A short time before the Passion, the time of Passover in Jerusalem, pilgrims were coming in and among the pilgrims were Greeks, according to John’s Gospel, and they wanted to see Jesus. When the apostles brought them to Jesus, Jesus spoke about his death. He was saying that his death would not cause the disciples to disperse, but rather that they would become unified, in fact even the Gentiles would come together. He made a powerful statement saying "When I am lifted up and I shall draw all to myself."

So what does it mean for the Lord to be lifted up? John’s Gospel is clear that it means that Jesus will be crucified, but also, inseparably he will be glorified. The cross no longer is simply a place of a curse and of punishment, but it is the path with the Lord’s to glory. It is the place where John sees the whole Passion as such a tremendous love on the part of God that it merits not only the Resurrection but that the whole Church and the whole world will be unified in the power of this love. So the crucified Lord, and the Risen Lord, are inseparable and the grace that the Lord wants to pour out upon the world is really sourced in this great tremendous act of love.

In ordinary life in the Christian life it works out in our actions. So here’s Matthew Tomko who works for the Air Force hospital, he is medic and his time of that particular day is almost up and sure enough they get a call saying that there’s a gentleman who is lying on his living room floor and he’s not moving. He starts gathering things up and goes to the ambulance and when they get there the neighbors are there and the ambulance guy is checking out his vitals, blood pressure, etc. He begins to ask him what happened but he is kind of brusk. So the man doesn’t answer him. So he yells at him and he doesn’t get any further. So he goes to the ambulance to make a radio call to the hospital and Matthew noticing the situation calms him down a little bit then goes over to the man on the floor puts his arms around him and said "Do you want to tell me what happened?" At first he was just using his daughter’s name and crying out to her. Then finally he said "I had too many beers and then I took a handful of pills." With that Matthew looked around for empty bottles, couldn’t find any so they rushed him to the hospital. He passed out on the way to the hospital. When they got there he woke up he was violent, and more abusive so they strapped him down and pumped his stomach. That’s all they could do for him at that point and he seemed to be ok

Matthew’s staff left figuring that he was ok then Matthew started to talk to him. As he was talking to him, he calmed down and he said he took the pills because he wanted to commit suicide thinking that the insurance money for his death could be given to his children. Matthew said to him, "Let me tell you something your presence is more important than all the money you could collect for your children." So Matthew was reflecting on this because it was a day in which he promised the Lord that he was going to love who ever the Lord put in his path to the end, imitating the Scripture passage that said that Jesus loved till the end.

The Staff Sergeant came in and started asking about the pills again he was kind of brusk, so the man didn’t say a thing. Then the doctor came in and said, "I think we ought to move him to another hospital, a psychiatric hospital." which was a three hour drive away, one way. Matthew offered it up and said "Ok Lord, I’ll love him till the end." But then in order to take him there the doctor felt that he had to be sedated. When he found that out he even got more violent. Again Matthew paused and said to him, "Why don’t you let me do it?" And the man said, "Ok, you can do it." So he sedated him and rode in the back of the ambulance with him. When they got to the hospital, they settled him down and he was still sleeping so they left.

About three weeks later the man comes in with his daughter. His daughter had fallen and she was bruised. The first thing he said to Matthew was, "thank you very much for being for me that day." "You turned my whole life around. Everything is straightened out!"

So the power of the word of God is not simply that we put into practice what we believe, there’s a force of grace that’s available to us in doing it. In that one incident, one day of offering up his sacrifices for that man he brought the grace to turn him around. That’s the power of Jesus’ statement to us when I am lifted up I will draw all things to myself.