Sharing in Christ's Suffering, Sharing in His Glory

Seventh Sunday of Easter Year A

If you have been following the Last Supper discourse in the gospel texts for the last few weeks, you would have heard how Jesus had been preparing His disciples for His departure. But today, He is no longer addressing them. He turns His attention to the Father but allows His disciples and us to eavesdrop. In this intimate prayer of Jesus, we are let in on this deep penetrating talk going on in the Godhead. It is God speaking to God: God the Son speaks to God the Father.

Our Lord tells the Father and says that the “hour has come”; the hour where the Father will glorify the Son and the Son will glorify the Father. What is this hour of glory? In John’s gospel, you will hear our Lord mention ‘the hour’ many times. He told His mother Mary in 2:4 that His hour had not yet come. In 4:21-24 He told the Samaritan woman that an hour is coming when true worship will occur. Later, the authorities tried to arrest Him at the Feast of Tabernacles but they couldn’t because His hour had not yet come. And after declaring Himself to be the Light of the World, they tried to nab Him but no one could lay a hand on Him because His hour had not yet come. In the first 11 chapters of John’s gospel anytime the hour comes into view, it’s always spoken of with a reference to the future. But from Chapter 12 onwards, the hour finally arrives. His hour had now come. Our Lord knows that this hour is inevitable because it is the culmination of His mission, but He is also deeply troubled by it. But today, our Lord is ready to face His hour. He now prays to the Father to bring on that “hour of glory.”

What does He mean when He describes this hour as the “hour of glory”? When scriptures speak of the “glory of the Lord”, it is referring to a perceptible utterly awesome manifestation of God Himself insofar as He is revealed in His majesty and power. In the Old Testament, the glory was manifested on Mount Sinai, in the cloud filled with booming thunder (Exod 24:17), and the glory of God filled the tent of meeting or the tabernacle (40:43). When King Solomon built the Jerusalem Temple, the glory of the Lord filled it (1 Kings 8:11). Ezekiel had a vision of the glory of the Lord leaving Solomon’s temple before it was destroyed (Ezek 10:18-19; 11:22-23) and then returning to dwell in a new temple in the end times (Ezek 32:1-5).

But our Lord Jesus Christ redefines the word “glory” (in Greek “doxa”). Rather, than a spectacular awe-inspiring theophany, His glory will be found hidden within that wretched ugly instrument of torture and execution, the cross. Here is the greatest paradox of our faith, the glory of God would be shown forth on the instrument used for His humiliation. The cross reveals the love of the Father, who gives His all, His Son, for the world’s salvation, and the love of the Son, who gives His all, His life, in a perfect act of love and obedience to the Father. There is not a single hint of vain self-glorification in this prayer of Jesus. There is only a mutual total giving of self, between the Father and the Son. As He lifts His eyes to heaven to pray, we see before us, both the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world and the perfect High Priest who offers the perfect sacrifice of Himself on the altar of the cross.

The Jews, the world and many of us would be stunned by this revelation: How could Jesus be glorified on the cross which was a symbol of His humiliation?  If the Devil had any power over us, the cross of Christ would have been the devil’s trophy of victory, the revelation of darkness overcoming light, the end of hope. For His enemies, the cross was the end of His public ministry. After His crucifixion, His followers were scattered, wandering in fear, falling into despair, and empty of all hope. Their love had dissolved into meaninglessness.

But just as our Lord gives us a new twist to the concept of “glory”, He redefines the meaning of the cross for all of us. From the cross Jesus greets us. He gathers to Himself all our suffering, all our pain. He forgives all our sins. From the cross, He establishes the Church as the community of faithful that would both carry on His mission of salvation and make known the presence of His Spirit. From His place of crucifixion, Golgotha, the Place of the Skull, Jesus’ blood pours out onto the very place where Adam is buried, and the blood of Christ redeems Adam and all his descendants. At His death, we come to recognise the Cross as Jesus’ throne, the Cross is revealed as the Tree of Life where He nourishes us with the sacraments and grants us eternal life. At His crucifixion, Jesus reveals the Father in all His resplendent glory, and the Father reveals the Son in all His majesty. On the cross, our Lord “finished the work” which the Father had given Him, the work of our redemption. For this reason, His death on the cross is indeed His “hour of glory.”

Jesus’ hour of glory ultimately changes our entire vision of glory and suffering. No one wants to suffer. No one wants humiliation. In a way, all of us want, secretly or otherwise, some form of affirmation, some form of approval, some form of recognition. In other words, we want the glory, not the shame.  But then, our Lord shows us that true glory is hidden under the guise of humiliation. Our Lord includes us in the exchange of glory between the Father and Him. He offers us His cross, the true means to glory. St Peter reminds us in the second reading that when we suffer for being a Christian, we are actually participating “in the sufferings of Christ” and we should “be glad, because you will enjoy a much greater gladness when His glory is revealed.” For Jesus and for His followers, the way to fruitfulness lies through death, the way to gain lies through loss, the way to glorification lies through humiliation.

If any of us had a choice, we would certainly choose to avoid suffering and humiliation. But the truth of the matter is this: Everyone will have trouble. Everyone will suffer. However, not everyone will share in Christ's sufferings. This is the difference we Christians bring into the equation. There is a difference between, simply suffering, and sharing in Christ's sufferings. To simply suffer is pointless. Only by sharing in Christ’s sufferings, can we derive meaning from it, can we find hope in it, and can we see the cross as the true means to glory. Because of Christ’s suffering and death on the cross, we now know that death is not the end, it is merely a doorway to eternal life. As St Peter tells us, “if anyone of you should suffer for being a Christian, then he is not to be ashamed of it; he should thank God that he has been called one.”