John 12:27-33: Our Lord Reigns from the Cross

Introduction:

Today is Palm Sunday, the first day of Passion Week. On this day nineteen hundred, eighty-three years ago, Our Lord Jesus came riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. A crowd led him, laying their cloaks on the road, and followed, waving palm branches and shouting “Hosanna! Blessed be the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”

It would be an eventful week, such an important time that our gospel writers devote the largest part of their writings to this last week of Jesus’ life, leading up to his death on Good Friday.

Jesus knew his days were numbered. He was a marked man—feared and hated and reviled by powerful people. And yet he was also much loved, especially by the poor, who had been captivated by his grace-filled life, his heavenly teaching, and his works of compassion.

I would like to read to you some words Jesus said, recorded in John’s gospel, just after his account of the Palm Sunday entrance.

Jesus said,

“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father glorify thy name.”

Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

The crowd standing by heard it and said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”

Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the ruler of this world be cast out; and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself”

He said this to show by what death he was to die (John12:27-33).

I have chosen this afternoon to talk only about this half sentence in the above passage: “I, when I am lifted up from the earth will draw all people to myself.”

I. “Lifted up”

A. Twice before this Jesus has spoken of being “lifted up.”

In his conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus had said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up so that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

And again in a conversation with some religious leaders who were opposing him, Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak thus as the Father taught me.”

We see that it was important that Jesus would die, and that he would die, not by being pushed over a cliff—as his enemies had once tried to do—or by stoning—as they had attempted twice—but by being “lifted up”—lifted up on a cross.

In the verses I read at the beginning, Jesus said that when he was lifted up from the earth, he would draw all people to himself.

That’s what I want to talk about today: how Jesus, lifted up on the cross, draws us to himself.

II. Execution by crucifixion was the most gruesome and horrifying means of execution that ancient people had been able to devise.

A. The practice of nailing a man to a cross, naked, along a public road, displaying him—hanging in the sun as he slowly died of exposure and dehydration—typically it took days for these victims to die—was intended to warn all passers-by against engaging in whatever crime that man had done.

The intention of Jesus’s enemies was so to put our Lord to shame that no one would ever be able to take him seriously again.

B. But that’s not what happened.

The time of Jesus’s greatest humiliation—as he died on the cross at Golgotha—was, we know, the time of our Lord’s greatest glory.

The ancient Christian believers had a saying, “Christ reigns from the Cross!”

They thought of the Cross of Golgotha as the throne from which Christ reigns over the earth.

They considered the death of Christ the greatest event in history and the greatest revelation of the love of God. St. Paul characterized his message thus: “I decided to now nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified”  (1 Corinthians 2:2).

That horrible event—the scourging, the scorn and ridicule, the crown of thorns, the cry of desperation—“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!?” and the agonizing death shows us—as nothing has before or since, the depth of God’s love for sinners, and the cost of that love that has redeemed us and set us free from our sins and opened up the doors of heaven for us.

III. Christ’s death was accomplished on that one day, the day we call Good Friday. But the consequences of that death are eternal.

A. On Easter—Resurrection Day—we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord.

Resurrection Day means that God has vindicated Jesus and given us assurance that Jesus’s death was the victory over sin and death and hell.

Easter is the “happy ending” to the story of our redemption.

But in each of the four gospels, the crucifixion is told in the most detail, because here it was that Jesus paid the price to buy us back from our bondage to this world of sin and darkness and make us his own.

B. The events of Good Friday lasted only a few hours. Jesus hung on that cross from nine in the morning to three in the afternoon, and then death came. But the consequences of that death are eternal.

In those six hours Jesus accomplished salvation for lost and sinful humans from the time of Adam and Eve to the end of the world.

Everyone who has or will become a child of God, comes to him through Jesus, who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me.”

People wonder: How can the death of one man at one time in history count for millions of people in all ages?

The point is that the death of Jesus—the Incarnate God—God in the flesh—is not an ordinary death. As God is Infinite, Jesus’s death was an infinite death, a death like no other, a death infinite in its pain and in its consequences. 
That is why, in the Book of Revelation, John almost always calls Jesus "the Lamb"—27 times, not because Jesus looked like a sheep but because Jesus was our sacrifice, our sin-bearer.

Application

This is why the Cross is the emblem of our faith. This is why we put crosses on our churches and at the front of our worship space, and why we print crosses on our Bibles and hymn books, and why wear them around our necks. This is why many believers, every time they pray, they make the sign of the cross.

This is why the Lord’s Supper Service—or Communion—or Mass—or the Eucharist—is the central part of our worship services.

These things remind us of what it cost for God to forgive us our sins, to bring us into friendship with God, and to assure us of everlasting life.

Some people fault God because there is so much trouble in the world. They say if God were really all-powerful and all-loving there would be no cancer, no birth defects, no germs, no earthquakes, floods or droughts or accidents.

 They think of God as some sort of a giant sitting on a throne in the sky working levers to control the world. If our God were that sort of a God, sure, there might be no trouble, but there would also be no freedom, no choice, no love. We’d be like characters in a puppet show, with God working all the strings.

God has made a world and made it free—humans are free and nature is free and many things happen that hurt even good people.

But God is not indifferent. God is here, as close as the air we breathe. God weeps when he sees the baby die. God grieves when he sees the hatred the demagogues are stirring up during this election cycle. God feels the pain of his people, caught up in the endless wars and the atrocities. As Jesus wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus, he weeps with us when we bid “Farewell” to a loved one. Our crucified Savior is experiencing every pain that his people suffer.

Our suffering Jesus grieves, but he is also almighty to bring good out of evil. As on the Cross of Golgotha, Jesus brought good out of the greatest evil imaginable, and through his suffering won the salvation and eternal life of all who will respond to his love, so Jesus can bring good out of our sorrows—good we can’t imagine.

Our Lord is risen, but he still is our suffering Savior. He still comes alongside his hurting people. That is why we need to combine in our minds the picture of Christ in Glory with the picture of Jesus on the Cross.

Jesus knows, he cares, he understands, he weeps with us, and if we will join our lives to his by faith, we can share his victory of Resurrection.

A much-loved saint of the early church was Martin of Tours. One night, during a very troubled time in his life, as he was praying, Martin had a dream in which his cell was filled with glorious light. A serene and joyous visitor appeared clothed in royal garments, with a jeweled crown on his head, and gold-embroidered shoes upon his feet.

Martin was half-blinded by the sight and for a time was speechless. Then his glorious visitor said. “Recognize, Martin, whom you behold. I am Christ. I am about to visit the earth, and it is my pleasure to manifest myself to you beforehand.”

When Martin made no reply, the glorious figure continued, “Why do you hesitate to believe what you see? I am the Christ!”

Then Martin, as by a sudden inspiration answered, “The Lord Jesus did not foretell that he would come arrayed in purple and crowned with gold. I will not believe that Christ has come unless I see him in the dress and shape in which he suffered—unless I see him bear before my eyes the marks of the Cross.”

Instantly, the apparition vanished, and Martin knew that he had been tempted by the Evil One.

I had an older friend who, years ago told of getting on a streetcar with his Bible in his hand. The conductor saw his Bible and asked him, “Do you know what was made on earth but will be seen in Heaven?” When my friend hesitated, the conductor answered his riddle: “What was made on earth and will be seen in Heaven are the scars in Jesus’s hands!”

As an old, now almost forgotten, hymn has it:

When my life’s work is ended and I cross the swelling tide,

And the bright and glorious morning I shall see;

I shall know my Redeemer when I reach the other side,

And his smile will be the first to welcome me.

I shall know him, I shall know him,

And redeemed by his side I shall stand.

I shall know him, I shall know him

By the print of the nails in his hand.

The story is told of a popular monk in the Middle Ages who announced one Sunday that in the evening, he would preach a sermon on the love of God. The people gathered and stood in silence, waiting for the service while the light gradually dimmed in the stained-glass windows.

When the last bit of color had faded from the windows and the church was dark inside, the monk went up to the candelabrum where a single candle burned, took the candle and walked up to the life-sized crucifix. He held the candle beneath the wounds on Christ’s feet, then beneath the wounds on Christ’s hands, then beneath the wound on Christ’s side, and finally the monk raised the candle and let it shine on the throne-crowned brow. That was the sermon.

The people stood in thoughtful silence, everyone knowing that they were at the center of a mystery beyond their knowing, that they were indeed looking at the supreme expression of the love of God—a love so deep, so wide, so eternal that no wonder could express it, and no mind could measure it.

Jesus stretched out his arms on the Cross and took the world into his embrace—to welcome that great company of believers from east to west that were to come into his arms.

Jesus reached out his arms on the cross to draw all people to himself—to welcome you and me into eternal friendship with himself.

Our Lord Jesus reigns from his Cross.