The Hour Has Come

The Hour Has Come – Three Sermons

Part 1: “An Hour of Darkness…”

(John 12:13-36, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, August 2, 2009)

John 12:13-36 See page 899 in your pew Bibles.

What did Jesus say about His suffering and the building of a glorious kingdom?

A: “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” (John 12:32)

The life of Jesus and the hour that had come

In John 12:23, Jesus says these amazing words: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” We know very little about Jesus of Nazareth as a man until He reached about thirty years of age (See Luke 3:23). That was when his public teaching ministry began. Prior to that point we have some glorious details regarding his birth and the first two years of His life, but none of His words until we reach his twelfth year when we hear about His visit to the temple, then nothing else specific until the age of about thirty. We do have a few broad summary statements like this one: “Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.” (Luke 2:52)

That age of thirty is an interesting one biblically. Levites, who were Old Testament deacons, handling all of the worship-related property of the tabernacle and the temple, were counted in the census beginning at age thirty and ending at age fifty. Other males in Israel were counted at age twenty in the census of fighting men. To fight in the army you had to be twenty, at least according to the rules of the census. To be counted in the census of those who assembled God’s worship house you had to be thirty. Jesus, the builder of God’s resurrection tabernacle of people, the church, begins His public teaching and preaching at age thirty. Prior to that He appears to be very quiet, and He is certainly not building any religious movement at all. His hour had not yet come.

Even after age thirty, during the three years of His public teaching and healing ministry, there was a clear movement toward a goal in Jesus’ life. Before His final week, we hear several times that His hour had not yet come. When His mother asked Him to do a miracle at a wedding, Jesus says to her in John 2:4, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” When His enemies tried to arrest Him in John 7:30, we are told that “no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.” The same thing when He was teaching in the temple in John 8:20. But now beginning in John 12, our Lord Himself says, “The hour has come.” He will say it again in John 13, John 16, and John 17, all in the final week of His life.

The hour has come. We want to know what kind of hour it is that has come. What does the Bible say about it? We’re going to see in the three messages we have on this chapter that it was an hour of darkness, an hour of unbelief, and an hour of death; and yet despite all of those negative words, it was an hour of great victory over evil. You need to be able to see this hour rightly to face dark and desperate times that are part of our lives in the current age. Today we will particularly examine the first of these three: The hour that had come was an hour of darkness.

The Messiah King (12:13-15)

Darkness in the Bible is often connected with ignorance. This hour was an hour when the great majority of Israelites did not truly understand what was going on; this despite the fact that on some level there seems to have been understanding and agreement between Jesus and the crowd. Take, for example the question of who Jesus is. The crowd says plainly in verse 13 that Jesus is the King of Israel. Jesus in verse 14 and 15 does something unusual that was a fulfillment of an Old Testament passage, something to be done by the coming Messiah King, arriving before the cheering group sitting on a young donkey.

Both the crowd and the Lord are using Scripture here. The crowd is quoting from Psalm 118:25-26, “Hosanna! Save! Blessed is the one coming in the name of the Lord.” They also bring palm branches in fulfillment of the Old Testament festival of kingdom fulfillment, Tabernacles. They don’t understand the suffering necessary to secure the victory. They do not quote the words in the very next verse of Psalm 118, “Bind the festal sacrifice with cords, up to the horns of the altar!” They do not seem to remember that this psalm is the key song that they sing in connection with the Passover, a feast of salvation that comes through the death of the lamb. The King of Israel, the coming One who saves His people, saves them by being the Lamb of God who dies for them.

Jesus also uses the Scriptures. He acts out Zechariah 9:9, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” The word translated “humble” here can also mean “afflicted” in the original Hebrew. Jesus rides as a King, one who is humble enough to be afflicted for His people. He is not weak, but strong. This Zechariah 9 King of Zion is going to win the greatest victory, but He will do this at the cost of His life as the Psalm 118 Sacrifice and the Lamb of God.

Something is happening here… (12:16-22)

It should be obvious that though the crowds and Jesus Himself recognized Jesus as the King of Israel, the crowds did not understand what God was doing in front of their eyes. They were not alone in their darkness. We are told that the disciples did not understand these things at first. Though there is much confusion here, it is not because of a lack of interest. In fact, everyone seems to be paying attention to what is happening concerning Jesus.

Jews are certainly paying attention. A large crowd witnessed the raising of a man from the dead at the voice of Jesus not too long before this. An even larger crowd has now heard of that miracle, and they too are watching all these events closely. Gentiles are even beginning to take notice. There are some Greeks who have come to the Passover feast, admirers of the Jewish way of life. Now they are becoming admirers of Jesus. As the Pharisees say in their worried conversations, “The world has gone after Him.”

What kind of hour is this? (12:23-36)

Through all of these events God is bringing together a varied crowd for this final Old Covenant Passover. They are watching and waiting, but they don’t seem to know what they are looking for. Not everyone is confused. Jesus knows what is happening. He is the One who announces that the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. In these final verses Jesus speaks several times about the glory of His coming suffering. It takes great understanding to embrace the fact that nailing a man to a cross is going to coincide with a great moment of glory for that man. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” There is a glory in the coming death of Jesus. He will bear much fruit for God’s kingdom through His death.

Though Jesus understands what is happening, His pathway is not an easy one. His soul is troubled, but He knows that He has come here for this hour of darkness, and He knows that this darkness must soon give way to glorious light. He longs for the clarity of His Father’s glory that will come through His own suffering. The holiness of the Father will be seen, and the merciful love of the Father will be manifest in the Son’s wounds. Therefore He lifts His voice to God and says, “Father glorify Your Name.” An answer comes as a heavenly stamp of approval, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” This was a testimony for the hearers, that we would know that whoever else might have been in darkness regarding the fact of the cross, the glory of it, and the kingdom strength that would come from that one death, the Father and the Son were not in darkness concerning these matters.

But enough of this. The hour has come. Now is the judgment of this world. Now will the ruler of this world, the devil, be cast out. Now evil will be defeated. Jesus will be lifted up on the cross, and people will look to Him and live. What kind of king is this, who will begin His reign after being lifted up to die? What kind of Messiah dies? This is an hour of darkness, but it is still God’s hour. Jesus travels through this hour to get to glory. We must follow His light, even in this age of darkness and confusion, if we are to be sons of light in Him.

Application: Bearing fruit for the Lord in an hour of darkness that must give way to light – Three thoughts

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” We want the present hour to be one of complete happiness, joy, light, and peace that leads to an eternity of even more of the same. The plan of God for us is different. How are we to bear fruit in an hour of darkness, enduring unto glory?

1. Cultivate a vibrant love of the life to come. “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Love eternal life. But how should you glorify Him in your actions now?

2. Go where Jesus would go if He were you, and serve Him there by doing what He would have you do. He says, “If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also.” But will it all be just a life of pain and loss? It didn’t seem to be that way for Him. How can you have joy in faithful suffering?

3. Consider the way that the Father will honor you for serving His Son. “If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.” If you are under thirty, your hour is coming, so prepare to serve your King. If you are in the years of your greatest strength, serve Him now with that strength. If your greatest strength is part of the past, use whatever you have left to finish well. Though you live in an hour of darkness, it is still God’s hour. Serve Jesus, now and forever.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. What indication is there that the crowd believes, and that Jesus knows, that He is the Messiah King?

2. What are the various confusions and understandings of those presented in this passage?

3. In what ways is Jesus’ final week of life an hour of darkness? Is our time an hour of darkness?

4. How is it that there will somehow be light and sons of light coming from an hour of darkness?