This coming Sunday is the 5th Sunday of Easter in Liturgical Year C. The gospel is taken from John 13:31-35. Previously we explored the meaning of “glory” and “glorification” as a prelude to considering our gospel text. Let’s begin:

³¹ When [Judas] had left, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. ³² (If God is glorified in him,) God will also glorify him in himself, and he will glorify him at once.

The immediate reference to Judas’ departure, like the coming of the Greeks (12:20-23), signals to Jesus that a new stage of the glorification has been reached. The betrayal has begun, and so “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.” These verses are difficult to translate and understand. The verb “to glorify” (doxazo) occurs five times in these two verses. And of those five occurrences the verb appears three times in a form (aorist) that is used for a one-time event in the past – except one one aorist occurrence is connected with “now” (v.31). The next two occurrences are future. There are also the active and passive voices mixed in there along with “him” five times.

During his earthly ministry (or at least part of it), Jesus was not glorified: “He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in him were to receive. There was, of course, no Spirit yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified” (7:39). But when was Jesus glorified?

It is clear from other verses that it is the “Father” or the “Spirit of truth” who glorifies Jesus. Note the changing verb tenses.

• “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me….” (8:54 – present tense)
• “He [the Spirit of truth] will glorify me, …” (16:14 – future tense)
• “Father, the hour has come, glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you.” (17:1 – aorist tense)
• “So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.” (17:5 – aorist tense)

The aorist tenses in the last two verses suggest that there is a specific point in time when God glorifies the Son. For John, that point seems to be Christ’s death/resurrection/ascension as these next verses suggest.

• “His disciples did not understand these things [the ‘Palm Sunday entrance into Jerusalem] at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written of him and had been done to him” (12:16).
• In 12:23: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” This “hour” is preceded by Greeks wishing to see Jesus – thus fulfilling the words of 12:19: “The world has gone after him.” Immediately following this verse, Jesus talks about the necessity of a seed falling into the earth and dying, so that it will bear much fruit (12:24).
• However, 11:4 suggests that the death and raising of Lazarus occurs “so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Although after this miracle the Jewish leaders “planned to put him [Jesus] to death” (11:53).

The cross is itself the revelation of divine glory and the way for Jesus to share the divine life with his followers. It is also the way for God to glorify the Son in himself (v. 32), which he will do at once as Jesus returns to his presence (17:5). Just as Jesus’ keynote address focused on the relation between the Father and the Son (5:19-27), so also his farewell discourse begins from that same fundamental point. This relationship is central to this Gospel.

What is clear is that in the Fourth Gospel the glorifying of the Son of Man involves suffering and death as well as sovereign power—Jesus enters his glory via the cross. That is why Judas’ departure to betray Jesus elicited the statement ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified’. However, the death of Jesus was not just his passage to glory. In death itself Jesus was glorified. In giving his life for sinful humans the glory of his gracious character was most clearly seen. And it did not stop there, for Jesus said that when the Son of Man was glorified, God also would be glorified in him. In Jesus’ self-sacrificing love for human beings the glory of God was revealed, for the Father loves the world, and this led him to give his one and only Son so that those who believe might have eternal life (3:16). In the giving of his Son, the glory of God’s own self-giving love was revealed.

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Image credit: Christ’s Final Address to the Apostles | Bona Duccio di Buoninsegna, 1380 | from the Maesta Altar | Siena, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo | PD-US