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John 12:19-21
New Catholic Bible
John 12:19-21
New Catholic Bible
19 So the Pharisees said to one another, “As you see, we are getting nowhere. The entire world has gone after him.”
20 The Glory of the Cross.[a] Among those who had come up to worship at the feast were some Greeks.[b] 21 They approached Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.
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- John 12:20 Jesus’ single-day success does not divert him from his hour, nor that of his adversaries, and it is his deciding moment. This page with so many themes gives us a glimpse into his thinking.
To the crowd, among whom are sympathetic Gentiles, he proposes the image of a grain of wheat that must die. Conscious of the necessity for his death, he realizes the fruitfulness of his approaching sacrifice for the whole world.
Paradoxically, that death is elevation and glorification: it will show who Jesus is and be the reversal in the fate of human beings. As in the account of the agony in the garden related by the Synoptics (Mt 26:36-46; Mk 14:32-42; Lk 22:39-46), he overcomes his fear in the face of what humans regard as ruin; he dominates the cruel paradox.
His death transforms the fate of the world: it is defeat for the forces of evil and opens up hope for those called to the communion of Jesus, to life.
Here is an unexpected Messiah who completes God’s work by his own death; as here, so elsewhere we read constantly of Christ’s invitation to his disciples to share his lot (see Mt 16:25; Mk 8:35; Lk 9:24). Believers may fear death but not lose hope, since for Jesus, in whom they believe, the hour of death was the hour in which he conquered the devil, was glorified by the Father, and showed himself to be the light of the world. This beautiful text leaves us the meditation of the ancient Church on the cross of Christ; it has become the glorious cross. - John 12:20 Greeks: not Jews, but adherents of Judaism, although without embracing its practices.
