[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, amen. Do Joshua and all the baptized. We rejoice today that Jesus, knowing what was going to happen, knowing that this was the week of his suffering, of his trial, of his beating, of his arrest, of his crucifixion, of his being laid in the tomb, and knowing even beyond that what lay ahead, Jesus still goes and grabs a donkey and rides into Jerusalem. Ride on, right on in majesty. In lowly pomp, he rides on to die, and to die, to suffer, and to die for you.
Now, the great wonder of the passage today, which we’re going to kind of preach toward the end, is that there are some of the authorities who believe in Jesus, but they’re afraid to admit it because they don’t want to be thrown out of the synagogue. John tells us they loved the glory of man more than the glory of God. That’s going to be the challenge. That’s going to be the thing that the Holy Spirit is going to press us towards. But to get towards that, I want us to think about how there’s two different groups plotting the death of Jesus.
On the one hand, we have the Pharisees and the religious rulers who are the whole time trying to engage in this conspiracy to figure out how they can arrest Jesus and how they can kill him. In fact, there’s an amazing thing that happens—a really quite wonderful and terrible thing that happens. Jesus is going to raise Lazarus from the dead, and they are going to be trying to not only kill Jesus but also trying to kill Lazarus. It’s an astonishing development. It’s the verse that happens just before the gospel lesson that we had, where it says that they not only were trying to kill Jesus, but they were also trying to kill Lazarus.
And why? Because all the people were recognizing that Jesus was the Messiah because of the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead. There was this group that was around Bethany. In fact, remember Jesus is coming down to Bethany, which is just on the other side of the Mount of Olives. It’s very close to Jerusalem, and he comes down to Bethany. The disciples are warning him, saying, “Hey, why are you going to go down to Jerusalem? They’re trying to kill you in Jerusalem. What are you going to do that for?” And remember, it’s Thomas who says, “If we die, we die. Let’s go with him.”
So they go down to Bethany. Martha comes to meet Jesus on the way, and then they go to the tomb, and Mary comes to meet them. All the people see Mary leave and think she’s going to the tomb, and so all of Bethany goes out with them. They are there when Jesus says, “Roll away the stone.” They’re worried it’s going to stink, but they roll away the stone. Then Jesus says, “Lazarus, come forth,” and they all see it. They are all believers. They know that Jesus is this Messiah who at least has the power to raise Lazarus from the dead. It’s an amazing miracle.
And not only that, but word had got out of that resurrection that happened in Bethany—word had reached Jerusalem. “Hey, over in Bethany, Lazarus was dead, and now he’s raised, and Jesus is staying with him.” So that when we get to the Palm Sunday procession, we have two groups. We have the Bethany, Lazarus’ resurrection crowd, which is with the disciples in Jesus, coming over the Mount of Olives, down into Jerusalem. Then you have the crowd in Jerusalem that had heard of what happened, and they’re coming out to meet him. The Pharisees are mixed into that group, sitting there trying to plot how they can bring it to an end.
In fact, we read it in the text. All the world is going out to him. All of our plots and all of our plans have failed. Right? So they’re sitting there saying, “Well, if it’s not just enough to kill Jesus, we’re also going to have to kill Lazarus. We’re probably also going to have to kill all of his disciples and all of his followers.” So there’s this council of darkness, this conversation, this conspiracy that’s working to try to figure out how to put Jesus to death.
You’ve got to think that if you could sneak into those rooms during Holy Week, the Pharisees would be there saying, “All right, we’ve got to try to find an inside man. Does anybody know where Jesus is?” They think they’ve got one of his disciples who’s going to be a defector. They’re going to have to pay him, but he’ll tell them where they can meet Jesus so they can arrest him in secret and find him in the darkness. And as they’re sitting there plotting all of this stuff, they think that they’re being so sneaky. They say, “What are you guys hoping for? What are you planning?” They think, “Well, maybe by the end of this week, we can accomplish what we want, and Jesus will be dead.”
Now, in the meantime, Jesus is telling everybody that he’s going to die, and that’s what I can’t quite figure out. If you were just telling the story from the perspective of the Pharisees, it would be a tragedy. It would be this conspiracy—a great plot to end the life of this teacher and to end this religious movement and this zealotry that’s starting up. But if you were to look at it from the perspective of Jesus, I think it is a little bit more like a comedy. There’s this whole group of conspirators trying to bring about the very thing that the Lord himself is planning. They’re trying to make it happen—the thing that Jesus is going towards is going to be fulfilled. Right? Jesus is talking the whole time about his own death. He rides into Jerusalem, humble and meekly on a cross.
Then, when the Greeks come to see him, remember they come to Andrew, and then Andrew goes to Philip, and they say, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” I don’t know if you guys should at some point come and look, but right here on this lamp, there’s a little plaque, and it says, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus, John 12:21.” So it’s kind of nice; it reminds me of what I’m supposed to preach every Sunday when I stand up here.
So they come, saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip gets Andrew, and Andrew and Philip go and tell Jesus. Then listen to what Jesus says: “The hour has come.” Finally. I mean, every other time someone asked Jesus to do something, he said, “It’s not my hour; my hour has not yet come.” But now he says, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”
And if we mistake that glorification for some sort of exaltation or earthly glory, Jesus says, “Truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.” He goes on to say, and this is a marvelous text for us to consider, Jesus tells us how his soul is, and it’s an amazing thing. He says, “My soul is greatly troubled, but what should I pray? Should I pray, ‘Father, deliver me from this hour?’ No, I came for this hour. Father, glorify your name.”
And then we hear, for the third time in the gospel history, the voice of God the Father: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” Then Jesus is explaining even more of what’s happening: “Now is the judgment of the world. Now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.”
I remember the first time I read that text or a while back when I was reading it, I thought that the lifting up referred to Jesus ascending into heaven after the resurrection. That’s when he was lifted up into heaven. But that’s not what Jesus is talking about. The lifting up that he’s talking about is his crucifixion—when he’s nailed to the cross and lifted up to be suspended between earth and heaven. And if we missed it, it’s the very next verse that tells us that: “He said this to show what kind of death he was going to die.”
It’s so clear that the crowd says, “Now, wait a minute, we thought that Christ was supposed to be forever. How can you be lifted up? How can you die if you’re supposed to last forever?” So here you see what’s going on: you have this conversation in darkness, this secret conspiracy trying to make Jesus dead, and then you have the open preaching of Jesus proclaiming his own death.
Now, this at least is helpful to us. When we consider how we’re supposed to think of conspiracy theories, I’m thinking about writing an article on how Christians should think of conspiracy theories. Now, I don’t know how many of you come across conspiracy theories in your daily life, but I think I get sent two or three of them every day. “Hey, what do you think about this and that and this and that?” I forwarded one of them to the vicar to track down for me to see if really there’s a huge construction thing under the pyramids in Egypt, you know. He’s going to figure it out and let me know.
But how do we think about all these conspiracy theories? Because they’re all around us, and they always have been. I mean, from the beginning of the world to the end, there’s always conspiracy theories. There’s the big ones—the worldwide conspiracies about the one world government and everything. But there are also the little conspiracies about what’s going on in our own lives or our own church or whatever. How are we supposed to think about these things?
In other words, I think this text is so helpful because how did Jesus think about the conspiracy that was there to kill him? It was his plan the whole time. Yeah. It just didn’t matter. There’s a really profound way that the death of Jesus is the undoing of all of this worry about various conspiracy theories. Let’s just say that there’s a conspiracy out there to destroy all Lutherans, especially Texas Lutherans, or there’s a conspiracy out there to destroy all Lutheran pastors or whatever. Here’s the point. Because Jesus died for us and rose on the third day for us, because Jesus forgives all of our sins and has made a way for us to come to everlasting life, because Jesus in his grace and mercy has saved us and set us free from the fear of death—not only does the conspiracy not matter, but the conspiracy actually brings to us the very thing that God wants to give to us. The conspiracy ends up performing the purpose of God.
There’s this old hymn about Thomas Akemhus who was martyred. Luther likes to quote this hymn, and the line in the hymn says, “Unknowingly, they lead us to bliss.” In other words, the devil and his demons and the world and the flesh are all plotting against us to destroy us and to kill us. And that’s exactly what we want. Remember the picture? This is the best picture: it’s like you’re walking along, and remember the thugs grab you and tie you up, and then they throw you in the back of the van, and then they go and drop you off at the Texas Roadhouse with a couple of gift certificates? That’s what the devil does when he conspires to destroy you.
When he conspires to destroy the church, when the Pharisees are plotting against the Son of God to kill him, it’s the very thing that he wants. In fact, the devil, who is behind all of this to make sure that Jesus dies, is, by the very death of Jesus, cast down from heaven and removed from his place and overthrown. Someone asked me about this after the first service. They said, “Did the devil know that the death of Jesus was his own destruction?” And here’s the point: it doesn’t necessarily matter. But the ancient church used to think of the cross of Jesus. They had this picture that the cross of Jesus was like a fishhook, and Jesus was the worm. Right? And when the Lord drops the bait, the devil is fooled. He takes it, he bites it, and he chokes on it; it’s his own destruction.
The death of Jesus is the death of death. The death of Jesus is the destruction of the devil. The death of Jesus is the overthrow of all those who would hurt and harm and destroy us. And it is then, in that, that we are rescued and delivered and brought into his kingdom, to the glory of his crucifixion.
Now, while we’re thinking about this, the conspiracy to kill Jesus and the open plan to kill Jesus, we see two ideas start to emerge. These are the two competing ideas of glory that are in the text. And here’s where the text ends and where it comes to us as a pretty pointed challenge. Jesus, over and over in the text, is talking about his glory. He says, “Now is the time for the Son of Man to be glorified,” and he is speaking not of his resurrection but of his crucifixion. Now, that’s a pretty amazing thing—that this brutal beating and this suffering and this agony, and this shame—and there he is with his beard half torn out, spitting off his face, crown of thorns, blood, and weakness nailed to the cross.
And he says, “This is my glory. This is my being lifted up. This is my exaltation.” And it’s because, dear saints, in that precise moment, when he is bearing so much affliction and pain, he’s doing it all for you. In fact, the glory is not just the cross but the victory of the cross. The glory is the suffering that wins your salvation; the glory is the blood shed so that you can be saved.
That’s the glory. But we now have a choice. John kind of digs into the details of this. He talks about how most of the people didn’t believe, and he tells us why. He quotes two passages from Isaiah that talk about how Isaiah saw the suffering of Jesus and how people wouldn’t believe in that suffering. So he gives us this long apologetic of why the people, even though they saw Lazarus raised from the dead, didn’t believe in him. But then John goes on to say, “Nevertheless, some believed in him.” In fact, even some from the authority—many of the authorities believed in him—but they didn’t confess it for fear of the Pharisees, because they didn’t want to be put out of the synagogue, and they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.
So there is a glory that comes from man. I suppose it looks different for each one of us, but it probably looks a little bit like fame and power and wealth and being thought of highly by everyone in the world. There’s a glory that comes from this world, and then there’s a glory that comes from God, which looks like the crucifixion of Jesus.
Now, I suspect that because you’re here today, you love and want the glory that comes from God. You’re baptized; you are Christians. You know that your salvation is in the name of Jesus, and your only hope for life everlasting comes from all that he did in his suffering and death and his resurrection. You want that glory more than the other glory, but this is a warning text, too, that we’re always also going to be tempted towards the glory that comes from man—to glory in this life, to pursue comfort rather than the way of the cross, to look to things that are easy instead of the difficulty of what the Lord has accomplished in the life and death of Jesus.
But we walk with confidence, nonetheless, that God has poured His Holy Spirit into our hearts, so that when we see Jesus in all of this agony—especially this week—but every time we see the cross, when we see Jesus lifted up in all of this agony and suffering, we know that we’re seeing the very heart of God. We know that we’re seeing how God thinks of our sin, that he hates it, and we see how God thinks of us, because he pours out his wrath on his own Son instead of on us.
And we, dear Christians, glory in that—in the cross and suffering of our Lord Jesus. And that glory will one day give way to the glory of the resurrection and the glory of life everlasting—the glory of heaven and the glory of seeing the face of God. So may God grant it by His Holy Spirit that we would have this wisdom, that though the world conspires against Christ and against us, we rejoice that the Lord works all things together for his glory, that is, for our salvation. May God grant us this confidence now and always, through Christ our Lord. Amen. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Amen.