When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now is the Son of man glorified, and in him God is glorified;’” vs. 31
As John wrote his gospel, he treated the departure of Judas from the Passover meal as a sign that the end of Jesus’ brief ministry was near. Death was just around the corner. Jesus knows this but there is no sign of panic and no admission of failure. On the contrary Jesus speaks of this ending as his moment of glory, implying that this had been his destiny from the beginning. It’s hard for us to wrap our minds around this notion of a glorified death. We’re much more likely to even avoid speaking of death, and God knows, most of us spend a lifetime trying to fend off its approach. But John, the last of the gospel writers, had had a chance to see how Jesus’ death had caused an explosion of grace and glory that had propelled the good news of salvation to every corner of the Empire. We can even say that his death made him larger than life, and the cross, an instrument of torture, became the universal symbol of forgiveness and love. This does not mean that we, as his followers, should seek death like a crowd of lemmings leaping from a cliff, but it does mean that death has lost its sting, and should not be feared as though it were the end of the world. For those who live in Christ, it is the beginning of life!
Thought for the Day: Why am I trying to extend my life?
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