When Jesus is Lifted Up

Hey everybody.

Today, I am looking at a story in John 12:20-33.  Some Greeks have come to Philip because they want an audience with Jesus.  Philip, along with Andrew, bring their request to Jesus.  In response, Jesus says a number of things that likely went over the heads of his audience both Jew and Greek alike.

Jesus talked about how the time has come for Him to be glorified and how kernels of wheat must fall to ground and die in order to produce more wheat.  He talks about how you must hate your life in this world in order to save it, and how God the Father will honor the one that serves Jesus.  Then He talks about how His soul is troubled, but that he cannot ask God to save him from his upcoming trouble, because that was the very reason he came.  He ends this short discourse by declaring to His Father, that God glorifies his own name.  Then something incredibly cool happens.

A voice comes from heaven and says,  " I have glorified it, and will glorify it again." The crowd seemed a little confused by what happened.  Some said it was an angel, others said it was thunder,  but no matter what they perceived it must have been something amazing to behold. Jesus tells his audience that the voice from heaven was for their benefit, not his, because judgment was coming upon the world, and the prince of the world would be driven out.  I suspect that Jesus says that the voice they heard was for their benefit so that they might believe and therefore be saved.  One would think that witnessing something as incredible as a voice thundering from heaven would convince a few people that Jesus was legit.

Any way, I want to focus on what Jesus says next. "He says, "And I, when I am lifted up from the Earth, will draw all people to myself." John writes that Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death he would die, meaning obviously the Cross.  This is one of three places in John where Jesus talks about being lifted up.  The others are, John 3:14 and John 8:28.  In John 3, in a conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus says, "so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him."  In John 8, Jesus in a dispute with a group of Jews, when he says, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me."  So from these three verses we can see what happens when Jesus is lifted up:

• Everyone who believes may have eternal life.
• We can know that Jesus is from God.
• We can know that Jesus speaks only God's words.
• People will be drawn to Jesus.

So what does this mean for us?  We have to make sure that we are lifting up Jesus, with our lives, with our worship, and in our conversations.  It is Jesus that draws people.  As cool and as awesome as we may be as individuals and as a collective body, we have to remember that it is not us that draws people, it's Jesus.  "The Church" is not the message.  Neither is "Discipleship."  It's Jesus that offers eternal life.  It is Jesus that came from God.  It is Jesus that will draw people and make our ministries grow.

Let's lift Him up.

Tom