John 12:37-43
After speaking to the people Jesus left and hid Himself from them. Despite all He had said and all the miraculous signs He had shown them, signs they should have recognised as being evidence of the Messiah, the people still did not believe Him. That is so frustrating! What will it take for these people to believe! John records that this happened to fulfil the words of Isaiah the prophet that they would not believe. He continues that the reason they do not believe is because God has blinded them so they cannot see and deadened their hearts so they cannot understand and turn and be healed. (Isaiah 6:10).
On a positive note, John records in verse 42-43 that many did believe in Jesus, including leaders. However, because people were afraid of the Pharisees, they would not confess their fear. They were afraid of being thrown out of the synagogue. My first reaction when reading that was to think that their fear was about being denied access to God, but John records that their fear was because they valued praise from men more than praise from God. So even those who believed did not possess a depth of feeling sufficient to put God first.
When I see the disbelief in the world today and the way faith in Jesus is sidelined, and people try to say there is more than one path to God, I feel dispirited. Even in the churches there are few who put God first, preferring instead to receive praise from their fellow men. It is very dispiriting, just as it would have been when Jesus prepared to face the cross. So few people believed!
In Matthew 16:16-17 Peter declares Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Jesus replies that he revealed this because God revealed it to Him. It is important to remember that we can only see Jesus if God reveals Him to us. However, our readiness to accept what God has revealed and to follow is up to us. Be careful that when God opens your eyes and heart to Jesus you act on it. Do not be like the seeds that were sewn amongst the weeds and were choked by them (Luke 8:5-8). Listen to God, put the need to please Him first and forget about the hollow praise of your fellow men. Joyce Meyer posted a lovely quote recently. “Jesus is interested in Marriage, not a forty five minutes date every Sunday morning. Make Him first in your life.” If you neglected your spouse like that your marriage would quickly fail. It is only be putting your relationship with your spouse first that you build a healthy marriage. We are the bride of Christ. We need to put Him first and spend time with Him. Make sure you do that and you will be a seed grown in fertile ground with plentiful sunshine and water.

John 12:32-36
Continuing on Jesus conversation about the hour having come for Him to be glorified, Jesus concludes his words by telling the crowd that when He is lifted up from the earth he would draw all people to himself. This is a reference to Isaiah 11:10 where the “root of Jesse” or the Messiah will stand as a banner for the people and the nations will rally to him. If you have a chance, I strongly recommend you read all of Isaiah 11. It is a beautiful chapter and an extremely powerful description of Jesus and what is to come.
The Bible records that Jesus made this statement to tell the people about the kind of death he would experience. It appears that they understood because they responded by saying that they “knew” from the Law that the Christ would remain forever so if He was the Christ, how could he say that? Then they asked who was the Son of Man. Jesus ignored their religiosity in clinging to the “law” and putting it above God. He ignored their rejection of Him in seeking to identify someone else as the Christ. He continued with what He had to say.
He told the people that they would have the light for just a little while longer and encouraging them to walk while they had the light and before darkness overtakes them. He warned them that the person who walks in the dark does not know where they are going. These people were still refusing to fully accept Him and believe Him. Therefore, although in his presence they could follow Him, once He was gone they would be thrown back into darkness and be “stumbling in darkness”, not sure where to go. He encouraged them one last time to put their trust in Him so that they could become “sons of the light”.
After this Jesus hid Himself from their presence. Perhaps this was to give them an understanding of what it would be like without Him. Perhaps it was because He had said all He had to say and the rest was up to the people.
The stumbling block for these people was their slavish adherence to the letter of the law. Many Christians today cling to the legalism of their church’s doctrine. Or they cling to cultural observances of Christianity or family rituals about Christianity. They put belief in their legalism ahead of belief in Jesus. Are you one of those people? If Jesus was to come to you today and give you a message, would you believe it? Or would you do as the people here did and refuse to let go of your belief in the law?
Does Jesus stand as a banner for you (Isaiah 11:10) or as a stumbling block (1 Corinthians 1:23)?

John 12:27-31
Immediately after speaking to the people about the hour having arrived for Jesus to be glorified, Jesus told those listening that His heart was troubled. What He was to face was so terrible that He was horrified at the prospect. We will see a further outpouring of his feelings later, when He prays in Gethsemane. For the moment however, He is standing in a group of people and He is teaching them.
Having acknowledged that He was troubled by what is to come, He asked what He should say. After all, He reasoned, He could ask God to save Him from this hour. However, it was for this hour He was born so therefore He will face what is to come and seek to glorify God.
In response God spoke from heaven that He had glorified His name and will glorify it again. It is interesting that every time God speaks from heaven some will report having heard angels and others will say it thundered. It is just the same with those of us who hear God’s voice speaking to us and those who do not.
Jesus told the people that the voice was for their benefit, not His. The time had come for judgment on the world. The time had come when the prince of the world (satan) would be driven out. This is a hard concept to understand. Satan has already been defeated and judgement has already come to the world. But the fulfilment of all that has happened has not yet come about. It is the same with answered prayer. Sometimes God directs us to Praise Him for answering our prayers. Sometimes we are called on to praise for that answered prayer for some time before we see the answer. This is something I am learning a lot about this year. I have been praising God for over two months for a prayer I have prayed for five years. God has told me He has answered my prayer and I must praise Him for that answer. However, the answer has not yet arrived.
From the moment of judgment on Adam and Eve in Genesis, God had announced the answer to our salvation. That answer took several thousand years before the point when Jesus fulfilled that answer. Jesus was reminding the people that answer was come, but even then it was still a few days away.
It is important to remember that often God answers our prayers but we have to wait patiently and with praise for the fulfilment of that answer. So today, ask God which prayers He wants you to praise Him for answering, and continue to praise Him until you see those answers.

John 12:20-26
In this section some Greeks came to ask to speak to Jesus. We are not told anything about them but they are the catalyst for the statement Jesus made in verse 23-28.
Jesus announced that the hour had come for Him to be glorified. Finally, after three years of avoiding the stoning mobs, His time had come to not get away. It is unlikely anyone listening really understood what He meant. I don’t think I would have if I had been there. What Jesus was about to do was so extraordinary.
To explain, Jesus told those listening that a kernel of wheat had to fall to the ground and die so that it could become a plant and thence become many seeds. This analogy should have been easy to understand, especially as many who came to listen to Him were pilgrims from more rural areas. He then expanded on this. He said that if a man loved his life, he would lose it. On the flip side, a man who hated his life in the world would keep it for eternal life. Whoever loves what they have in the present, the money, the fame, the prestige, whatever they consider more important than anything else, will lose what matters, God. Instead, Jesus encouraged people to love God so much that nothing else was as important. Of course, He was also referring to Himself, but so much in the Bible is multi-layered. There are many layers of meaning that apply over different situations.
Jesus then told the people that if they wanted to serve Him they must follow Him. He also said that where He is, they will be also. There are multiple layers of meaning in this statement also. First, we must die with Jesus by dying to our old selves and being reborn in Him. It also means that wherever we go in Jesus’ name, He is there with us. Finally, we will also be in heaven with Him when our time on earth is finished.
Jesus ended these verses with the promise that those who served Him would be honoured by God. A great reward indeed.
It must have been amazing to have been there in Jerusalem listening to Jesus’ words. Yes, in the days ahead the faith of the people would be shaken. But for those who held firm to their faith, there was the great reward of true understanding and Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit to write God’s word on our hearts. Those days were days of extremes of emotion, from elation to the depths of despair. What a wonderful time.