Reflection on Jn 12:27-28
Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name. Then a voice came from heaven, saying, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.”
In verses 24 and 25, Jesus speaks a parable of the grain of wheat, and then He speaks about losing or saving one’s soul for eternity. In verse 27, He speaks about His soul: “Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’?” And Jesus Himself answers: “But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name.” These words are an example for us too. In verse 26, Jesus says: “If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also.” Jesus did not use the word servant but slave (doulos), as seen in the original Greek version of the New Testament.
The proverb says: “To serve God means to reign.”
The Blessed Virgin said: “He doule Kyriou – I am the bondslave of the Lord” and God worked through her the greatest miracle, the incarnation of the Word of God. A slave belongs wholly to his earthly master and has no right to leave him, being his property. The earthly master can do with him anything he likes. A servant is in a different position. He and his master agree on conditions, and if the servant is not satisfied, he can leave the service.
We humans are not mere servants but slaves of sin! The Apostle Paul speaks about this in the Epistle to the Romans, chapters 6-8. Sin is our master and we are its slaves. But we refuse to admit it. Who will make us free? Jesus, the Son of God, alone! He makes us free indeed. How? Though He was the Son of God, He humbled Himself to the point of death, even the death of the cross. But only those who gave their all to God and have complete trust in Him can be made truly free from the power and cunning of sin. However, it does not mean that such Christians are passive and do nothing. On the contrary, they seek God’s will in earnest, ask advice of experienced people, and they often even make mistakes or fall into traps. God allows this, so that we may learn from mistakes. This is connected with humiliation, which is part of the process of purification and growth in divine wisdom.
If you are to choose between two or more alternatives, you have responsibility and are in danger of making a wrong decision. For example, you have a certain sum of money and want to buy a new or an older house. You have to consider job opportunities in the vicinity, water, gas and electricity supply in the house etc. You have to check if the house has good foundations, if the walls are dry, if the roof is not leaking, the material of which the house is built, drainage, documents… This all must be checked. You can look out for a good house without end. And finally you buy a ruin somewhere on a hill for 35 thousand dollars, which actually is not worth 5 thousand. You could buy a good house for 35 thousand, make some repairs and then sell it for 60 thousand. But if the buyer is not a realist, he pours his life’s savings down the drain and when he finds out that it was a foolish thing to do and wants to sell the house on, he hardly sells it for half the price.
So you try to seek God’s will when buying a house. You consider several options, think them over and over until it becomes one big headache and you completely give up your previous demands. But if you persevere in seeking, pray sincerely and consider all the options before God, you will finally manage to find an ideal house, and what is more, the seller will be satisfied and you as the buyer will understand that it was not by chance but by an intervention of God. This is about seeking God’s will when buying a house. Looking for a job is something similar. It is a little more difficult when a young person seeks God’s will concerning a life partner or consecrated life. A young man seeks a woman. The old proverb says: “Marry beauty, beauty is passing. Marry money, money means trouble. Marry virtue, virtue lasts for ever.” A young man is worried: “Will I find a good wife? Will she be a good mother? Will she be faithful to me?” Facing such an important decision of their life, a sincere boy or girl nowadays feel like taking a shot in the dark. This is not a question of mere property but of life happiness. There’s a risk that their life may be a hell on earth and, what is worse, that they may end in hell after death, and yet they are convinced that their life path is to get married. What advice to give? Pray. Keep pure. The Christian proverb that comes from long experience says: “So many sins before marriage, so many tears and sorrows after marriage.” The best preparation for a happy marriage is a pure relationship. During this time, the boy or girl can acquaint themselves with their good or bad qualities and they are free to end the relationship and to continue looking for the right partner. However, if they lapse from chastity, they have no other choice. They have to suffer the consequences!
There are many other decisions one faces in life. A young man must join the army. A fresh example is the fratricidal war in eastern Ukraine. A certain 25-year-old man said: “I will never shoot at women, children or other people. Let them kill me but I won’t shoot!”
We often have to make a choice. You can make a career or obtain money by betraying your soul, your conscience, your reason and your feelings. Western organizations look for skilled people in politics, culture or economics to help them establish their structure on a particular territory. An example is social services. Social services workers will eventually be forced to steal children and place them in a system which will ruin them morally, mentally and physically. And all these crimes are promoted under the guise of positive terms.
People can also choose their job. However, it is not easy to find a good job. Sometimes one can work in a bad company with the intention of committing “sabotage”. But that’s too risky. Certainly, it can be God’s will in some cases, but this is an exception.
Simply, man is faced with different choices in life. A wise man thinks of death, God’s judgment and eternity and is aware that his life is being recorded by the heaven’s camera and will be judged by God. Life is, in essence, the time of decision-making when we either choose lies and evil, or resist it and fight against it even at the price of ridicule, persecution, imprisonment or even martyr’s death!
God purifies us through different life situations or different people who do us harm. The righteous man lives by faith! If you seek God’s will in these situations, you walk through darkness. You can taste to some extent the meaning of the words we are going to repeat during the following two weeks. These are the words of Christ: “Now My soul is troubled… But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name!” Realize at the same time the words of the Our Father: “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Download: Reflection on Jn 12:27-28
