(Sermon text: John 13:31-35)
Given at St. John's, Centralia, IL by Mr. Jeff Kozuszek, Licensed Lay Worship Leader; and at Church of the Redeemer, Cairo, IL
Through this Easter season, on the Sundays following Easter Sunday, we have had the wonderful privilege of reading from the Fourth Gospel, the Gospel according to John.
John’s gospel account is rich with the understanding of Jesus Christ as the “Word made flesh”, who “dwelled among us, full of grace and truth”.1
John’s gospel account reminds us that, when we have seen the Son, we have seen God the Father. Moreover, we have seen the Father’s glory, in the person of the Son.
John’s emphasis is on Jesus, the Christ, the Son of Man, the Word, who “was God”.2
So John’s point-of-view is radically different than Matthew, Mark and Luke…..these three emphasize Jesus’ humanity, while John emphasizes Jesus’ divinity.
(In our three year cycle of readings for Sunday worship, we have a cycle for each of these three gospel accounts, but we don’t have one for John….what a pity! For John’s perspective is important to remember as we consider what God has done in the person and work of Jesus Christ.)
If Jesus Christ is truly human, and truly divine, both at the same time, and without confusing or diminishing either of those two natures of His, then John helps us to remember that Jesus Christ isn’t just “some great teacher” or some extraordinary and charismatic figure on the world’s stage. John takes great pains to disavow us of any such concept.
John’s account is one of divine action, divine drama, a battle between the forces of God and the forces of evil. The stage for this divine drama in John is in human affairs, and in the human heart.
And here, in today’s Gospel reading, we come to a continuation of the scene that took place during the Last Supper….earlier in chapter 13, we read of Jesus’ washing of the disciples’ feet. Jesus explains to them that that his action in washing feet was to be an example of his servant leadership.
Then, Jesus tells his disciples that one of them will betray him. Looking at Judas, Jesus says, “do quickly what you are going to do.” Judas’ departure seems to be the reason for Jesus’ next statement: “now the Son of Man has been glorified…”
Since we are studying John this morning, and since we don’t spend a lot of time in this wonderful Fourth Gospel, let’s take a moment or two to consider some ways of approaching John’s gospel account, applying each technique to our reading for today…..
- Define the key words: I once had a priest friend who led a regular Sunday morning adult Bible study. And every Sunday, without fail, he would begin by asking someone to read the passage aloud for the group. Then, again without fail, he would say, “let’s define the key words in this passage, especially any that might be unusual.” That pattern of Bible study has stuck with me ever since! How often do we begin to read a passage of Scripture, but neglect to define the major terms we encounter in it?
So, let’s look at some of the key words in today’s reading:
+ “Glorified”: A word that’s easy enough to understand (although I’m not sure we use it all that commonly in everyday speech). In John’s usage, however, it takes on a unique understanding…..For John, “glory” and “glorified” refer to God’s glory, seen in Jesus Christ (remember back to John 1: 14, “we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth”).
And “glorified” refers, in John, to Jesus’ death on the cross, Jesus’ “hour”, the time when Jesus, obedient to the Father’s will and sending, glorifies the Father in His love for the Father and for the disciples (not only the original disciples, but all those who will come to “believe in Jesus’ name” throughout time).3 For John, Jesus’ crucifixion is Jesus’ hour of glory.
+ “Son of Man”: In John, “Son of Man” takes on cosmic, eternal overtones…..For Jesus, the eternal “Word”, who is “one with the Father”, who was sent by the Father, and who will return to the Father, is this “Son of Man”.
+ “Love”: The Greek language has four words to describe love. Here, John uses the word “agape” to describe the love that Jesus has for His disciples, and the sort of love that the disciples are to have for one another. “Agape” love is a self-giving love, a love that gives without expectation of a response. “Agape” love has been described as an altruistic, pure form of love. Jesus’ self-giving act of washing the feet of His disciples prefigures the sort of self-effacing love that He will demonstrate in His death on the cross. - Watch the verb tenses!: In today’s reading, the first two verses are critical…Notice how the verb tenses shift around: “now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him, and will glorify him at once.”4
What we seem to have in these two verses are references to past (“has glorified”), present (“will glorify him at once”), and future (“will glorify”), all at the same time. How typical of John’s writing!
The net effect for us, the readers, is to prompt the question, “what time is it?”
Put another way, we are prompted to ask ourselves, “is this an event that has taken place at some time in history (as in, at the Last Supper in the Upper Room 2,000 years ago), or is it taking place now, or is it going to take place at some point in the future?”
If God is the Father of Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, then perhaps we are getting a glimpse of God’s eternal and all-powerful nature at work….coming from outside of time, God enters our human story in a specific time and place. But if human affairs and especially the human heart are the stage upon which God is acting, then this divine drama is being played out in our hearts as well, here and now. This divine drama will continue to play itself out on the stage of human affairs and the human heart until the end of time.
For the reason for Our Lord’s advent among us, His miraculous signs, His glorious death and resurrection, and His coming again with power and great glory, is to convince us of Jesus Christ’s identity, the only begotten Son of the Father, and that by coming to believe in Him, we might have life in His name.
By our coming to faith in Jesus Christ, we give glory to the Father and to the Son. By coming to faith in Jesus Christ, we are able, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to do the works that Jesus did, works of self-giving love for those that belong to the Son, that the world might know that we are Jesus’ disciples.
Thanks be to God!
AMEN.
1 John 1:14
2 John 1:1
3 See John 12:23.
4 It’s worth noting that the verb tenses in the original Greek are difficult to translate. Some translators, for example, use present tense to translate verse 31: “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him…”
