Well during this Advent season, we are looking each week at one of the sayings of the Lord Jesus that tell us something of His own understanding of why He was born that first Christmas. We’re thinking about “Christmas According to Jesus.” And this week I’d like to invite you, if you would, to turn to a crucial moment in the story of Jesus’ life. So take a Bible in hand and turn this time to the New Testament and to the gospel according to John, chapter 12. John’s gospel, chapter 12. If you’re using one of our church Bibles, you’ll find that on page 899.

Now in the chapter before this one, you may recall Jesus has raised His friend, Lazarus, from the dead. And we are told in John 11:52 that from then on, the Jewish authorities made plans to kill Jesus. And in the structure of John’s gospel, it’s this moment that becomes the turning point. From this moment, the focus in the gospel increasingly narrows in upon the final realization of this plot by the Jewish leaders to kill Jesus until, at last, we see Him nailed to the cross outside the city walls of Jerusalem. And it’s right here at this pivotal moment, having raised Lazarus and entered Jerusalem only a few days before the Passover when His betrayal and arrest will take place, it’s right here that Jesus turns to His disciples and speaks about the mission entrusted to Him. He tells them why He has come. He tells them what Christmas is really about. It’s all about the cross. Christmas is all about the cross. “For this purpose,” He says in John 12:27, “I have come to this hour.” Jesus is telling us that in many ways the key to understanding Christmas is to look back at it from the vantage point of Calvary. Jesus was born to die. He was laid in the manger that one day He might be hanged upon the tree.

And so our project this morning is to try to do that together. We’re going to try to look back at Christmas from Calvary as we consider Jesus’ words in John 12:27 – “For this purpose I have come to this hour. I was born for this hour. This hour is why I am here. This hour is the whole point of Christmas.” – And now therefore, obviously to grasp Jesus’ point, we need to understand what He means by “this hour.” “For this purpose I have come to this hour.” What does “this hour” refer to? Christmas happened so that “this hour” one day would arrive. What does He mean by “this hour”? In answer to that question, we are going to notice four things about “the hour” from our passage, John 12:27. We are going to notice, first of all, that it is the hour of obedience that Jesus has in mind. The hour of His supreme obedience. Secondly, it’s also the hour of glory when He will bring glory to the Father. Thirdly, it is the hour of judgment. And finally, it is the hour of salvation. And all four themes are really wrapped up in the meaning of “the hour.” That’s what Jesus means by His hour. And taken together, they help us understand why Jesus was born at all. They tell us why Christmas happened. He was born that one day He might come to the hour of obedience, of glory, of judgment, and of salvation. We never will grasp the significance of the baby laid in the manger until we learn to look back at it from the vantage point of this climactic hour in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

Well before we read the passage together and consider Christ’s hour, let’s pause once again and pray briefly and ask for the Lord to help us. Let us pray.

Our God and Father, we need Your Spirit’s ministry now, taking up Your holy Word and bringing it with power and clarity and force home to all our hearts. So send Him to us, we pray. Bless the preaching of Your Word. May its reading and exposition be clearly to us the very voice of God in our ear behind us saying, “This is the way, walk in it.” For we ask it in Jesus’ name, amen.

John chapter 12. We’ll read from the twentieth verse. This is the Word of God:

“Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’ Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. And Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, 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. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose 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 that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, ‘An angel has spoken to him.’ Jesus answered, ‘This voice has come for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now will 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 kind of death he was going to die.”

Amen, and we praise God for His holy Word.

There is a poignant moment included by Luke as a part of his nativity narrative in Luke chapter 2 that actually takes place about forty days after Jesus was born. You will remember the situation. Mary and Joseph have gone up to Jerusalem to present Jesus in the temple for His dedication, and there they meet the aged Simeon who takes the baby in his arms and he sings for joy the hymn that has ever since become known as “The Nunc Dimittis” – “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace according to Your Word. For my eyes have seen the salvation that You have prepared in the presence of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to Your people Israel.” This was at long last the very climax of Simeon’s long life. He had been waiting in faith all these years for the coming of Messiah, and now he is holding Messiah Himself in his arms. And then having sung his praises to God, he pronounces a benediction, a blessing over Jesus’ little family. And it’s a lovely scene, isn’t it? You have it in your minds, I’m sure, and understably. Luke says Mary and Joseph marveled about what was said about their infant son. And we imagine them, wiping away a tear or two and thanking Simeon for his wonderful words as they reach out to take their son back from Simeon’s arms, only to discover Simeon isn’t done quite yet. Still holding Jesus in his arms and fixing Mary in his gaze, what he says next, no doubt, stopped Mary and Joseph in their tracks. “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel and for a sign that is opposed. And a sword will pierce through your own soul also, so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.” A sudden shadow is cast over the idyllic scene.

And we know what the shadow is, don’t we? It’s the shadow of the cross. As Simeon forewarns Mary of the heartache one day she will have to endure, looking up at this same son of hers that is here in the temple, cradled, helpless in Simeon’s arms, but will then be grown to mature manhood with nails driven into His hands and feet. “In the shade of death’s sad tree, stood doleful she; a she now by none other name to be known, alas but sorrow’s mother. Before her eyes, hers and the whole world’s joys hanging all torn, she sees, and in His woes and pain her pangs and throws, each wound of His from every part all more at home in her own heart.” We were singing just a few moments ago, “Mild he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die,” but here is Simeon in the temple telling Mary and Joseph what it’s going to take that this baby who was born may ensure that “man no more may die.” It’s going to take His death that we might live.

And that’s what Jesus is talking about here at the pivotal moment in John’s gospel in John chapter 12 verse 27 when He talks about His “hour.” You may remember how, back in John chapter 2 at the wedding at Cana, Jesus’ first public miracle, and He told His mother, “My hour has not yet come.” And again in John 7:20, we are told they were seeking to arrest Him but no one laid a hand on Him because “His hour had not yet come.” And again in John 8:20, no one arrested Him because “His hour had not yet come.” Again and again we hear this refrain in the gospel of John, “His hour was not yet,” it was not yet, it is not yet. And then suddenly here, John 12:23, He turns to His disciples and says, “The hour has come.”

Now calling it “the hour” implies ordination, doesn’t it? It implies this is an ordained and appointed moment, set by God in eternity for the accomplishment of His holy will. It’s all focused on these moments in the life of Christ. This is not just any hour. It is “My hour,” Jesus says. It is the focal point of His whole life, the reason He was born. The point of Christmas, the “Why?” behind the fact of His coming into the world, now at long last is finally revealed. The hour has come. “Why lies He in such mean estate, where ox and lamb are feeding? Good Christian fear for sinners here the silent word is pleading. Nails, spear, shall pierce Him through. The cross be born for me, for you. Hail! Hail! The Word made flesh, the babe the son of Mary.” This is what He means by “the hour.” It has been established for Him before He was born and all the paths of His life, every step that He took from Bethlehem to Galilee and now here to Jerusalem, they all lead inexorably toward this moment.

There was a tradition in the United Kingdom in my grandfather’s day – I don’t know if it still happens or not – but my grandfather did this for us when we were born. You bought something called a “post office bond” in the name of the new baby. And then when they were older they could cash it in and they would receive some money. It would slowly accumulate over the years. And when my brother and I were born, he took out a bond for both of us and then when we were teenagers we cashed it in and received a modest sum in exchange. Jesus’ hour is like one of those post office bonds. A promised gift for us in the birth of Jesus Christ, secured from eternity, ordained in the purposes of God, but it doesn’t pay out, as it were, until the appointed hour has come, many years later at Calvary.

The Hour of Obedience

So what’s involved? What does this hour entail, exactly? Well first of all, as we said, this is the hour of obedience. The hour of obedience. Look at verse 27 again. “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.’” So Jesus is already in distress as He contemplates what is waiting for Him at the cross. He knows what’s coming – agonies of body and of soul as the wrath and curse of God falls down upon Him in our place. And the thought of it makes Him shrink back, doesn’t it, as any right thinking and truly moral person should shrink back. It would be perverse and wicked to relish suffering like this. Everyone made in the image of God is right to recoil from pain and death that are, let’s remember, only intruders into God’s good world. And Christ is the perfect man, the image of the invisible God, sinless and holy, and so He rightly recoils from the horror of a coming cross. If He didn’t recoil, He wouldn’t be a perfect human being. But He is holy, harmless and undefiled, and separate from sinners, and it’s in His pristine purity that He can do nothing other than to shrink back from the suffering and the sin bearing that the cross required of Him.

And yet, though He might prefer to be saved from this hour, He prays instead that the Father would be glorified in the accomplishment of the hour. There is an echo here of what happens in Gethsemane, isn’t there? You remember what happened in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of His betrayal? He prayed in these same terms once again as He peered into the abyss of coming suffering. “Father, if it be Your will, let this cup pass from Me, yet not what I will but Your will be done.” This, He knows, is what He’s for, why He has come, what Christmas was about. And every day since, from the manger to this very point, it’s all been about this surrender to the will and design of God, even though that design involves the cross. Here is the obedience of Jesus, do you see it, whose perfect humanity shrinks back from the suffering to come but whose commitment to the will of the Father overrules and governs His life so that He bows to the eternal plan and embraces the cross. It is great distinguishing mark of the earthly life of Jesus Christ – that at every step, from nursing in Mary’s arms to being nailed to the tree, from the cradle to the cross, Jesus obeyed. For this purpose He has come to this hour – to obey the Father’s will. Because it is only in His obedience that disobedient sinners like me and you may ever hope to find any refuge. Only under His submission to the will of God can we, who like sheep have gone astray and turned each one to his own way, hope to find deliverance. “He became obedient to death, even the death of the cross.” So this is the hour of obedience; the hour He was born to fulfill in submission to the Father’s plan.

The Hour of Glory

But then secondly – and this may seem paradoxical to us at first – it’s also the hour of glory. The hour of glory. Look at verse 23. “The hour has come for the Son of Man” – to be what? We expect Him to say, “to be crucified. To be betrayed and arrested and beaten and tortured and emulated and torn.” But no, He says, “This is the hour for the Son of Man to be glorified.” Or verse 27 again, “But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify Your name.” He’s still thinking about the cross, that’s what His hour is about, remember, but we don’t tend to think of the cross as particularly glorious, do we? The birth of Christ that first Christmas, now that was full of glory. Glory in Gabriel’s annunciation to the virgin. Glory in the miraculous conception and birth of the Christ child. Glory in the angelic choirs that split the dark sky over the shepherd’s heads. Glory everywhere in the birth of Christ. But when you come to Calvary, where’s the glory? There are no angels now, are there? No choirs here. No miracles left. There’s only violence and suffering and darkness and death. But it’s there, Jesus says, far more than at the manger, there at the cross that the Father was supremely glorified.

That’s actually what the Father Himself says in answer to Jesus’ prayer right here in our text, isn’t it? Look at verse 28. “I have glorified it and I will glorify it again.” At the cross, the Father will crown every other manifestation of His glory in the life of His Son and surpass them all because it would be there at the cross, amidst gloom and darkness and death, that peace on earth among those with whom God is pleased would actually be secured. It would be there, amidst the gore and the agony of crucifixion that Gabriel’s words to Mary would be fulfilled – “You shall call His name, ‘Jesus,’ for He shall save His people from their sins.” There the plan of the Father to redeem a people for Himself out of the mass of fallen humanity would at last be accomplished there where we least expect to find it. The Father’s name is most fully glorified, the reason the skies erupted in angelic song where shepherds kept their flocks by night at the birth of Jesus, the reason they sang their hallelujah chorus wasn’t simply that God had become a man in Jesus Christ, though that would be reason enough for endless praises, certainly, but the real and the full reason the angels sang was because the God-Man who has now been born is the one who came to die to bring the Father’s plan to fulfillment. He would die to save you, to save you as you trust in Him. This is what really makes Christmas glorious in the end. Do you see it? It’s not the cutesy story about a baby. It’s about the design, the mission, the errand upon which He was sent into the world that by His obedience and blood He might rescue you, and in rescuing you, bring glory and praise to God.

The Hour of Judgment

Then thirdly, this is not just also the hour of obedience and the hour of glory, but it’s also the hour of judgment. Look at verse 31. “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.” Remember Simeon’s words to Mary that day in the temple when she brought her baby boy for dedication to the Lord? “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed, so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.” That’s why He came. The hour of Christ’s climactic sufferings will force all people everywhere into one of two groups. Everyone in this room belongs to one of two groups. And no one can now remain neutral. Christmas happened – you see this in the text – the nativity in all its beauty and sweetness happened in order, one day, to bring about judgment. You see, the cross demands a response from every person. It forces us to decide and then on the basis of that decision we will have to give an account. Judgment isn’t just some distant, future event. It is a present, accomplished reality in the cross of Jesus Christ demanding that you now must make a choice. Will you bow, will you bow to the one who was born and grew and obeyed and bled and died for your deliverance? Or will you harden your heart and reject Him? The design of God that first Christmas was to force you and me to come to that point, to the point of decision. You must decide. What will you do with Jesus?

Of course it’s not just the judgment of the world the cross accomplishes. Jesus says of this hour, “Now will the ruler of this world be cast out.” At the cross, Satan himself was defeated. Just like the apparent paradox that the horror of the cross would be the place the Father is most glorified, so too in what appears to be abject defeat at the cross is the moment of Jesus’ greatest triumph. In what looks like the devil’s victory when the power of evil vents all its rage on the Son of God, precisely there, all the power of evil will be overthrown. At the cross, as the apostle Paul puts it in Colossians 2:15, speaking about supernatural and demonic powers, at the cross, God disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, triumphing over them in Christ. The devil is not God’s equal. He is an already defeated enemy. Christ has already won the victory. That’s what His hour secured.

The Hour of Salvation

And all of that brings us to the last thing I want you to see here. The cross was the hour of obedience, the hour of glory, the hour of judgment, and finally, the cross was the hour of salvation. He’s still talking about His victory in that hour. It will bring about the judgment of the world. It will bring about the overthrow of the devil. And what’s more, verse 32, “I, when I am lifted up, will draw all people to myself.” You remember the bronze serpent that Moses lifted up on a pole in the wilderness – Numbers chapter 21. The people had rebelled against God, He’d sent them a plague of fiery serpents, they were dying from the bites of these snakes, but if they looked to this bronze serpent, trusting the promise of God, they would be healed. And so here, Jesus is lifted up from the earth on the cross, made a curse for us. The object of divine condemnation in our place, with the condemnation my sin deserves, your sin deserves, that all who look to Him in faith might be delivered.

And notice in the text that deliverance is not a mere possibility, is it? Jesus doesn’t say, “You know, this is why I was born – to give people a chance.” He doesn’t say, “This is why Christmas happened – so maybe, maybe someday, someone, somewhere might take a chance and come to Me.” No, He says with certainty and confidence, “I, when I am lifted up, will draw all people to Myself.” People from every walk of life, from every ethnicity and pedigree, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, purchased at the cross, saved, secure forever by Jesus Christ. That is what Christmas is about. In the end, you know, the gathering in a great multitude that no one can number from every nation and from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne of God and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands and crying with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb!” It is cosmic in scope, it has the praise of God in view, and it is not at all in any doubt. One day, every single one of those for whom Jesus shed His blood, every one of all the ransomed church of God will be saved to sin no more.

And here, do you see it, here is the ground of your great assurance and confidence in the sight of God as a Christian – it’s not that we are pious people, devoted and faithful and prayerful and moral. That’s not the grounds of our assurance. It’s not that we feel deeply the power of the truth in our hearts. That’s not the ground of our assurance. It’s not that we are so very different from other people, although if we are Christians, of course all of these things to some extent will certainly be true of us, but they’re not the ground of our assurance, not the ground and basis of our confidence in the sight of God. No, our spiritual security, our peace and our hope, our certainty and assurance lies here. Jesus was born and obeyed and died and rose and reigns and His work in securing our salvation can’t be defeated, can’t be undermined, can’t be hindered, can’t be stopped. He will save all His people. He will. Every single sinner who trusts in Him, no matter how weak and fearful they may be, everyone is utterly unshakably secure forever because the baby of Bethlehem became the man of Calvary and shed His blood for them, and so they will not, cannot, you, you cannot be lost.

What a gift was given that first Christmas. Do you see it? It was a costly gift, focused on this hour, His sufferings, His obedience. It was a glorious gift resulting in glory to God. It was a victorious gift, bringing judgment to the world, overthrowing the devil. And it was an assuring gift that anyone, anyone, even you who would trust themselves to the care and mercy of God in Christ, anyone will be saved, secure forever. “I, when I am lifted up, will draw all men to Myself.” That’s why Christmas is worth celebrating, because this is why He was born. This is the purpose for which He came. The vital question for us is whether this Christ is a Christmas gift you are prepared now today to receive. May God give you grace, then, to embrace Him by faith. Let us pray.

Our Father, we adore You for the wonder of the gift of Your Son. And we celebrate His coming not because of the beauty of the story of His infancy, for the sweetness of it and the sentimentality of it, but for the hard, sore, obedience He shouldered, for the agonies of body and mind and soul He embraced, always with an eye both to Your glory and our deliverance. He came for us, and so as we bow before You, we say thank You, and offer our praises. Hear our cries and draw near to us and have mercy upon us. And for any yet unconverted, unwilling to bend the knee to Christ, we pray Your mercy and grace upon them especially. Draw them to Him that the greatest of all Christmas gifts might be theirs. For we ask it in Jesus’ name, amen.

© 2024 First Presbyterian Church.

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