This Is My Commandment
Elaine Poproski Download: Audio
Sunday Scripture Reading: John 13:31-35 (NRSV)
31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. 32 If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Read more…
Looking to Sunday: Preparing to Hear from God
by Elaine Poproski
Sunday’s scripture passage is short and weird. It’s John 13:31–35.
The end of the passage isn’t weird; it’s really straightforward; it’s the part all the commentaries seem to like to focus on. In my NRSV Bible, this is the part that gives the section its heading:
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
Aren’t those words great? Aren’t they straightforward? I mean, sure, it’s not always easy to live those words out and we often fail to love each other with the same kind of self-sacrificing, washing-each-other’s-feet, servant-like love that Jesus had for His discipleship, but at least the words and their meaning are relatively clear.
But what about the beginning of this paragraph? “…the Son of Man [Jesus] has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him, and God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.” That’s a lot of glorifying. What does it mean?
In the Old Testament, when Israel was living in the wilderness prior to entering the Promised Land, God was present among them as a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. They had a portable place of worship called a tabernacle and whenever the pillar of cloud settled on it, the glory of God filled the tabernacle.[1] In Exodus 33, Moses was granted a glimpse of God in the form of His glory as it passed by while Moses hid in the cleft of a rock. The prophet Ezekiel was also granted a vision of God’s glory that was like a rainbow on a rainy day, with brightness all around, and that caused Ezekiel to fall on his face in worship.[2] In Psalm 19 we’re told that the heavens declare the glory of God. When Jesus went to Lazarus’ tomb to raise him from the dead, He said to Martha, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”[3]
In Sunday’s passage, Jesus is talking about the cross and about His upcoming crucifixion. Doesn’t it seem weird that He’d talk about those horrors, that exemplar of suffering and violence, as glory? And yet, that’s exactly what He does.
As you prepare for Sunday, I invite you to spend some time reflecting on this apparent paradox. How is it that one of the darkest events in history, an event during which Jesus experienced the profound absence of God [remember how he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”] can be equated with God’s glory? If you have time, go to www.biblegateway.com and search the word glory. Read through all the references that show up. What do those references have in common? What do they suggest about the meaning of the word? How do they help you understand the weirdness of John 13:31–32 with all the glorified’s of those short verses?