In my office I have a painting of a nightime scene (I showed a photo of the actual painting). What is striking about this painting is the contrast in values. It is the contrast that draws your attention to what’s important in the scene.
Proposition: In today’s conversation with Jesus there are a number of points of contrast, which I think can draw our attention to what’s important not just in this passage, but to things of ultimate importance. So as we look at the passage together I’d like to focus on those contrasts with you.
Transition: The first one that I see is the contrast between:
Prophecy & Fulfillment
vv. 31-32 When he was gone, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.
Jesus is refering here to the fulfilment of His mission on earth which will take place the next day on the cross. Here is the fulfillment of His destiny, that which was promised by the prophets. The prophets looked forward with great delight--the ultimate day in the history of the world, the day when tear in the fabric of human history would be mended a day of great joy.
Even here as Jesus speaks of it, it is a day of Glory, God the Father Glorifies the Son.
But we look at it with the perspective of knowing what the next day will bring. A day that seems anything but glorious. A day of blood and brutality. A day of death. Yet on that day God’s glory truly was revealed because there at the cross the fulness of God’s nature was revealed.
Another word for an intersection in "crossroads" and at the cross on that hill called Calvary outside the city of Jerusalem history came to a crossroad. On that day where the blood of Christ spilled God’s perfect Justice met God’s perfect love. There the penalty that had to be paid was paid once and for all, yet it was paid not by those who owed the debt but by the sinless son of God in the supreme sacrifice of love.
There God was glorified in the contrast between Prophecy and it’s fulfillment.
The second contrast I notice is in the command that Jesus gives to the disciples at that final meal they shared. In that command, the Lord contrasts
Passion & Friendship
v. 34 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
Now I don’t know if you’re like me or not. But when I read that statement my initial reaction is confusion. How is Love a new commandment? Isn’t the OT filled with God’s command to love? Hadn’t Jesus himself pointed to the OT commands to love God and neighbors as the two greatest commands? What’s new about this command?
What’s new is the standard for love, Jesus says "As I have loved you, so you must love one another." He Himself becomes the standard for how he loves. We are to love not just with a friendly love, but with a passionate love. With the kind of love that led Jesus to the cross.
It was the end of July, 1941 in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Suddenly the sirens shrieked and the sentries shouldered their weapons. It was an escape. The men of cellbock 14 silently prayed that the escapee had not been from their block, but that evening their worst fears were confirmed. The next day the remaining 600 men from block 14 were forced to stand on the parade ground under the broiling sun. Men fell over from the heat and fatigue and left to die where they lay. At the end of the day Deputy Commander Fritch arrived to announce the fate of the terrified men. Since the escapee had not been found ten of the men would die by starvation in his place. The next time it would be twenty. The names of the ten men selected were read aloud. When the name of Polish army sergeant Frank Gayonichek was read he began sobbing "My wife and children." Suddenly a Polish Franciscan Priest named Maximillian Kolbe pushed his way to the front. The SS guards pointed the rifles at his chest but he didn’t flinch. "I want to speak to the commander." He looked Fritsch straight in the eye and said, "I wish to die in this man’s place, I have no wife or children and I’m old and not good for anything."
The request was totally out of the ordinary and completely unexpected. There was utter silence until the commander replied, "request granted."
Jesus himself said it and proved it: "Greater love has no man than this, that he lay his life down for his friends." Maximillian Kolbe, now Saint Maximillian to Catholics, laid his life down for one. But Jesus laid his life down for all--and not for friends but as Saint Paul reminded us, while we were still sinners--enemies of all he stood for (Harold J. Sala, _Heroes: People Who Made a Difference in Our World_, pp 274-276).
You and I in all likelyhood will never be called upon to make the same sacrifice as Maximillian, but we are still faced with a choice, the choice to live for self or for others. Will we sacrifice our schedule, our budget, our love for those around us? Not only those that we feel like loving but those who need our love most? Often those are the ones who need our sacrifice most. None of us has the right to live selfishly because Christ gave his love passionately to us as his life-blood spilled upon the ground.
Jesus demonstrated the contrast between Passion and Friendship. And called us to the higher standard.
Thirdly in today’s conversation with Jesus we see the contrast between...
Promises and Fulfillment
vv. 37-38 Peter asked, "Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you." Then Jesus answered, "Will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!"
Peter was quick to make a promise, but Jesus knew that he wouldn’t be able to fulfill it. It’s one thing to swear allegience in an upper room with Jesus, and another to make good on that promise in the shadow of the cross. Every battle fought by every army has shown that it is not always those whose retoric in training is strongest who serve most valiently on the battlefield.
In the movie "All Quiet on the Westerrn Front" the trainees were harrassed by a "hard core" training NCO, Corporal Himmelstoss, who talked big about his military prowess, but who had never actually seen combat. After the boys had served some time on the front and were battle hardened, they met up with the Sergeant again when he was assigned combat duty. When he was actually faced with hostile fire the Corporal ran away and cowered.
There’s a difference between the promise and it’s fulfilment. But what I love about this passage is not just that Jesus knows that Peter will fail, but that He loves him in spite of it. Jesus understands our weakness and loves us anyway. He doesn’t excuse our failings but he takes us from where we are to where we need to go. Ultimately Peter would go the way of the cross, but Jesus didn’t give up on him because he wasn’t ready at that moment.
Which brings us to the last contrast in our passage. Jesus looks forward to that time when Peter would finally follow him down the path to the cross and contrasts...
Present & Future
v. 36 Simon Peter asked him, "Lord, where are you going?" Jesus replied, "Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later."
Peter’s time to fulfill his destiny will come when his earthly training is complete. Jesus says that time is not yet but it is coming--you’ll follow later. But if you stop to think about it that’s a mixed blessing to say the least--OK, you can die with me later.
But Jesus offers the real hope in the verses that follow our reading this morning at the beginning of chapter 14. Jesus understands that the disciples’ world has begun to rock as they hear him say that his time with them is about over, and he knows that pretty soon their world will not only rock but nearly shatter and so he comforts them with this promise:
14:1-3 "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God£; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
Here is the real contrast of the present and future: though times can be difficult here, there’s a promise of an everlasting future in my father’s house.
One definition of maturity is the ability to postpone pleasure for greater reward. The high school student endures History for the promise of graduation day. The basic trainee endures the pushups for the promise of the GI Bill. The dieter endures slim fast breakfast shakes for the promise of the size 6 bluejeans.
The Christian may be called upon to endure hardship for the sake of their faith from time to time, but as the apostle Paul says, "Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.(2 Corinthians 4:17-18).
Now the question that all of us need to be sure of is that the promise of eternal life is for us. How can we know that there’s a room in the Father’s house with our name on it? Well Jesus gives us the answer in verse 6:
14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
Jesus himself is the way, as he has repeated over and over again throughout these conversations with Jesus, eternal life is the free gift of God to all those who trust in Him, who believe that the sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross and His resurrection from the dead is sufficient to pay the price for their sins and to earn them a place in heaven.
