Lent 2025 Day 27: Fri 4 Apr
John 13:31-35
31 When he was gone, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. 32 If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.
33 ‘My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: where I am going, you cannot come.
34 ‘A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’
Judas has left and is on his way to the chief priests who are waiting for him to lead them and their henchmen to Jesus. The last lever was pulled as Judas walked out of the door, and the machinery grinds into inexorable action. What happens next is inevitable, for Jesus will not fight or claim his authority, but give himself up to the chief priests, the governors, the soldiers and the cross.
He knows that when he arrives in the Garden it will not be long before they come for him. But before they leave the upper room Jesus opens his heart to his disciples. John presents this to us over five chapters of his gospel. It’s close to a quarter of the whole gospel. Praise God for the evangelist John!
Jesus encourages and prays for his disciples, for the world, for himself; he continues to teach them; he declares that he is the Way to Father God, the Truth and the Life. He promises the Holy Spirit, and reveals the sufferings they will have to endure, and the joy that follows. These chapters are precious, and we are drawn into the intimacies of relationship with Jesus. If you have not read John 13 to John 17 then I encourage you to do so, taking yourself back two thousand years into that upper room Passover meal, at the table with Jesus. If five chapters are a bit too much, then just read the verses above over again and learn the last two by heart.
How can we bring glory to God?
Is Jesus’ love for his disciples different from the love he has for you?
Father God, our Lord Jesus declared your glory on himself at the most open and vulnerable time in his work on earth. Would you fill me with the love he showed to his disciples so that I may reflect it to others. Amen.
1:44:55 Er hat uns allen wohlgetan (Arioso)
48. Recitative S (Chorus I)
He has done good things for all of us;
he gave sight to the blind,
he made the lame to walk,
he told us his Father's word,
he drove out the devil,
he has strengthened the troubled.
He took sinners in and embraced them,
other than that, my Jesus has done nothing!
49. Aria S (Chorus I)
Out of love my Saviour wants to die.
He knows nothing of a single sin;
so that the eternal destruction
and the punishment of judgment
would not remain upon my soul.
50a. Evangelist They screamed even more and said:
Ends at 1:50:52
Paul