind of a miracle.
Maybe they thought that if they got invited into His inner circle of
disciples they’d benefit somehow in having Him as a friend.
If He was this King of Israel everyone was saying He was, what an
advantage for them to be in the know with Him!
So, Philip went and told Andrew, and the two of them
went and told Jesus. But instead of going over to meet these
Greeks, Jesus appeared to ignore them. He started talking instead
about His hour of glorification. “The hour has come,”
He said, “for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly,
I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it
remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Glory
was certainly what the Greeks as well as everyone else around Jesus had
in mind for Him. The kind of glory they were expecting from Him
was the same kind of glory a celebrity has today, a glory where people
throw awards at you and shower you with honor and praise. But
this is not the kind of glory with which Jesus was shortly to be
glorified. If you really wanted to see Jesus in His glory, you
were to see Him on the cross, because it was there that the Father was
going to glorify His Son as He died for our sins. On the cross
Jesus would be lifted up, so that all who look to Him in faith might be
saved.
In reality, then, Jesus was not ignoring the request
of the Greeks that they might see Him. Instead, He was directing
them to the place where He wanted them to see Him - on the cross.
It’s at His cross that Jesus wishes to draw all people to
Himself. There they will see Him in His glory. But this
kind of glory offends us. It’s not the kind of glory we
expect from God. We’re attracted to the Mt. Sinai type of
glory, not the Mt. Calvary type of glory. We want the trumpets,
earthquakes, voice from heaven, fire and smoke type of glory, not the
bloody suffering and death type of glory we see on the cross. We
want a Jesus with accolades and praise thrown at Him, not insults and
spit. We want a Jesus who receives honor and prestige, not blows
and stripes. We want a glorified, risen Jesus, not a crucified,
dead Jesus. But if we want to see Jesus, if we want to really see
Him and know Him, we have to go to His cross, because there He is
mostly clearly revealed as our Savior. There He is the grain of
wheat that dies and falls into the earth, in order that it might not
remain alone but bear much fruit.
You are that fruit. That’s sounds kind
of funny: You’re a bunch of fruit. It carries the
connotation that you’re all a bunch of fools. But this is
just the way the world sees you. You are the fruit of the
Lord’s work on the cross, who through the preaching of the cross
has brought you to faith in Jesus. But for believing in Him
you’re viewed as fruit in a different sense by the world.
It makes no sense to unbelievers to look for glory in the cross.
The glory they want is the glory of the Kennedy Center Honors.
But that’s the glory of man. The glory of God, however, is
revealed at Calvary. There the glory of Jesus was manifested as
He did His work of judging the world, casting out the devil, and
drawing all people to Himself, that whoever believes in Him might not
perish but have eternal life.
This is the light that Jesus talks about here when
He says, “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 the Light, that you may become
sons of Light.” This is the answer Jesus gave to the crowds
when they asked, “Who is this Son of Man?” This very
question of theirs reveals that they were in the dark about who Jesus
really is. They were offended by the fact that Jesus had just
told them that He must be lifted up in order to draw all people to
Himself. They had thought He was going to stick around, set up a
kingdom, and reign forever. They even thought this was supported
by Scripture. After all, the prophet Zechariah says in the O.T.
lesson for today that their Messiah-King would rule from sea to sea and
from the River to the ends of the earth. Perhaps they had
forgotten, however, that this same prophet proclaimed that this King
would enter Jerusalem humble and mounted on a donkey and that He would
be the Shepherd who would be struck, with the result that His sheep
would be scattered, a prophecy that was fulfilled when Jesus was
arrested and His disciples fled. According to Isaiah, the King of
Israel was going to bear our griefs, carry our sorrows, and be
stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God. He would be wounded for
our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities - not the glory that
people were expecting from their Messiah. But this is the Light
that shines in the darkness of our sin - that the King of Israel was to
give His life on the cross, in order that we might be saved.
Those who believe in this Light are delivered from the kingdom of
darkness and brought into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son, who
now lives and reigns forever as the crucified and risen King of Israel.
This Light shines through the preaching of the
Gospel and the Sacraments today. These are the places where the
Lord directs us to see Him lifted up in the glory of His cross, so that
we might look to Him in faith and be made sons of Light
ourselves. Not only does Jesus direct us to His cross in the
beginning from our baptismal waters, but continually, day after
day. Some Christians have stopped looking to Jesus at the
cross. They want to see Jesus, just like these Greeks did, only
they go looking for Him elsewhere. They want to see Him in
visions, dreams, and their own personal encounters with Him. They
look for Him in miracles of healing, gifts of prosperity, and blessings
of wealth. Some have simply forgotten that they even need to go
to the cross anymore, thinking that such a thing is unnecessary, since
they received the Lord’s forgiveness once already.
We, too, must confess that we all too often forget
to go to the cross. Jesus says, “If anyone serves me, he
must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be
also.” Where is Jesus? Where He has located Himself
for you in His Word, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper.
That’s where He is; that’s where you should be also.
There He puts Himself before your eyes as crucified for you, that you
might daily and often run to Him and hear your sins forgiven for His
sake. What happens, however, is that we begin to get all caught
up with the glories that this world offers us, and we abandon the glory
of the cross. We may follow Jesus to where He is in His Word and
Sacraments on Sunday, but the rest of the week we go off on our
own. The cross is not where we want to be. Many Christian
churches don’t even proclaim the cross of Christ anymore, because
that’s too depressing. And besides, Jesus isn’t on
the cross anymore. We want to hear about the victory of the
resurrection and about how to live victorious, cross-free lives
ourselves. To this Jesus says, “Whoever loves his life
loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for
eternal life.” We must let nothing and no one keep us from
looking to Jesus crucified for us and from picking up our own crosses
and following Him. That is our life! We must not go after
the glory the world offers us, which appeals to our sinful nature but
leads us away from the glory of the cross. We must not be
enamored with the glory of the resurrection at the expense of the glory
of the cross. Otherwise, we ourselves will soon be asking the
question, “Who is this Son of Man and why did He have to be
lifted up?” and we’ll fall away into the darkness of
ignorance and unbelief like the rest of those who reject His cross.
Jesus tells us that He had to be lifted up on the
cross, so that He might draw all people to Himself. It’s
with His cross that He has drawn you to Him, that you might see Him in
His glory as your Savior. See Him there for you again today, so
that you might believe in this light, walk in it, and have the glory of
being called sons of light by Him who is the Light of the world, Jesus
Christ. Amen.