Word had begun to spread about Jesus. This was Palm Sunday afternoon now — crowds had already greeted his entry into Jerusalem. In John's chronology, this was hard on the heels of his raising Lazarus to life after four days in the tomb. Jesus was beginning to attract significant crowds, and they were even bigger than normal because this was a festival week, and folks had traveled from all over the known world to celebrate the Passover here.
Word about Jesus had apparently spread to the visitors in the city. Some of these Gentile converts ("God-fearers" as they were known) got wind of this incredible rabbi. Perhaps they had even heard of what he had done in cleaning out their part of the temple precincts from all the commercial traffic, the selling of sacrificial animals, and the money-changing, that was constantly going on. They wanted to meet him. Okay — they came to the disciples and asked for an appointment.
We never hear whether or not they get their audience; instead we get this bolt from the blue about, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified" (v. 23). Okay! A certain tingle of excitement must have raced through those who heard him. This was exactly what a lot of folks had been waiting for for three years. Now, Jesus would throw off the Judean "Clark Kent" disguise and become Israel's "Superman" Messiah — yes! — glory!
But wait ... what follows in the gospel account is almost a stream-of-consciousness monologue that we who live on this side of the crucifixion and resurrection can understand, but it must have left his original hearers in a fog. Put yourself in their place. There was that statement about the grain of wheat having to "die" in the ground before it can bear fruit. What has that got to do with the conquering Messiah? That was followed immediately with, "Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life" (v. 25). Then he says, "Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also" (v. 26). Uh huh. Finally, he takes a deep breath and sighs, "Now my heart is troubled" (v. 27). And those who were standing there listening probably whispered, "Ours, too."
Suddenly, he lifts his eyes upward and begins a conversation with heaven that is punctuated with what some hear as a clap of thunder and others insist is the voice of an angel. One way or another, it is most disquieting. Finally, he says, "I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself" (v. 32). Yes, you and I know what he was talking about, but you can be sure that those who first heard him were confused.
Notice something: confused or not, they stayed. There was something about Jesus that did indeed draw people to him. It had been so since the night of his birth — humble shepherds and learned magi. As a boy in the temple, there were rabbis and scholars. As a man there were folk from all walks of life — from fishermen and tax collectors to men like Nicodemus, the cream of Israelite society; upstanding women and fallen women; the little children loved him enough to make such a nuisance of themselves that the disciples tried to shoo them away. Even a hard-bitten Roman governor would be mesmerized enough by him to disavow any blame for his execution.
Why were people so attracted to Jesus? Scripture says he was not particularly handsome. He came from no family of influence. He had no money. Was it the miracles? Perhaps. There are always some who want to see a magic show. But on a deeper level, what Jesus must have embodied for folks was a sense of hope, the same kind of hope that ancient Judah felt when they heard the words of Jeremiah: "The time is coming, says the Lord," — in other words, you can take this to the bank — a "new covenant ... I will put my law in their minds, and I will write it on their hearts" — this one will be automatic; no way for us to blow it — "and I will be their God, and they will be my people" (Jeremiah 31:31-33). Hope.
Several years ago, a schoolteacher accepted the volunteer position of visiting and teaching children who were patients in a large city hospital. One day the phone rang and she received her first assignment as a new volunteer. She took his name and room number and was told by his teacher that this boy was studying nouns and adverbs in his class before he was hospitalized.
It was not until the visiting teacher got outside the boy's hospital room that she realized that he was a patient in the hospital's burn unit. She was prepared to teach English grammar, but she was not prepared to witness the horrible look and smell of badly burned human flesh. She was not prepared to see a young boy in great pain, either. She wanted to hold her nose ... to turn ... and to leave faster than she came, but she could not just walk away. So she clumsily stammered over to his bedside, and she simply said, "I am the hospital teacher and your teacher sent me to help you with your nouns and adverbs."
The next morning a nurse from the burn unit asked her, "What did you do to that boy?"
The teacher began to apologize profusely, but before she could finish, the nurse interrupted her: "You don't understand. We have been really worried about him ... his condition has been deteriorating over the past few days, because he had completely given up hope. But ever since you were here with him yesterday, his whole attitude has changed and he is fighting back, and responding to treatment. It's as though he decided to live!"
When the nurse later questioned him about it, the boy said, "I figured I was doomed ... that I was gonna die ... until I saw that teacher." And as a tear began to run down his face, he finished: "But when I saw her, I realized that they wouldn't send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy ... would they?"[1]
A few years ago, the psychology department at Duke University carried on an interesting experiment to see how long rats could swim. In one container, they placed a rat for whom there was no possibility of escape. He swam a few moments and then ducked his head to drown. In the other container, they made the hope of escape possible for the rat. The rat swam for several hours before finally drowning. The conclusion of the experiment was just the opposite of our common conclusion. We usually say, "As long as there is life, there is hope." The Duke experiment proved, "As long as there is hope, there is life."[2]
If we read the newspaper or watch the evening news, we might feel we are living in a world devoid of hope. War, famine, natural disasters, one right after another. Add to that the countless homes where dreams are crushed down and aspirations are snuffed out each day. We wonder how anyone survives in this life.
We survive by the measure of our hope. The hope of your heart and my heart is Jesus.
1. Bill Adams, Trinity Episcopal Church, Sutter Creek, California, via Ecunet, 12/29/96.
2. Bruster & Dale, How to Encourage Others (Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman Press, 1983).