John 12: why did Jesus come? Starting the countdown to zero hour

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds....

Now my soul 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!”

(John 12:23-24, 27-28)

It's the day we call Palm Sunday. Jesus enters into Jerusalem - apparently to gather to celebrate the Passover, but he also knows he's going there to meet his death. I doubt he planned or engineered such an entrance, with people waving palm leaves and shouting his praises (in fact, the part he chose - the diminutive donkey - was the very opposite of grand and important), but he'd gained such a following that he could no longer move around publicly without a crowd.

And yet when Jesus starts to teach - this time to some Greeks - he makes it very clear that his mission on earth is to die.  In the germination of seeds, Jesus finds an excellent analogy.  A seed cannot reproduce if it remains a seed.  When seeds go into the ground they die, and in that death new life is born.

But why did Jesus come to die?  He came to pay the price, to put to death all that is against God and against goodness and love, and to open the gates to Heaven to all who believe in him.   I love these words in Paul's letter to the church at Colossae:

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Colossians 2:13-15)

Jesus' death was his mission on earth.  When he died, he cried out it is finished!  It was what he came to do.  He did not come to build a church.  At the time of his death many deserted him - most did not understand the signs he had been performing and who he was - and those who remained faithful were scared.  And yet, when we read on into the book of Acts we see that Jesus fulfils his promise to send the Holy Spirit, and through His work the church grows like the new plant - all because of the death of the original seed: Jesus.

And yet Jesus says: My soul is troubled.  Even though this was the reason he came, and he fully knew and trusted in God the Father, God the son was terrified of the ordeal through which he was about to go.  Just as he wept for Lazarus, he trembled at the thought of what was to come.  Whilst fully divine, he was also fully human.  And what is more: he showed us the pattern of perfect humanity - although terrified, he put his desires aside and laid down his life for others, bringing glory to God, who is love itself.