Some Said It Thundered

"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!" (John 12:27, 28).

It's one of the shortest prayers recorded in Scripture: "Father, glorify your name." Yet, we can learn several important lessons from Jesus' prayer.

For one thing, it shows Jesus practiced what he preached. He not only told his disciples to pray, "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name" (Matthew 6:9). He glorified the Father's name himself.

The prayer also reveals Jesus' courage. He refused to say, "Father, save me from this hour." He was determined to accomplish God's will, even though his heart was already troubled as the emotional agony of Gethsemane and the physical misery of Calvary drew near.

But the most interesting fact about Jesus' prayer is the way it was answered. Immediately the Father spoke from Heaven and said, "I have glorified it, and will glorify it again" (John 12:28). What a dramatic answer to prayer—the voice of God resounding audibly from the sky! Such divine vocalizations are rare in Scripture, occurring most notably at defining moments in Jesus' ministry. At his baptism, the voice said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17). Later, on the mountain when Jesus was transfigured, the Father verbalized his affirmation again and added, "Listen to him!" (Matthew 17:5). It wasn't that Jesus needed reassurance. "This voice was for your benefit, not mine," Jesus said. He went on to explain that soon he would be "lifted up from the earth" in a violent death on the cross (John 12:30-33), and his disciples would need all the reassurance they could find to keep believing in him during those dark hours.

How did the crowd react when they heard God's voice booming down from the sky? You'd think everyone would have been thrilled and skeptics convinced! However, when God spoke directly from Heaven, the startled crowd immediately began to search for alternative explanations. Some "said it thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him" (John 12:29).

Some of the bystanders looked for a naturalistic explanation (thunder). Instead of hearing the voice of the Almighty, they simply thought it was going to rain. Others came up with a flawed spiritual interpretation (an angel's voice). Likewise, many people today struggle to hear God's voice amid all the thunderous noise of the twenty-first century. Some opt for naturalistic explanations, explaining away everything from the creation of the universe to human freedom as the product of nature alone. Others are fascinated with angels and vague "spirituality," but refuse to recognize that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Today it's possible to hear God's Word with unprecedented freedom, clarity, and convenience. It's proclaimed from pulpits, broadcast by radio and television, pressed poetically upon our hearts through music, made available in print by Christian publishers and bookstores, and spread abroad through the Internet. Bibles have been published by the billions. And in addition to the written Word of God, the heavens still "declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands" (Psalm 19:1).

God is still speaking. The living Word, Jesus Christ, came to make his plan of salvation clear. The written Word still illumines our paths. Inspired and authoritative, the Word of God says what it means and means what it says. Do we obey it, or try to explain it away? Do we hear God's voice, or do we just say it thundered?