I Have Come To This Hour

"Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. -- John 12:27

As chapter 12 begins, we have turned a corner in John's narrative. It is six days before the Passover, and six days before the crucifixion of Christ. What Moses foretold, and what the Passover Lamb foreshadowed, is about to be fulfilled.

No doubt the air was electric. There was something different about this Passover and everyone knew it. Jesus had been ministering and preaching for three years, and His confrontations with the religious authorities had come to a boiling point. They tried to kill or arrest Jesus on many occasions, but Christ had always eluded them, skillfully picking and choosing his public confrontations, then dropping from sight, because His hour had not yet come.

The Pharisees, having lost every confrontation, grew tired of being exposed by Christ, and they were jealous of His popularity. They continued to conspire behind the scenes to privately arrest Jesus and put Him to death. Because of this open hostility, the region was abuzz with people wondering if Jesus would even show up in Jerusalem for the Passover.

They were looking for Jesus and saying to one another as they stood in the temple, "What do you think? That he will not come to the feast at all?" Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should let them know, so that they might arrest him. -- John 11:56-57

Meanwhile, in the evening, Jesus lodged in Bethany, a small town less than two miles from Jerusalem. This was the same small town that Mary, Martha, and Lazarus called home. It was during His stay in Bethany when Mary anointed Jesus with an alabaster flask of perfume. This was done in preparation for His for burial. His hour had finally come, and Jesus knew what awaited Him in Jerusalem.

And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, "See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day." -- Matthew 20:17-19

Although Mary (who loved to sit at the feet of Jesus) seemed to understand that Christ was going to Jerusalem to lay down His life, His disciples failed to comprehend what was about to take place. They still had the misguided notion that Jesus was about to establish an earthly kingdom, even though Christ repeatedly told them that He was going to Jerusalem to die.

*****

Upon the arrival of Palm Sunday, the Pharisees would no longer need to wonder concerning the whereabouts of Christ. They would find Him entering Jerusalem on a donkey's colt, surrounded by a massive crowd of people waving palm branches and shouting "Hosanna!". Jesus had officially presented Himself to the nation as their King and Messiah, thus fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. -- Zechariah 9:9

According to ancient customs, when a king rode into town on a donkey, it was to signify that he came in peace, not to make war. And Jesus had come to make peace between God and man. Some scholars estimate, that Jesus drew a crowd of more than 200,000 people. Whatever the size of the crowd, the religious leaders were greatly troubled by this scene.

So the Pharisees said to one another, "You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him." -- John 12:19

The Pharisees would need to wait for a more opportune time to arrest Jesus because they feared the crowd (and for good reason). But the mob is fickle, and the cheers would not last. Much of the crowd had the same misguided notion that the disciples had. They also thought that Jesus had come to throw off the yoke of Rome and usher in a new golden age for the nation of Israel. They failed to understand their deepest need, and they failed to understand that Jesus came to accomplish something far greater than establishing an earthly kingdom. Once they realized that Jesus did not come to meet their earthly expectations, just like Judas, the mob would turn on Him, and the Pharisees would finally have the opportunity they were looking for.