Jesus' Hour Had Come!

Tonight is night before Jesus gathers His apostles together to celebrate the Passover meal with Him, to institute the Eucharist, and to announce that one of them is going to betray Him that very night. Tomorrow night Jesus will be arrested in the Garden of Olives, betrayed by one of his close followers, one who followed Jesus closely day by day for three years and was chosen to be a part of an elite group referred to as the apostles. Tomorrow night Jesus will be arrested. I feel sad but I must remember how Jesus foretold his death and subsequent glorification.

In John 12: 23-28,  Jesus says to he apostles: "Now the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.  I tell you, most solemnly, unless a wheat grain falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies it yields a rich harvest. Anyone who loves his life loses it; anyone who hates his life in this world will keep it for the eternal life. If a [person] serves me, that [person]  must follow me, wherever I am, my servant will be there too. [Those who] serve me, my Father will honor...Now my soul is troubled. What shall I say: Father, save me from this hour? But it was for this very reason that I have come to this hour. Father glorify your name."

WOW!  Lord, when my hour approaches, may I be graced to remember that through my death your name is being glorified, as it will be the moment that a place has been prepared for me in the eternal kingdom. that moment will be the moment that you have been waiting for: the moment to take me home to heaven to live with you forever! May I, Lord, through grace, "keep [my life] for the eternal life."

Jesus' Hour Had Come

In today’s Gospel, John 13: 21-22, 36-38, Jesus is “reclining at table with his disciples.”  He is “deeply troubled” and says: “Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”   Imagine Jesus’ sorrow.  My mind goes to situations in which a criminal is fearful of being betrayed. Jesus is no criminal yet one of His own is about to hand him over to those who are plotting to crucify him. I think of King David being pursued by his son Absalom, who, also,  is seeking to put his father to death. Jesus, our King, is, in a sense, pursued by His Father to reveal the depth of their love for you and me. Each person of the Trinity is eager to reveal the willingness of the Son of God to die in our place. Out of their love for us, the Trinity gives one of their own to sacrifice his life for the exoneration of each human being from the claws of death, which we call sin.

When the apostles heard Jesus’ message that one of them was about to betray Him, they frantically begged to know which of them would do such a thing. “It is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it.” He gives the consecrated bread to Judas. At that moment “Satan entered him.” Jesus says to him: “What you are going to do, do quickly.” Judas leaves. “It is night.” Darkness seems to have triumphed. So even more urgent is the act of redemption, Jesus, the second person of the Blessed Trinity, giving His life to save us from the kind of night that engulfed Judas.

Oh, the mercy and the love of our God. This is the hour for which Jesus became man. This is the hour when Jesus will be glorified and we with Him. The gates of heaven will be reopened to humankind, the gates that had been closed when Adam and Eve followed their own will instead of God's.  What will you and I do when tempted by Satan, as was Judas in his betrayal and as was Peter in his denials of Jesus. Judas leaves Jesus. Peter stays.  What will you and I do in moments like these?