Homilies on the Gospel of John

“These words spoke Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to heaven, and says, Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You.”

1. “He that has done and taught,” it says, “the same shall be called great in the Kingdom of heaven.” And with much reason; for to show true wisdom in words, is easy, but the proof which is by works is the part of some noble and great one. Wherefore also Christ, speaking of the endurance of evil, puts Himself forth, bidding us take example from Him. On this account too, after this admonition, He betakes Himself to prayer, teaching us in our temptations to leave all things, and flee to God. For because He had said, “In the world you shall have tribulation,” and had shaken their souls, by the prayer He raises them again. As yet they gave heed unto Him as to a man; and for their sake He acts thus, just as He did in the case of Lazarus, and there tells the reason; “Because of the people that stand by I said it, that they might believe that You have sent Me.” “Yea,” says some one, “this took place with good cause in the case of the Jews; but wherefore in that of the disciples?” With good cause in the case of the disciples also. For they who, after all that had been said and done, said, “Now we know that You know”, most of all needed to be established. Besides, the Evangelist does not even call the action prayer; but what says he? “He lifted up His eyes to heaven,” and says rather that it was a discoursing with the Father. And if elsewhere he speaks of prayer, and at one time shows Him kneeling on His knees, at another lifting His eyes to heaven, be not thou troubled; for by these means we are taught the earnestness which should be in our petitions, that standing we should look up, not with the eyes of the flesh only, but of the mind, and that we should bend our knees, bruising our own hearts. For Christ came not merely to manifest Himself, but also about to teach virtue ineffable. But it behooves the teacher to teach, not by words only, but also by actions. Let us hear then what He says in this place.

“Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You.”

Again He shows us, that not unwilling He comes to the Cross. For how could He be unwilling, who prayed that this might come to pass, and called the action “glory,” not only for Himself the Crucified, but also for the Father? Since this was the case, for not the Son only, but the Father also was glorified. For before the Crucifixion, not even the Jews knew Him; “Israel,” it says, “has not known Me”; but after the Crucifixion, all the world ran to Him. Then He speaks also of the manner of the glory, and how He will glorify Him.