Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.
The Message paraphrase puts it this way
"Now the Son of Man is seen for who he is, and God seen for who he is in him. The moment God is seen in him, 32 God's glory will be on display. In glorifying him, he himself is glorified—glory all around!"
On Sunday we read that when Jesus came to Jerusalem it was in turmoil. And today he is troubled. I would say anxious maybe apprehensive uneasy, as he knows what is bout to happen. I think the situation that would best describe how Jesus is feeling, is when a child does something wrong and the principal says your parents will have to come and speak to me. It is that kind of anxiety of knowing the consequences are bad, you have to deal with it, but you would rather not.
Firstly his friend is about to betray him and he knows this will lead to his arrest.
Betrayal is not an easy thing to deal with. People lose their minds when their trust is broken. Just think about the response of jilted persons. For at least three years Jesus and Judas ate together, travelled together, probably told each other their deepest darkest secrets. He wasn't a part of the inner circle but he kept the common purse so he knew their plans. Being betrayed by Judas could not be an easy pill to swallow.
In this betrayal we see how easy it is for people to change, for us to know what is right and yet do something else. And we do this all the time and in little ways. If it was Judas alone it wouldn't be so bad but to add insult to injury, Peter, Jesus right hand man, the person who Jesus says he is going to use to build his church lets him down too and for what? To save his own skin? We very often know persons are depending on us to do certain things, yet for some reason we decide we are not doing that. Sometimes the 'devil in us' does not allow us to think of the wider implication of our actions. How this single act can cause a permanent break in our relationship with others. We like Judas read the signs wrong, and so act for selfish reasons - a bag of silver and a dream that only we see. But Jesus is convinced that God will be glorified in it all.
Jesus knows what he is to face. While John makes no mention of him asking the Father to save him, we can well imagine he would have thought it. Jesus as a human is no different from us and how we face difficult situations in life. Sometimes we are called to recognize our own frailty and inability to remain convicted of what we know is right and to stay the course. But with each situation we cannot wallow in self pity but must seek to look beyond this to the positive because everything works for good for those who love the Lord. So we too should understand that God will use or circumstances in a way that we will glorify God. Jesus knew that and so did not remain in his unease for very long, but looked beyond it. Jesus was always optimistic seeing the good in all things. His attitude was always "better will come". God will work it out and that he Jesus must participate in a way that he is a part of working out what is good and not be like Judas, and try to manipulate the situation.
Today we are asked to look on our own fickleness and how this contributes to the anxiety of others, how we cause others to distrust us because of our selfishness. How we forget our purpose in God being glorified in all things. We are being reminded that the whole purpose of our Christian life is to be like the Son of Man to be seen for who he is, and for God seen for who God is in us making God's glory be on display. As the paßage says In glorifying God , we ourselves experience glory. It is in that moment that God's faithfulness and our faithfulness become one.
Friends as we go to the cross with our anxieties, our distrust of others, our awareness of of our own inability to follow through at times, our weaknesses which we pray God will make strengths, our inability to fix what needs to be fixed, let us remember that God walks with us. God is there in these times of anxiety and unease. Let us fix our heads like flint knowing that God's glory will abound and always there will be glory all around.
Amen