Jesus Predicts His Death
John 12
23Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
25The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
27"Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ’Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28Father, glorify your name!"
29Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and will glorify it again." The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.
30Jesus said, "This voice was for your benefit, not mine. 31Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. 32But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself."
33He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.
I. The Cost of the Passion (John 12:23-24)
John 12
23Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
27"Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ’Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.
Why was His heart troubled? Not only would he face the physical horrors of crucifixion, but also the horror of being separated from God on the cross. When God placed all of the sins of mankind on the sinless Christ. We are reminded in 1 Peter 2:24:
"He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed."
While Christ bore our sins, He experienced separation from His heavenly Father. This separation occurred during the three hours of darkness on the cross. This darkness during the crucifixion represents God’s divine judgment. The cross became the place for the pouring out of His wrath.
Jesus Christ was not merely one man many crucified; He was the recipient of God’s wrath. God was pouring out His divine fury on His son, so He pulls the blinds. The darkness at the cross is God judging the sins of the world.
Christ is often associated with light. When Christ was born, a great light appeared. It says that the “the glory of the Lord shone” around the shepherds. Christ was associated with light throughout His life and ministry.
It says in John 1:4-5:
”In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.”
For the first time, however, Christ becomes associated with darkness. Where His birth is associated with life, His death becomes associated with darkness.
Consider 2 Corinthians 5:21:
2 Corinthians 5
21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Some of us have seen the movie, The Passion of Christ. We see in this film a graphic portrayal of the physical death of Christ.
From seeing this film we got a greater appreciation of the physical horror Christ experienced. Even in seeing this film, we cannot comprehend the physical horror He experienced.
Beyond the physical horror, however was the spiritual horror. This represents an even greater dimension beyond the physical suffering of Christ we will never grasp. We see a glimpse of the horror He experienced when He cried out to God in Matthew 27:46:
Matthew 27
46About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"--which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (New International Version)
Until that point, He had always spoken of God as His Father, but now see that that intimacy was gone because "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us." (2 Cor. 5:21)
John Mac Arthur points out that this is a “miracle in reverse”—a supernatural happening beyond our comprehension. For the first time in eternity God becomes separated from God. God the Father turns His back on God the Son. This blows my mind! This has also blown the minds of many theologians throughout the ages!
Martin Luther allegedly secluded himself in order to try to apprehend this truth, but came out more confused than when he began.
After experiencing the fury of God, Jesus cries out as He is separated from God. When He realizes He finished receiving the wrath of God for the sins of the world, He declares:
"It is finished." (John 19:30)
The great miracle is that Christ accomplished all of this as a man, but still remained fully God. The great debt we owe Him is more than mere words could ever convey.
II. The Glory of the Passion (John 12:23, John 12:28-33)
23Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
28Father, glorify your name!"
29Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and will glorify it again." The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.
30Jesus said, "This voice was for your benefit, not mine. 31Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. 32But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself." 33He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.
We have to see that Christ died for His Father
Though Christ died for our sins, He suffered primarily for the glory of God. Consider Psalm 106:8:
"Yet he saved them for his name’s sake,
to make his mighty power known."
In Isaiah 43:6-7 we are reminded that we are created for God’s glory. If we are created for His glory, then we are also saved for His glory!
Isaiah 43
6 I will say to the north, ’Give them up!’
and to the south, ’Do not hold them back.’
Bring my sons from afar
and my daughters from the ends of the earth-
7 everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made."
Again Isaiah 43:7 reminds us that God created us for His glory. We also see this in Colossians 1:16 where it states that “all things were created by him and for him.”—Colossians 1:16b
If we have all been created for God’s glory, then logic dictates that we are all to live for His glory. 1 Cor. 10:31 states: “whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” This verse exhorts us to do “all for the glory of God.” In other words, every single good deed that we do for others should be done out of a motivation to glorify.
Our first motivation is to glorify God. But what about loving the person we are ministering to? Should that not be our first motivation? If our hearts are set first in glorifying God in all that we do, we will find ourselves loving others with a greater intensity than we would if our hearts were set first upon loving others.
The heart of Christ was first set upon glorifying His Heavenly Father. Because Christ was set upon loving God first, He was able to love the world with a great intensity that we can only marvel at.
You see it is all about God and Him being glorified throughout the Universe. Our primary purpose in being in this world is to glorify God. That is it!
We may become rich and successful like Donald Trump, but if we have failed to glorify God with our lives, then we have failed! Consider Romans 3:23: For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
Sin is therefore falling “short of glorifying God.”
If we glorify God when we obey Him, then we dishonor Him when we sin against Him. Now let me explain God’s glory in relation to the cross. Since God’s glory is attacked and dishonored by our sin, He was compelled to defend His glory.
If God does not vindicate His glory, if He does not defend His name, then He ceases to be perfect and becomes weak. God therefore showed commitment to His glory by sending Christ into the world to be punished for our sins. By punishing Christ, God vindicated His glory and is thus able to forgive us without compromising His character.
Consider that God has made us all to be lamps in this world. We are all made to reflect His glory. But what good is a lamp if it doesn’t work? What good is a lamp if it cannot provide light in a dark room? God through His work on the cross has provided a means for us to work.
Whenever a lamp shines it brings glory to the Lamp Maker. This is how God is glorified through His work on the cross. When we repent and trust in the atoning work of Christ, God enables us to reflect His glory. We are thus enabled to do what He originally created us to do.
III. The Calling of the Passion
John 12
24I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
In this passage, Christ speaks of seeds. Did you know that archaeologists found seeds stored in the tomb of the Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen when it was opened in 1922? Can you imagine seeds that were several thousand years old? Did you know they planted these seeds and they actually ended up growing? Seeds thousands of years old!
Our lives are just like these seeds. Just as seeds have resurrection power locked within in them, so our lives have great potential for God! Although a seed dies when planted, it resurrects itself and bears fruit. If a seed is not planted, it will remain only one seed.
If we hold onto our lives, we will never multiply. But if we allow ourselves to be planted in the Lord, then we will multiply. We have got to be willing to die to ourselves and planted in the Lord. When we choose to die and be planted, then there is an abundant harvest—one greater than we can fathom!
The call of the passion is to be planted as Jesus was planted, to lay our lives down as He laid His life down, and to be willing to die to ourselves. In dying to ourselves, God can then raise us up and produce a great harvest for the kingdom of God.
Consider a kernel of corn. Locked inside that kernel is the potential for stalk, the ears, and the grain—all just waiting to be released! When we see a kernel of corn we may not be able to see the stalk of corn, but the latent potential is there, hidden inside the seed! You can count the number of kernels on a corn cob, but you cannot guess at how many ears of corn will eventually be produced by that one seed. Only God knows the final count of the harvest!
All of us as seeds are called to be seeds! As seeds planted in Christ we have the potential to multiply the Kingdom greatly! As seeds surrendered to Christ we have the potential to produce an amazing harvest.
We often times, however, don’t consider ourselves worthy—we don’t consider ourselves that important. Consider the story of a humble Sunday school teacher who lived in the nineteenth century.
There was a nineteenth century Sunday school teacher named Mr. Kimball who was committed to evangelism. In 1858 he led a Boston shoe clerk named Dwight L. Moody to Christ.
As we know, Moody became a great evangelist. Moody at one of meetings in England inspired passion for Christ in the heart of Frederick B. Meyer, pastor of a small church.
F. B. Meyer, preaching to at American college campus, in turn inspired a student named J. Wilbur Chapman to surrender his life to Christ. Chapman, who was involved in YMCA work, ended up sending out a former baseball player, Billy Sunday, to do evangelistic work.
When Billy Sunday held a revival in Charlotte, N.C., the people there were so touched they planned another set of evangelistic meetings, inviting Mordecai Hamm to town to preach.
During Hamm’s revival, a young man named Billy Graham heard the Gospel and surrendered his life to Christ. It’s possible you yourself are one of the tens of thousands who have come to Christ through the ministry of Graham.
Countless numbers of seeds have come from the seed of Kimball who planted His life in Christ so long ago. He was only a humble Sunday school teacher, but His life was planted in Christ and the seeds of that life continue to touch people today.
I like what Jesus says in John 12:26
26Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
Tradition has it that Michelangelo was teaching some art students one day. He walks over to one of his students and then starts painting on his canvass. He then hands the student the brush. The student is awestruck.
He asks: "How can I finish what you have started?"
"Let this inspire you to finish what I have started."
In much the same way, this is the challenge Christ has left us with. In John 12:26, Jesus has called upon us to follow in His footsteps. We need to be inspired by the great work that Christ started in this world, and thus add to it our strokes of love and devotion in what will be the masterpiece of God’s Kingdom.
This is the calling and challenge the passion of Christ has for us today!
