John 12:20-33 (NRSV Updated Edition)
Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew, then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.
“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say: ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. 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 the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.
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"After his Gethsemane-like words in John, Jesus says: “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” John goes on to say: “He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die” (Jn. 12: 32-33). I agree with the many scholars who take this verse and similar ones in John as conflating the cross and resurrection. John abounds in word plays and here John gives us a double meaning to “lifted up.” Jesus was lifted up on the cross and he was lifted up in the resurrection.
"This conflation has the danger of minimizing the reality of Jesus’ death, making it a quick and easy passage to the resurrected life. However, I see a strong tension in the way that John makes the expression “lifted up” do double duty. After being lifted up on the cross, the crucifixion remains an enduring reality even after Jesus is lifted in the resurrection. That is, it is not only the Resurrection but the crucifixion that draws people to Jesus.
"John gives a powerful stress on the victimization of Jesus as the focal point when Jesus says: “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.” (Jn. 12: 31) The crucifixion judges the persecutors and the resurrection drives out the persecutory mechanism that has ruled the world. It is because, as the author of Hebrews said, Jesus ‘learned obedience through what he suffered,” (Heb. 5) that he has the power to draw us to him. That is to say, the conflation can work both ways. It seems to dilute the experience of Jesus’ death but it also retains the painful death in the glory of the resurrection. This conflation shows how vital both elements are. Jesus was raised up on the cross as a victim of grave social injustice. God raised Jesus to vindicate Jesus and to demonstrate that the crucifixion, a disgrace in the eyes of the persecutors, was in truth the glory of God."
- Andrew Marr, Abbot of St. Gregory’s Abbey (Three Rivers, MI), "On Being Lifted up for Us" (https://andrewmarrosb.blog/.../16/on-being-lifted-up-for-us/)
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"The Glory of Jesus, which is the Glory of God, is the weakness of a young man in the hands of his torturers, a seed dying alone and thus sowing the seeds of myriads of followers and disciples who shall love him and bear the fruits of his love through all time and in every place. His self-giving love and his humble spirit of non-resistance have turned out to be the strongest enduring protest against the violence of this world and the strongest demonstration of the power of love.
[...]
"The message is that the Cross and the Resurrection are inseparable, two sides of one coin, the same things but clearly different life and death – no life without death and no death without life. When John says of the Logos in the first chapter of the Gospel that “we beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten son of the Father, full of grace and truth (1:14),” the Glory of which he speaks is the Glory of the Cross, and this is the Glory of the expelled Logos of John 1:11, the logos whom the world that he created refuses to receive. The Glory of God in John is the Glory of the expelled Logos, the crucified savior.
"Therefore, the Glory of the Resurrection always remains the Glory of the Cross- the risen one still bears the marks of the cross, of the five wounds or stigmata, in his hands and feet and side respectively. He does not negate or expel the consequences of the world’s violence, but he transforms them, he suffuses the violence that is death with the peace that is life, and he does this by sinking into the darkness under the surface and bearing much fruit."
- Robert Hamerton-Kelly, The Glory of the Cross, April 12, 2009 (no longer available online)
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"He's starting to explain the sense of his forthcoming death and glorification which are to be the same thing [in] John's Gospel - rigorously the same thing. And he then explains what this is going to be like: “those who love their life, lose it and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” I'm going to suggest a very slight variation on translation, just to bring out the sense of what's going on: “those who hold at nought their life in this age, or in this cultural package, will keep it for the age that is coming in - the age of the life of God.”
"”And whoever serves me must follow me and where I am, there will my servant be also.” He's actually talking about what life is going to be like when he is lifted up, both when he's dead and when he's resurrected, when God's name is glorified and people start to become aware that this is how you serve God. He's talking about what it's going to be like to live in the church: it's going to look like being able to give yourself away out of love so as to be able to receive who you are from God. This is going to be the dynamic.
"That's the dynamic of the seed being thrown into the ground so that it yields much fruit, and this is the dynamic into which we will be involved as we do what he does. Us finding ourselves doing it is, in fact, him doing it. He will be present doing it, and that's why “where I am there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour.” Time and time again he's doing this. Basically he's saying, “You are going to be me. I'm going to become who I am through you becoming who you are.” That's how his gift works.
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"So then Jesus says: “Now is the judgment of this world,” - now is the crisis, now is the judgment, the turning point, the discernment point of the world - “Now the ruler of this world will be driven out.” And this again appears to be what happens in Leviticus at the rite of atonement: the one standing in for the prince of the angels is cast out, is driven out - the driving out of Azazel, the goat standing in for Azazel. And he's saying that here, this is the pivotal point of creation, the crisis, the judgment, the turning point. This is what's going to happen: I'm going to go to my death, I'm going to offer my death and it's going to be the turning point for the holy creation. After it, the one who orders this cosmos, this cultural world as we know it, will be driven out.
"“And I when I'm lifted up from the earth I will draw all people to myself.” In other words, whereas before people being together has been made possible by all forms of hatred [against 'the other'] and scapegoating, throwing people out, now I will be able to draw all people to myself: Gentiles, Jews, all people. There will no longer [be] false 'ins and outs', goodness over against others. This is part of what the great sacrifice that I'm to accomplish will achieve.
"[...] This is the end of [Jesus's] public ministry in [the Gospel of] John, where he announces and explains by what kind of death he is about to die. Now he will go into private and discuss things only with his disciples, preparing them intimately for what is to happen, allowing them to become insiders into what he is about. And that of course is what our Lenten journey is, allowing our Lord to turn us into insiders into what he is doing for us, and what he is empowering us to do for others."
- James Alison, Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent 2021 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElO4Mx1shcA)
[Source of links to Andrew Marr blog and Robert Hamerton-Kelly sermon, and for reflections on all of this week's lectionary texts, see: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/lent5b/]
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