John 12:27-30 (NIV)
“Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!”
Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.
Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine.”
Even though Jesus knew precisely where His path lay, even though He was confident that He was right in the center of God’s will, His whole being pulled away from the suffering that lay in store for Him, and His heart was deeply troubled by the foreknowledge that one of His closest associates would betray Him, another would deny Him, and all the rest would run and hide when He needed them the most.
But even with all of this in view, He was completely sold out to the Father’s agenda. Indeed, He realized that His whole life was finding its ultimate purpose in the next few days. So, He pushed His whole self to one side, and made the conscious decision to put God’s glory ahead of everything else.
The voice from heaven that answered His prayer stunned those who stood nearby. Even though God had spoken directly to His people at one time in the past (Exodus 20:1-17), since then the people had not heard His voice directly, all the way up to Jesus’ day. Even on Mount Sinai the people didn’t want to hear from God directly. They wanted Him to speak to them through prophets who would act as a buffer between them and Him (Exodus 20:18-19)
Some in the crowd rationalized that the sound they heard was only a crash of thunder, although there had been no lightning. Others, who distinctly heard the words that were spoken, determined that it was the voice of an angel.
Jesus’ statement that the voice was for the benefit of those in the crowd and not for Him was referring to the fact that the Father had already spoken to His heart, calming His unease, and reassuring Him that He was indeed right were the Father had called Him to be, even before the voice came from Heaven. He didn’t need that audible assurance, but for many the crowd, it cemented in their hearts the amazing fact that Jesus had made a request of God, and heaven itself had answered.
Father, in one sense it is comforting to see this glimpse of Jesus’ humanity, to realize that He wasn’t some automaton or superhuman who was unfazed by the things that lay before Him. There’s no relating to someone like that. But Jesus was genuinely human in the truest sense. On the other hand, it is essential for us to see how He handled it when faced with such horrific prospects. He surrendered Himself anew to Your will and sought to bring You glory above all else. That’s our model. Help us, Lord, to live every moment in exactly that way. Amen.