Bread from Heaven, Thunder and Judgment
The Gospel of Luke says that during Holy Week, Jesus “was teaching in the temple, but at night He went out and lodged on the mount called Olivet. And early in the morning all the people came to Him in the temple to hear Him” (Luke 21.37-38).
His teachings during this week are narrated in a large part of the Synoptic Gospels: Matthew 21-25; Mark 11-13; and Luke 19-21. The Gospel readings appointed by the Orthodox Church for Holy Monday through Wednesday are Matthew 24.3-26.16.
It is interesting that the Gospel of John devotes only the remainder of the twelfth chapter after telling of His Entrance into the city. This Gospel pays crucial attention to what the Lord had to say in at the Last Supper on Holy Thursday (John 13-17). But the comparatively small space given to His public address in Jerusalem (maybe in the Temple precincts), should invite special notice.
The Passover was coming soon, and the city was filled with pilgrims from all over the Mediterranean world. They were Jews, of course, along with many Greeks who were interested in Judaism. Some of these (i.e., “proselytes”) were even in the procession of conversion.
At one point, some of these Greek inquirers contacted Philip, one of the Apostles. They said “Sir, we wish to see Jesus” (John 12.21). This was the critical moment that set the final movements of the Gospel into action, and what Jesus said next made plain how significant the moment was: “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” (John 12.23-24).
Again, and most poetically, we hear Christ speaking of the pouring out of His own life in sacrificial death for the sake of the entire world – the cosmos, all of humanity and creation.
This all-important theme of Jesus giving His life for the life of the world was always the main theme of His entire ministry – His teaching in words, His actions in drama, His entire life in the Divine poetry that overcame the corruption of darkness. Earlier on in John, after the Eucharistic and stupendous Feeding of the Five Thousand, Jesus spoke openly about this very theme:
“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died But this is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the breach which I shall give for the life of the world is My flesh” (John 6.49-51).
It turns out that this Divine Self-sacrifice, this willingness to become the grain of wheat that dies to bear much fruit, was always God’s Will:
“It is too light a thing that You should be My Servant,” said God the Father to His Son in the prophecy of Isaiah, seven centuries before, “to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel. I will give You as a light to the nations, that My salvation may reach to the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 49.6).
Now in Holy Week, that universal salvation was soon to be accomplished. The Greeks – whom Jesus recognized as a symbol of the nations at the ends of the earth, just because they were Gentiles, uncircumcised, outside the written Law – had come, wanting to see this “light to the nations.”
Thus Jesus knew that the Cross was coming, that Golgotha loomed on the near horizon:
“‘Now My soul is troubled. And what shall I say? “Father, save Me from this hour”? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glory Thy Name.’ Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again’” (John 12.27-28).
There had been a crowd around Jesus when He was told (by Philip and Andrew) of the Greeks’ request. The words from heaven were beyond their comprehension. Some thought it was thunder. Others thought that it must have been an angel speaking to Jesus.
I can’t help but think of the seven thunders that John heard in his first book (Revelation 10.3-4). There were words indeed that he was not even permitted to write down. Of course this thunder was the voice of God in apocalyptic judgment in response to the cry of the Son, Who had voluntarily immersed Himself in the dark tide of the fallen world:
“Afflicted, I called upon the Lord, I cried out to My God: He heard My voice from His holy temple … The Lord thundered in the heavens, the Most High gave forth His voice … For Thou wilt save a humble people and Thou wilt humble the eyes of the arrogant. For Thou wilt light My lamp, O Lord, O My God, Thou wilt light My darkness” (Psalm 17,6,13,27-28 LXX).
Thunder in the heavens is the echo of judgment, and judgment indeed is what Jesus speaks of next immediately:
“This voice has come for your sake, not for Mine,” Jesus says. “Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the Archon (i.e., ruler) of the world cast out; and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to Myself” (John 12.30-32). The Lord made clear to the disciples, on a number of occasions, “by what death He was to die” (12.33).
Early on, when Jesus spoke with Nicodemus way back in the third chapter of John, He told the “ruler of the Jews,” after He spoke of being “born from above,” that “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosever believes in Him may have eternal life” (John 3.15).
And this was all for the sake of divine love, as is clearly said in the next verse. We know it well: “For God so loved the world that He gave His Only-Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3.16).
We are too familiar with this verse. We do not appreciate it for the profound revolution that it is. All Scriptural interpretation rests on this verse. All theology, indeed, all philosophy is determined by the truth of John 3.16. Yes, it is the reason for why Jesus died on the Cross and rose again. It is the reason why He came and was incarnate.
It is also the reason why anything exists in the first place.
It is also the standard of judgment. “Now is the judgment of this world,” Jesus said as Golgotha came within His sight. The chief function of archons, or rulers, is judgment – which is much more than determining the rightness or wrongness of an issue. Judgment is the establishment of righteousness, a culture that reflects divine love.
The Archon of this fallen world not only failed at establishing a culture of love: he rebelled against love. And since the Holy Spirit is the Actualizer of Divine Love both within the Trinitarian community and in Creation, then the Spirit’s descent – which was made possible by the Crucifixion and Resurrection and Ascension – would “convince and convict the world … concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged” (John 16.8,11).
“Judged” as in condemned and replaced. Why? Because the ruler of this world ruled by hatred, violence, domination, lies, corruption, and oppression. He sought and aggrandized self. He aggregated to himself power, wielding hurt, pain, and death.
That is why Jesus told His disciples, right before His Palm Sunday Triumphal Entry, that His own “culture,” His Body, His church, was to be completely different from the world-historic ways of the Archon of the age:
“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave; even as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20.25-28).
The “culture” of Christ, the communion realized by the Holy Spirit, would be “self-outpouring” just like Jesus.
In other words, the Body of Christ, His continued presence in every Christian, is itself the judgment. The Body of Christ that was made possible by His death and Resurrection, and His request for the Spirit to be sent, was now to be extended to all the world, not just one nation.
That is why when the Greeks told Philip “We would see Jesus,” Jesus knew His time had come.
Comments