Lent Day 37: All for God’s Glory – The Cross before The Fruits

Shortly before His death, when Jesus as a human being expressed His fears about the agony He was about to undergo, He resignedly asked God to glorify His name. According to John’s Gospel, Chapter 12: 27 “Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify Your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, saying, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.

God responded that He was going to glorify His name in Christ’s obedient death and rising. Christ’s cry of anguish came immediately after He had  explained to his disciples that a grain of wheat had to die before it could bear abundant fruits and that those who love their lives (more than Christ) would eventually lose it while those who hate their lives in this  world (and put Christ first) would keep it unto eternal life.

Earlier on, in the same chapter, we are told how the death and miraculous raising of Lazarus back to life had also borne much fruit of conversion; so much fruit that the chief priests wanted him killed. 9 Now a great many of the Jews knew that He was there; and they came, not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might also see Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead. 10 But the chief priests plotted to put Lazarus to death also, 11 because on account of him many of the Jews went away and believed in Jesus.

It is probably not a coincidence that Christ would have declared that a type of death has to occur in order for abundant fruit to be borne just before expressing anguish about His own impending death. He knew how much fruit would be borne out of His own death, an entire Church for the glory of His Father. We know that these three pointers to abundant fruit after death; one from a regular friend of Christ like we are; one from a parable about plants and the last one about the Divine fruits of Christ’s death give us a message – In order to bear abundant spiritual fruits, something in us must die first.

Sometimes under Divine guidance, we are able to put these fleshly desires and vices to death by ourselves to a certain extent. At other times, God walks us through painful processes that are meant to put them to death – all so we can bear fruit for His glory. And yet the bearing of abundant fruit is not the end of the story, the more fruit we bear, the more the enemy of our souls targets us. We can only imagine the anxiety of Lazarus, who had just been raised from the dead, already having death plots  hatched against him just because his ordeal had yielded so much fruit.

But we Followers of Christ are here given a practical example of what to do when our hearts are troubled….Father glorify your name……and we may add, show me what to do to cooperate with the goal of Your Name being glorified in this situation; help me to obey You just as Christ chose to even when He was afraid.  Given that our lives as faithful followers are anchored to our all-seeing and all-knowing God through His Son, we keep in mind that He is always in the process of glorifying His name in the events unfolding in our lives.

The choice we have is either to submit to that glorification of His Name and exchange our anxiety for the Peace that Christ gives us, or to resist the glorification of His Name, thereby leaving a window for the enemy to steer us away from the Divinely-ordained painful process at a cost that is never immediately clear to us, for the devil is deceptive. It is a daily choice we face, and there is no compulsion either way. Let us just keep in mind that we cannot bear abundant fruit until we are pruned, for there is no easy way to a bumper spiritual harvest.

It is worth ending this by noting that after God responded about glorifying His Name again, Jesus pointed out that the audible response was for the benefit of His disciples and not for Himself.  29 Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to Him.” 30 Jesus answered and said, “This voice did not come because of Me, but for your sake. In their infinite wisdom, the Father and Son knew that we needed to have God’s zeal for glorifying His name on record as an encouragement for us whenever we are fearful about what God is taking us through.

In my joys, Father, glorify Your Name…..In my trials, Father, glorify Your Name…In good health, Father, glorify Your Name….In sickness, Father, glorify Your Name….In everything, Father, glorify Your Name.