"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."

What Shall I Say?

Introduction

There are many different explanations of Christianity abroad in the world today. Men and women are presented with a range of options – the social gospel, a gospel of moral do-goodism, self-help gospels. We live in an age where, in the religious realm at least, the greatest crime is that of intolerance – how can anyone have the temerity to suggest that one view is right while others are not. Isn't religion a private affair and isn't everyone free to decide for themselves?

Well any explanation of Christianity must logically take into account the views of its founder – Jesus Christ. Our studies this evening will take us to the heart of the matter – at least as far as He was concerned.

The question contained in our text for this evening is one that Jesus put to Himself. It is not a question He asked His followers nor is it a question that He put to His Father but one that He asked Himself under the duress of soul distress.

By means of this question we are brought face to face with the very purpose that lay behind the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in to the world. And the context of the question gives us some insight into the pressures that were really felt by our Saviour as He approached the denouement of His entire ministry upon earth.

In order to understand exactly what is going on we must remind ourselves of just what has happened – we need to set the scene as it were. Once we have done that we will be in a position examine just what was the dominating purpose of His life and ministry and also to explore His own understanding of what the climax of it would entail and mean.

What more important subject than this could occupy us on a Sunday evening?

Setting the Scene

Jesus has arrived in the city of Jerusalem and there He has entered into what will prove to be the last week of His life.

Over the course of three years of ministry there have been a number of ups and downs if we may put it that way. Jesus' early and growing popularity had stalled due to a combination of His uncompromising and demanding preaching and the evident hostility of the religious leaders of the day.

However, if we were to speak as a human observer, the last few days had seen another a shift of momentum this time the tide seemed to be running once more in Jesus' favour. He had carried out a stunningly important miracle in raising Lazarus from the dead. This man who had been four days in the tomb was now a walking testimony to the power of Jesus. So, many wanted to see Lazarus and when they did they began to believe in Jesus. Their numbers were so impressive that the authorities were thinking about how they might do away with Lazarus and so stem the tide of converts!

And it was at just this time that Jesus came to Jerusalem. Crowds accompanied Him on His way to the city and further crowds of His followers flooded out of the city to welcome Him. There were such great celebrations taking place that the whole event has gone down in history as The Triumphal Entry.

It seemed as though everything was now moving in His favour – this was certainly the opinion of His enemies who thought their own efforts to stifle Him had been completely ineffective:

Jn.12:19 "the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him."

It is at this particular juncture that, as if to prove the point, some Greeks request a meeting with Jesus.

Now the commentators struggle to identify with clarity just who these Greeks were and have offered three suggestions:

1. Greek speaking Jews who lived in Greek towns.

2. Proselytes from amongst the Greeks – ie. gentile greeks who had become followers of the Jewish religion.

3. Greeks who were gentiles still. It is known that some such did bring gifts to the Temple in Jerusalem and were often in attendance for the great Jewish feast.

Of these three either of the last two options are most likely but whichever it is the same fundamental truth is maintained – Jesus' popularity was spreading beyond the immediate confines of Judea. The "world" was indeed beginning to come to Him! And in this coming we have something of a foretaste of what Jesus predicted would happen:

v.39 "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself."

I wonder how you react when things are on a roll? Don't change anything – just keep going sure and steady – if it ain't broke don't try to fix it?

But that is not at all the way in which Jesus reacted to this current swell of popularity. He doesn't see the path ahead as a smooth one of incremental progress to gradually win over the nation to His cause – not a bit of it! His response to Andrew and Philip comprises serious talk.

"The hour" has come He says and while this is described as the hour in which the Son of Man will be glorified He immediately elaborates to explain that this will involve His death!

The expression "the hour", "my hour" or similar is found on several occasions in the gospels and refers to the climactic events of the end of Jesus' life on earth:

Jn.17:1 "When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you,"

Mr.14:35 "And going a little farther, (Jesus) fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him."

Mr.14:41 "And (Jesus) came the third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough; the hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners."

The words refer to a definite point in time and that moment was imminent!

"Now Is My Soul Troubled"

We are now ready to consider the words of our text where we find Jesus talking and reasoning with Himself.

The first thing we must notice is that Jesus was a man of strong emotions. We must never imagine that He floated through life some 6" above the ground. He was a real man who felt real emotions and feeling them strongly. Here, we are told, that the thoughts surrounding the culmination of His ministry focusing as they did upon death, His own death, did not leave Him unmoved – He was troubled in His soul.

Now while salvation is offered freely to us all on the grounds of Christ's finished work we must never imagine that this salvation was not secured at anything other than a great price! Free to us, yes and praise God for it, but at real cost to the Saviour – His soul was troubled.

Why should this be so?

It was so because the work He was about to accomplish was a great work which would take Him where He had never been before. He would occupy a position that no other man had ever occupied nor could occupy – He was going to voluntarily take the sinner's place by being made a substitute for him.

He, the innocent, spotless Lamb of God, was going to lay down His life for His sheep, He who knew no sin of His own was going to be made sin for us so that in Him we His followers might be made the righteousness of God, being thus reconciled to God. In the Garden of Gethsemane we will see Him again deeply affected by the momentousness of the task to be accomplished:

Mt.26:37-38 "And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.”"

Lk.22:44 "And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground."

No sensible person looks forward to suffering – human nature recoils from suffering and one of the delights that heaven holds out to us is a life free from further suffering.

And so in His soul-trouble Jesus reasoned with Himself:

v.27 "And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’?"

Jesus was a real man. He did not court suffering any more than we do and how often we do pray the kind of prayer that Jesus considered here. We ask for deliverance, we ask for healing, we put what we conceive to be our own immediate best interests to the fore and we pray! We pray what comes so naturally to us in such circumstances and Jesus refused point blank to do the same! And we should be everlastingly grateful to Him that He did!

Jesus did not welcome suffering as a friend but He did willingly face the cross because thereby He would secure the release of His own from the bondage of sin and eternal death. The writer to the Hebrews tells us that with this in view He not only willingly faced the cross with its physical and more importantly its spiritual sufferings He despised the shame of it all knowing the joy that was attached to the saving of His people:

Hebrews 12:2 "Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."

Indeed for Jesus to ask Himself this question in v.27 was to answer it. He had not come to lead a social revolution. He had not come to provide a universal free health system. He had not come to be a revolutionary political leader. He had come for a purpose and these other options were not part of that plan!

v.27 "But for this purpose I have come to this hour."

And just what was to be involved in 'this hour'?

It is the hour in which He will be glorified! The Father brings Him glory because of His filial obedience.

Phil.2:8-11 "And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

And millions since that sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ have begun already in the here and now to praised His Name celebrating with joy and gladness the fact that:

"He loved me and gave Himself for me." (Gal.2:20)

The hour in which He would die for His people – Jesus is glorified in His death – His death is no mistake, no failure and that is why Christians glory in the cross of Christ! Is that true of you? Paul again writing to the Galatians put it very strongly, didn't he, when he wrote:

Gal 6:14 "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."

It would be the hour in which the Father would be glorified. Jesus continued to pray the Father in the following terms:

v.28 "Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again."

And Christians rejoice and praise the Father for His love that has been poured out upon us: indeed we measure the extent of God's love by this gift of His Son!

Rom.5:8 "but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

Jn.3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

Indeed as Paul wrote to the Romans interrupting his flow with an outburst of praise:

Rom.11:36 "For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen."

Finally, this hour was also to be the hour in which the ways and values of this world order opposed to God would be shown up for what they were – and Satan's grasp upon this world would be broken!

v.31 "Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out."

Conclusion

How glad we should be that Jesus did not seek to save His own skin in praying for His own deliverance! How glad we should be that He did not follow the tempting patterns of worldly logic that would propose success without a cross!

Have we seen Him lifted up and known ourselves drawn to Him? O, do come! And if we have then how we should long to see Him "lifted up" in the proclamation of the truth that many more too might be drawn to Him!

Amen.

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