“The Light Revealed”
Sermon by Noel K. Anderson
First Presbyterian Church of Upland
John 12: 27-36 nrsv
27 27 “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. 28 Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” 29 The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” 30 Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33 He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. 34 The crowd answered him, “We have heard from the law that the Messiah remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?” 35 Jesus said to them, “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. 36 While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.” †
The triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem
is what we call Palm Sunday. In the three texts we’ve read this morning, we have Jesus riding into Jerusalem—with the Disciples not really understanding what was going on and the Pharisees more determined than ever to kill him. We have Jesus announcing that the hour of his glorification has come. And we have this third, curious text with the thunderous voice of God from Heaven promising to glorify Jesus—which will come through his being lifted up, which no one seems to understand.
I’d like us to look at three points from John’s Palm Sunday text as we dive into Holy Week 2022:
1. The providence of God.
2. The promise to “draw all people” to himself.
3. How we come to understand and trust in God’s plan.
1. The providence
of God
God is in perfect control, despite any earthly appearances
One of the great themes in John—which also appears in other gospels—is that God is in total control. Nothing that happens does so by any other power than the power of God. Jesus' mission—meaning his coming crucifixion—is entirely under his control. In John 10: 18, we read:
"No one takes it [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father."
Jesus wasn't killed by the Romans, as the worldly view would have it. Jesus was not killed by the Jews, as many in church history have wrongly said. Christianity's past forays into antisemitism are its ugliest moments. Nothing comes close by comparison to the implication that the Jews killed Jesus. No, Jesus gave his life willingly—no one took it from him. God is in control, and his providence is perfect.
Notice: John does not give us the same Gethsemane account as the other gospels; his take is very different. Look at verse 27:
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.
This appears to be the opposite of what we hear in other gospels, where Jesus asks the Father to "remove this cup." But here, John shows us that Jesus did not want it any other way. John tells us Jesus was confident in his mission. Jesus says, "No, it is for this reason I have come to this hour"! Then are the gospels giving us mixed messages? Not necessarily, because in reading John, we know how we ought to read the other gospels; namely, with all the emphasis on the latter phrase, "Not my will but yours be done." This acceptance of his mission is the common thread in all four gospels: Jesus was never in doubt about his mission—the plan he shared with the Father-- though he dreaded the necessary procedure. You'll get it if you've ever had a painful but necessary surgery to look forward to. The thing must be done—and you know it must—but you can't help wondering whether or not there might be a less painful process.
In all the gospel passion narratives, God is provident and in complete control—calling all the shots and lining up the players and events to secure our salvation. The Jews and the Romans are merely pawns on a board where God plays both sides.
We all need to know that God is provident—in charge, in control, and utterly trustworthy. We need to trust that God will follow through with his every promise. As in billiards, he has called every shot beforehand and makes every one. He will accomplish all he promises, and those promises are what we call hope. Those promises are the very substance of our faith.
So we need to talk about God's promise in this text, but we first need to understand how John sees salvation on the timeline of history.
John's Timeline of Salvation History
Have you ever known one of those people—near geniuses who can't figure out what time it is? They may be brilliant in several spheres of activity, but they can't figure out what time is? They are always late or painfully early but constantly challenged by the idea of time, where it comes from, and where it goes. That's John. John is a cosmic thinker, and for him, past, present, and future are all inseparable.
His gospel is filled with people who come face to face with Jesus for significant encounters. For John, that moment of encounter is each one's Judgment Day—the end of the world and the beginning of that person's eternity. Forever exists in a moment, specifically, in the very moment we encounter Jesus.
Judgment Day isn't a far-off future historical event; it is now, here in the eternal now is the final judgment of all humankind. Consider a couple of verses:
John 3:19
And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.
John 5:24
Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life.
And from today's text, verse 31:
31 Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.
John tells us that Jesus himself is Judgment Day. Judgment Day occurs when we encounter Christ. In the moment of that encounter, we experience our judgment. When we come face to face with Christ—the Word of God—we stand before the divine throne of heaven on Judgment Day. John would not have us think of Judgment Day as a far-off historical event to be awaited. Our judgment day occurs in moments like this one. Just like now. He is with us; he is near. Do you know him? Does he know you? Do you know he knows you? Are you under his grace, or are you still wondering? There is no Judgment Day to wait for to get your answer because that Judgment Day is right now. The light's on you—do you know his promises?
2. The Promise to draw all people to himself
What and how can it really mean “all “ people?
Verse 32: Here's the promise:
And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.
All people will be drawn to Christ. That is Judgment Day, and it is also good news. Now, what is meant by "all people"? Over the centuries, scholars have tried to lawyer it down to simpler forms. Augustine said that it meant all classes of people—all castes and all places on the social ladder—which is interesting. Whether rich or poor, all will be drawn, but only if you're among the elect rich and elect poor. John Calvin had a similar take, saying that "all people" meant all nationalities, particularly Jews, Romans, Greeks, and so forth, as if it said "all peoples." A more precise translation is as broad as it plainly reads: "all people" means every human being without exception—all will be drawn to Christ.
Does that mean that all will be saved? Not necessarily, but all will be drawn to Christ because Christ alone is the world's judge. Not only Bible-believing Christians, but Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Atheists, Agnostics, and Heathen alike will come face to face with Jesus, and therein shall be judged. No human being will pass from this life to the next without a face-to-face meeting with Christ. We need that to be enough for us; the Church should not play at trying to guess who is in and who is outside of God's favor. But all will be drawn to Christ, and that is a promise we can celebrate. What Christ says or does is up to him. Every human being, every soul, will come to Jesus Christ and be judged. How he judges each soul is his business, not ours. Our business is to proclaim him as the only door between this life and eternity.
So God is provident. He calls the shots and fulfills every promise. We must grow and learn to trust that truth in every way we can.
3. how we come to understand and trust in God’s plan
We can either choose or ignore our capacity to trust God
How do we come to understand and trust in God's plan? I want to offer two practical ways, and the first way is that we commit our minds to trust God.
We have plenty of educators in this congregation, and all of you know better than I the power of expectations. What we learn to expect, we also inwardly commit ourselves to accomplish. We must regularly teach ourselves to expect that we can and will trust God. We pray for trust. When we pray the Lord's Prayer, we say, "Thy Name, Thy Kingdom, Thy Will," which expresses trust. We can also tell ourselves in our inner dialogue: "I belong to Jesus; I trust in him," "I will trust in the Lord today," or "Every day, I grow to trust in Christ a little bit more!" We do well to raise our expectations that we shall trust God, and we should teach our children to do likewise.
We live in this world with real choices. We can take on the mantle of faith every day or ignore it. We can choose to pursue our growth and depth in faith or just slide along. I guarantee you that when hardship comes—and it will—the person who has grown in faith will be far better off in dealing with it.
In choosing to set our minds on trusting God and committing ourselves to that trust, we are preparing ourselves and our children for future faithfulness.
The second way we come to understand and trust is by looking back. We look back in gratitude.
Look again at verse 16:
16 His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written of him and had been done to him.
As we look forward in this life, the future is always foggy and dim-lit. But looking back, we have 20/20 hindsight. What works, what doesn't work, what helps, what hurts—all are afforded great clarity in hindsight.
What the Bible calls wisdom is mostly this—it is good judgment based upon much experience. Those who have lived a long time have made many mistakes from which to learn. The wise, old sage is not necessarily the person with the highest IQ, but rather the person who has a lot more hindsight lessons to inform their future decisions.
Basically, your grandmother knows more about life than your college professors. That's the difference between wisdom and knowledge. For instance, your grandmother will probably not tell you that there are between 63 and 81 human genders.
We come to understand and trust in God's plan as we see how he has always fulfilled his plan in the past. We read Scripture and see a perfect pattern of prophecy and fulfillment—God calls every shot—and this gives us reason to trust in him as we look forward into that otherwise foggy and dim-lit future.
In your own life, as in mine, we look back at trials and crises—in the midst of which we were fraught with anxiety—and see how God was faithful. God kept us, carried us, and saw us through. On the far side of it, I always say the same thing to myself: "Why do ever doubt? Never doubt. Never doubt!" which is a way of saying, "Come on, trust in God!"
Finally, the more we practice trusting in God and expecting ourselves to trust in him, the more our gratitude grows because we see him clearly fulfilling his plan through us. It may be through looking back, but every triumph only solidifies our capacity to trust for every future event. In the end, our soul prayers come to resemble the prayer of Jesus: “Not my will, but your will O Lord!” †