It seems everyone's got an angle on Jesus! The sinful woman worships Him by pouring the costly perfume on Him. Judas the thief thinks Jesus is silly for allowing such a thing when there was so much money to be made by selling the perfume instead. Those who had seen Lazarus raised from the dead want to see more miracles. The enemies of Jesus consider Him a false preaching trouble maker who needs to die and anyone else with Him if necessary. The crowds sing and shout “Hosanna” as He rides into Jerusalem. Some Greek visitors to Jerusalem have heard about Jesus and want to get a close up visit too. Everyone's got an angle on Jesus. But the only “angle” that matters is the Father's. He speaks from the cloud declaring that His name is glorified in His Son. How? Because His Son is going to die for sinners. It doesn't matter to Jesus what anyone thinks about Him or wants from Him or wants to do to Him. All that matters is that He faithfully carries out what the Father wants Him to do: save sinners by taking their place.
If you have a seed, it doesn't do much good unless you plant it. By itself it's just a seed. But if you plant it, if you put it in the ground, it will grow and make a plant with fruit or grain or whatever that can feed people. Just so Jesus: He can stay around doing miracles, trying to convince people that He is the Savior, raising the dead, preaching the Gospel, and showing that He's no fraud. But ultimately, if Jesus just came to show the world that He's the sinless Son of God, so what? Jesus might be able to show the world why HE is so deserving of the Father's glory. But that doesn't do us any good. No, Jesus has to be planted in the ground. And that means being killed and buried. It means suffering for our sins and shedding His blood, giving up His life and being placed into the ground. And what fruit does that bear? What crop? It is the fruit of a new tree of life: the fruit of the forgiveness of sins which is given to us by the Spirit through the Word and Sacraments. Baptismal water is the fruit of the cross. Body and blood given us to eat and drink are the fruits of the cross. Forgiveness of sins, rescue from death and the devil, life and eternal salvation are the gifts that Jesus' death and His means of grace earn for us and bestow upon us. And that is God's glory: that His Son dies in your place. That is how the Father is glorified, by the Son's perfect obedience in suffering to take away our sins.
Coming up on Good Friday, we will hear the words of Isaiah 53, which tell of the “stricken, smitten and afflicted” Servant of the Lord. Upon Him are laid all our sins. But we hear Isaiah's words already tonight in John's Gospel: “Who has believed our report? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” These words remind us that this story of what happens to Jesus is the kind of thing you just can't make up! That God can become a man; that being God and Man, Jesus dies for the sins of the whole world; that you and I who have deserved nothing but death and punishment for our sins are set free by this Savior taking our place: you can't make up a story like that. You can't even imagine it! But the Lord can and does. While everyone around Jesus is trying to figure Him out or have Him their own way somehow, Jesus just goes about His business which is going to Calvary for you. Praise be to Christ that nothing turned Him aside from the work He came to do but that He went ahead and accomplished our salvation. All glory be to the Father because His Son was sown into death that we might be the fruit of His resurrection and victory over sin. Amen.