The Irresistible Gravity of the Grace of God
John 12:20-33
Jeremiah 31: 31-34
Probably the best known story about Jesus is the story of his prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane, before He is about to be arrested, tried, and executed. Jesus knows what’s coming, so he goes to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. As Mark tells it, Jesus “fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
After he prays though, God has shored up his confidence, and Jesus goes to his sleeping disciples and says, “Awake, the hour has come.” And right then Judas comes leading a mob to capture Jesus and take him to the high priest.
The “hour” of which Jesus is speaks is “H-Hour”—the crisis for which Jesus has been preparing himself, his crucifixion, death, and resurrection. He also calls it “The Day”—D-Day. Like the D-Day invasion of Normandy, this is the point where everything comes to a head. Just as D-Day was the ultimate crisis of the war in Europe, so Jesus’ crucifixion is the ultimate crisis in all of history.
The “Day” to which Jesus refers is the Day of Judgment; the Day of the Arrival of the Kingdom of the Lord, which is predicted in our passage from Jeremiah. “Day” or “days” is the way the Old Testament prophets always referred to the coming Day when history reaches God’s intended culmination:
“The days are coming,” declares the Lord,? “when I will make a new covenant?with the people of Israel? and with the people of Judah…?33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel? after that time,” declares the Lord.?“I will put my law in their minds? and write it on their hearts.?I will be their God,? and they will be my people.?34 No longer will they teach their neighbor,? or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’?because they will all know me,? from the least of them to the greatest,”?declares the Lord.?“For I will forgive their wickedness? and will remember their sins no more.”
The arrival of The Day is the moment at which all of history is forever changed, the moment that at last all humanity is in the right relationship with God, or at least the door is opened for it. When The Day arrives, when The Hour is at hand, God will forgive our wickedness and remember our sins no more; the Law will be written on human hearts; no longer will we teach one another “Know the Lord,” for we will all know the Lord, from the Least to the Greatest. This is the arrival of our ultimate union with God; we will be one with God, individually and corporately; and God’s will will be done on earth as it is in heaven, just as we always pray. It is heaven’s D-Day invasion of earth, and once the beachhead is established, just as the war against the Nazis began it’s inevitable slide to Allied victory, so at God’s Hour all of history begins its denouement—It’s inevitable slide toward the certain victory of God.
But in Jewish thinking, the Day and the Hour, were not to be simply the beginning of the end—they were supposed to be the End itself, the full arrival of the Kingdom of God. That’s one reason the Jews don’t hold that Jesus was the messiah. If he was the Messiah, where’s the Kingdom? It should have arrived with Jesus. We should already be living in that Kingdom where we need not teach our neighbor ‘Know the Lord,” for we shall all know the Lord, from the least to the greatest. We should be living now in that Kingdom where war is ended and poverty and injustice and God’s peace, God’s healing, God’s shalom is established. And since we’re not, then D-Day hasn’t come; H-Hour hasn’t arrived.
Our Christian thinking that the crucifixion and resurrection are the D-Day invasion helps us overcome this problem. From that perspective, we may right now be in the middle of the Battle of the Bulge, but we know we’re on the path to victory, thanks to Jesus.
But The Gospel of John takes us down a different path, a path far more Jewish in some ways. Because John doesn’t see the crucifixion and resurrection as D-Day. He sees them as V-Day, Victory Day, and the beginning of the Marshall Plan. Remember the Marshall Plan? It was the plan that George Marshall, the US Secretary of State, developed to rebuild and reshape Europe and build up our former enemies into allies. It was a shining moment in US diplomacy that created a new and vibrant peace for a new world and has made Germany and Japan successful and our allies to this day.
That is how John sees the crucifixion and resurrection. They are the final defeat of the enemy and the beginning of God’s gracious rebuilding. They are the beginning of God’s new world.
That’s why Jesus in John seems to contradict the story of Gethsemane as it’s told in the other three Gospels. Whereas our passage in Mark, for instance, says directly that Jesus prayed “that this hour might pass from him,” Jesus in John says in our passage today: ‘”Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say–‘ Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’”
Jesus in John is saying, I don’t want this cup taken from me, because I don’t view my crucifixion as terrible—I view it as God’s crowning achievement. My will is so aligned with God’s that I have no doubt that when I am crucified and raised it means not that the Kingdom WILL come, but that the Kingdom HAS come. God’s will will be at least achieved, and God’s name will be glorified.
According to Jesus in John, Jesus’ Cross is His throne, Satan is completely defeated, and God’s peace, uniting all of humanity under the cross, is begun. As we say in one of our hymns at Easter,
The strife is o’er, the battle done;
the victory of life is won;
the song of triumph has begun:
Alleluia!
The powers of death have done their worst,
but Christ their legions hath dispersed;
let shouts of holy joy outburst:
Alleluia!
From John’s perspective, the war is over, the battle is won. Jesus has completely decimated the enemy. And in fact, it could be viewed that we’re in the midst of the judgment—the cleanup. People are making choices that affect their eternal fate, including us. But from John’s perspective, the judgment is not the Nuremberg Trials, it is the Marshall Plan, and the whole point is not to punish our so-called enemies, but to save them. As Jesus says in John 3:17, “For the Son of Man came not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”
Just as the purpose of the war was to bring peace, so the purpose of Jesus’ death and resurrection was to bring peace—the bring humanity into peace with one another, and peace with God. That is why Jesus says, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to me.” Jesus is proclaiming that His cross and resurrection are the initiation of the irresistible gravity of the grace of God. The Kingdom is already here. And part of its purpose is to draw all people to Jesus. The Kingdom’s judgment isn’t meant to condemn, but to save, and that’s the purpose of this time period we’re living in right now—to save—to redeem—to allow Jesus to do His redemptive purpose, to draw all people to Him and to act out His Marshall Plan for the world—to be the ambassadors, as Paul calls us, of this incredible diplomatic mission Jesus has launched—to proclaim the irresistible gravity of the Grace of God–and for goodness’ sake, not to stand in His way!
Paul understood the Marshall Plan aspect of the cross and resurrection. That’s why he was committed to evangelizing the whole world, and telling the gospel to as many people as possible. He knew that one of the predictions of the Day was that “all nations” would come to the God of Zion; so he got that Jesus intended to draw all people unto Himself. he proclaimed the irresistible gravity of the grace of God. Paul wanted to make sure that happened, that gentiles, people who were considered unclean and unsavable by the old standards, knew they were at last welcomed into God’s kingdom, if they only believed. He got angry at his fellow apostles when he saw them making rules and regulations that seemed to bar the door to Jesus, rather than to open it.
Brothers and sisters, our job is to be such ambassadors—ambassadors of the new Marshall Plan that Jesus has died and risen to initiate. In Christ’s death and resurrection God’s glorious redemption of the world has begun, the irresistible gravity of the grace of God is at work, and we shouldn’t stand in the way.
But we have. We’ve set bars too high for some people to jump. We’ve told people that in God’s eyes they are lost and irredeemable and God can’t welcome them. And worst of all, we’ve believed it. We’ve practiced this kind of designation of God’s enemies that directly undermines Jesus’ Marshall Plan of Love, that directly undermines the very purpose of the cross and the resurrection of Jesus and suggests there are some things, some behaviors, some people that Jesus’ blood simply cannot make clean, and Jesus’ love could never find acceptable. There were some people we said that Jesus just wasn’t drawing unto Him.
Here’s the thing: we’re in the middle of God’s judgment—not simply of the world, but of us. God’s judgment is grace, mercy and forgiveness. We dare not stand in the way of the irresistible gravity of God’s grace and love, or we could bring judgment on ourselves.
But we seem to think that our job is not the Marshall Plan, but all-out war, decimating the enemy. When in fact now we’re at the point where God is saving the enemy, healing the enemy, making the enemy God’s friend. And we are bringing judgment on ourselves every time we bar others from the love of God.
And that is why I am proud that the PCUSA has practiced the irresistible grace of God this past week by making it acceptable for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters to be married in our churches.
It’s my experience that lesbian and gay folks are desperate to know that God loves them for who they are, as God loves all of us. Clearly, Jesus has been drawing them to Him. But it’s been too easy for the church to stand in the way, to use scripture in a frankly questionable manner to support long-standing prejudice to prevent us from loving them for who they are, and therefore conveying that God doesn’t love them for who they are, and Jesus doesn’t accept them for who they are. It is clear to me from the clear evidence of vibrant Christian faith in so many gay and lesbian Christians that Jesus has been drawing them, and they’ve been responding. And now we as a church have finally figured out, we need to get out of the way.
This is the redemptive work of the church, of the great Marshall Plan of the Kingdom of God being put into effect, drawing more people, and more, and more, those who are seeming enemies, those who seem outside the circle of grace, into it. We proclaim the irresistible gravity of the grace of God. It’s not our doing, it’s God’s; our job as ambassadors is simply to proclaim that it’s true. This is how we participate in God’s Marshall Plan. This is how we by God’s grace participate in and facilitate the healing of the world, the ultimate purpose of the cross and the resurrection. This is how we proclaim that Jesus is Lord. This is how God glorifies God’s name. By drawing all people to Him. And all we have to do is proclaim it, celebrate it, and get out of the way.