The Hour Has Come

Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify Thy Son, that the Son may glorify Thee."  John 17:1

These were the words that began Jesus prayer as He was getting ready to go to the cross.  The time with the disciples in the upper room had just ended.  The evening began with a footwashing, then there was the final meal during which He revealed that Judas would betray Him and Peter would deny Him.  He also told them He was going to be leaving them.  The disciples were understandably dismayed by all of this.   Jesus had served them during the evening.  He had instructed them during the evening.  He also comforted them during the evening.  During the evening He promised them He would return, He promised them His peace, He promised them His joy, He promised them His strength, He promised them His provision, He promised them answered prayer, He promised them power through the Holy Spirit, and He promised them intimate fellowship with Him and the Father.  His final promise before He began His prayer was that the disciples would triumph over the world because He had overcome it for them.  He has overcome it for you and me too and all the promises are ours as well.

And now the hour had come where His earthly ministry would be consummated.  His Father's plans made in eternity past would find their culmination in time.  The hour had come in which Jesus would offer Himself as the perfect sacrifice for our sin.  The shadows of the Old Testament sacrifices given over and over and over again, would give way to the glorious reality of the final sacrifice.  Jesus, who knew no sin, would become sin for us.  All throughout His ministry Jesus was continually seeking the glory of His Father.  In absolutely everything He had submitted to the Father's will, flawlessly, joyfully, with His whole heart.  As He came to this hour, though He knew He faced the full fury of His Father's anger and wrath for our sin - something that was absolutely foreign to Him, He would joyfully continue in submission to the Father's will.  He would not yield to Satan's temptation to do otherwise.  He and the Father would be glorified as Jesus completed His earthly ministry during this hour.  And what a precious hour it is for us.  It's the most precious hour for us because Jesus death, burial, and resurrection justifies us, and the Father looks on us as if we've always perfectly submitted to His will, that we've always loved Him with our whole hearts, bringing Him glory in everything, when we so desperately fall short so often.

May we rejoice in and live for our Perfect Righteousness, today, remembering that this hour guarantees our living, serving, and praising Him in the presence and beauty of His love and glory, for all eternity.