Let’s pray. Stronger than darkness, new every morn, our sins they are many, but O Lord, Your mercy is more. With trust, O Lord, that these are not just words, but they represent the affection and the conviction of our heart, that our sins, indeed, are many and we need Your mercy for things we have done. We need Your mercy for things we have left undone. And now we need Your mercy that we might hear, receive, understand, and obey Your Word. Give us humble hearts, not least of all that the preacher may be humble as I speak Your Word. Teach us that the way up is down and that the path of death is the way of life. In Jesus we pray, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Amen.
We come this morning to John’s Gospel as we have been in for almost two years, coming now to John chapter 12. As you can see in the summer schedule, we will be taking a break from John’s Gospel and doing a series, an intermittent series on different themes in the book of Proverbs in the morning, and then moving through the small letter of Titus in the evening. And we will, Lord willing, resume with John chapter 12 come the end of August. John, chapter 12, beginning at verse 9 through verse 26.
“When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came, not only on account of Him but also to see Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead. So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus. The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written,
‘Fear not, daughter of Zion;
behold, your king is coming,
sitting on a donkey’s colt!'”
“His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about Him and had been done to Him. The crowd that had been with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet Him was that they heard He had done this sign. So the Pharisees said to one another, ‘You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after Him.'”
“Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’ Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. And Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there will My servant be also. If anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.”
We have in this section three scenes, and we are going to focus on the third. You see in verse 9, we have a large crowd of the Jews. They had been wondering, “Is Jesus going to come to the feast?” This is the third time we have mention of a Passover in John’s Gospel. And because the tension had grown thick and there was now a plot to kill Jesus, they wondered would He come to the feast as was required for all the Jews at this great pilgrimage feast. And so they came out.
And we read in verse 12, the second scene, again a large crowd came to meet Him. And this is the familiar story of the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday. Just having passed Palm Sunday a month ago, we are not going to focus on Palm Sunday,
