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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
“Now is the time,” the typing drill first proposed by instructor Charles E. Weller goes, “for all good men to come to the aid of the party”, although you and I may be more familiar with the good men’s coming to the aid of “their country” (Wikipedia). The title “Now is the time” has since then been used for a number of different songs, for a short movie, and for other things, now including this sermon. For, in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus essentially says “Now is the time”. Earlier in St. John’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account, Jesus’s hour had not yet come (John 2:4; 7:30; 8:20), but in today’s Gospel Reading that changes (confer John 13:1; 16:32; 17:1). In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus says, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified; He says, “Now is my soul troubled”; He asks if he should say, “Father, save me from this hour”; He says, “for this purpose I have come to this hour”; He says “Now is the judgment of this world”; and He says, “Now will the ruler of this world be cast out”. “This hour” and “now” are so frequent and used so synonymously in today’s Gospel Reading, that, in one verse, one Bible version even translates “this hour” as “now” (v.27 AAT). In short, the “now” of “this hour” is the time of Jesus’s glorification and death (BAGD, 896), which death the Jewish Leaders wanted to bring about for one reason, and Jesus obviously wanted to bring about for another, different, reason.
Already at the end of last week’s Gospel Reading (John 11:1-53), after Jesus raised Lazarus, the Jewish Leaders, apparently fearing a loss of their influence, made plans to put Jesus to death. In the verses that follow, Jesus and His disciples withdrew until the Passover was near, and many were seeking Jesus. Six days before the Passover, Jesus went to Bethany, where Lazarus was, and Mary anointed Jesus’s feet for His burial. A large crowd of the Jews came to see Jesus and Lazarus, and so the Jewish Leaders made plans to put Lazarus to death, as well. (John 11:54-12:11.) The next day, as we heard in the Processional Gospel (John 12:12-19), they came to Jerusalem, and the Jewish Leaders complained that the whole world had gone after Jesus. Indeed, as we heard in today’s immediately-following Gospel Reading, Greeks wished to see Jesus; Jesus spoke of His being glorified by dying and bearing much fruit, of His being lifted up and drawing all people to Himself; and the evangelist spoke both about those who did not believe and about those who did believe but did not confess their belief, for they loved the glory that comes from people more than they loved the glory that comes from God.
To be sure, we need Jesus both to be lifted up for us and to draw us to Himself. Like the Jews of Jesus’s day, we are sinful by nature, and so we commit countless actual sins, any one of which actual sins warrants both death here and now and torment in hell for eternity. As Jesus said earlier in St. John’s Gospel account, people cannot come to God unless God draws them (John 6:44; confer John 6:65). And, we are warned against resisting that drawing by the example of the Jews of Jesus’s day, who heard His Word and saw His miraculous signs, but who resisted so long and hardened their hearts, so that God blinded them and further hardened their hearts, so that they could no longer repent and be healed. As the Divinely‑inspired St. Paul writes to the Corinthians and to us, referring back to prophecy through Isaiah (Isaiah 49:8), “Now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2). In short, “Now is the time” for us to repent and believe and so to be saved.
When Jesus’s hour had not yet come, those who were seeking to arrest Him did not lay a hand on Him (John 7:30; 8:20), but, when Jesus’s hour had come, then those seeking to arrest Him did arrest Him and bound Him (John 18:12). And, as we heard recounted in this year’s Midweek Lenten Vespers services and will hear in part this Holy (Maundy) Thursday and Good Friday, they lifted Jesus up on the cross, where, out of God’s great love for the world, Jesus died for the sins of the world, including your sins and my sins. As we heard prophesied in today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 50:4-9a), Jesus gave His back to those who struck, and did not hide His face from disgrace and spitting. As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Philippians 2:5-11), being found in human form, the Son of God, Christ Jesus, humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. There the ruler of this world is cast out: the serpent, who overcame by the tree of the garden, likewise, by the tree of the cross, was overcome. Earlier in St. John’s Gospel account, Jesus had said that He had to be so lifted up, so that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life (John 3:14; confer Isaiah 52:13; John 8:28). To borrow wording from the Gradual for Holy Week (Hebrews 9:12a, c, 15a; Psalm 111:9a), the resurrected Christ secured an eternal redemption and sends that redemption to His people.
Christ sends that redemption to us, as He resistibly draws us, through His Word and His miraculous signs. God’s law and Gospel are read and preached to groups such as this group, and His Gospel is applied to individuals: with water in Holy Baptism, with the pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution, and with bread that is the Body of Christ given for us and wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us in the Sacrament of the Altar. In all of these ways, God creates and sustains our faith and forgives our sins. As we hear of the ruler of this world’s being cast out, we remember that especially in Holy Baptism we are rescued from sin, death, and the power of the devil, unless we reject God’s gifts. Those who resist the Holy Spirit, Who wants to work in them, like the Jewish Leaders in Jesus’s day resisted the Holy Spirit, are lost, not because God did not want them to be saved, but because of their own fault (confer Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration XI:78).
We who are saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ are fruit of His having died, those drawn to Him by His having been lifted up. We believe in Him and confess our belief, for we love the glory that comes from people less than we love the glory that comes from God. We continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess His Name (Hebrews 13:15). We are not concerned about being put out of whatever earthly groups or associations we have: work or school, friends or family. We know what Jesus says, that whoever loves his life in this world loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. We serve and follow Jesus, and so we will be where He is and will be honored by the Father.
“Now is the time” for us to repent and believe and so to be saved, and, as we with daily repentance and belief live in God’s forgiveness of sins, so we are saved. In today’s Gospel Reading, “now” was the time for Jesus’s glorification and death, not the time “for all good men to come to the aid of the party”, or even to the aid of “their country”, but, we might say, the time for the only truly good Man to come to the aid of all people, and so He did! Let every knee in heaven and on earth and under the earth bow at Jesus’s Name, and let every tongue confess that He is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +