You Want to See Jesus?

Lent 5, Year B 2024
John 12:20-33

In our Gospel today, Jesus has already entered Jerusalem, the event we will actually celebrate next Sunday. It is the time for the Passover, so many Judeans, like Jesus and his followers, are filling the city for this holy celebration. And there were non-Jewish people that came to worship, also. Some were proselytes and seekers, like these Greeks that run into Phillip and say, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” It’s almost as if they are a prophetic scouting party–because remember, right before this, Jesus has raised Lazarus from the dead and Mary has washed Jesus’ feet with expensive nard to prepare him for what was to come. Everything has been pointing, not just to the crucifixion, but to the Resurrection, not just about Jesus, but to the ultimate, cosmic glory of God.

Now a bit of telephone tag ensued at this request from the Greeks because Phillip tells Andrew and then Phillip and Andrew tell Jesus. Why this consultation? Were they a bit uncomfortable letting outsiders in? Maybe they were suspicious about what the Greeks wanted with Jesus.

We don’t really know if Jesus met with these Greeks, but the conversation launched Jesus into a discourse where he uses this opportunity to tell those around him that it’s time. He has spent the majority of this Gospel up until now saying, “My hour has not yet come.” But now, after his final entry into Jerusalem, he says, “It’s time now.” And if folks want to see Jesus, here’s what they are in for, so pay attention disciples. 

Again, Jesus tries to explain what they should expect. Not just the Greeks, those on the outside, but his Jewish disciples. We all still have a hard time accepting Jesus on his terms, not ours, just like his followers did 2,000 years ago, so no wonder we need to keep hearing the Gospel over and over. Because Jesus knows how we think. Jesus knows the world we live in.

When we hear, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified,” we perhaps think of power and might, a SuperHero action figure that’s going to help us righteous folk win a physical battle and out-power our enemies. We always want to win. Our culture, the System which operates this world, is based on a myth that “the way to bring order out of chaos is through violently defeating “the other.” And the way to deal with threats from enemies is by violently eliminating them—as the System seeks to do to Jesus.”

 So the very next thing Jesus says stops us in our tracks because it’s not how we think about power. “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain.” See, our power and might thinking, our desire to always be on the winning side of a battle because we are the good guys, is actually small thinking. God’s power is in what looks like weakness and boy do we struggle with that, but it operates from a power of Love that may appear weak, fragile, and small, but ultimately it’s how death is defeated. If we live only for the love of ourselves, that will ultimately lead to our demise. To live for God is to live for others and that ultimately leads to life perpetual.

But nature tells the story of God’s greatness through weakness all the time. A tiny grain? That is the symbol for God? A grain that gets buried in the dark earth where no one can see it? That’s power? Yet even though we know that single grains or seeds fall to the ground year after year and turn into food that feeds us or a mighty oak tree, we do not understand this lesson. So, God just keeps on telling it. 

We want to see Jesus. A Jesus of our own making or the Jesus that is revealed as a vulnerable baby? A man of little success and income, a man who prefers to hang with the poor? A man who was an immigrant that had to flee with his family to another country to spare his life, and ultimately a man who purposefully enters a city and into the oppressors’ hands because he is willing to take on this death for all people?  Is this the Jesus we want to see? A Jesus that opens up the opportunity for all people to enter the glory of God? “All people” is why the Greeks get snuck in here–because Jesus’ followers are going to have to open up outside their own tribe. 

 As we approach Palm Sunday next week, keep in mind what Jesus told his disciples and tells us today. We want to see Jesus, and here he is. He beckons us, no one is turned away unless they choose to do so themselves, but are we willing to let go of the lives we think we want and follow him? Stop clinging to the lives we think we deserve and instead live for others? Because that’s the Jesus Way. And if we do follow him, he asks us to do so as servants. “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.”

Servanthood isn’t easy, servants aren’t often thanked for their work, and servants sacrifice a lot for others. But to serve out of love for God and others is a game changer. We do not make this decision to degrade ourselves, we make this decision out of love. It’s just not well appreciated in our society. We don’t serve with Jesus because we are coerced into serving, we choose to serve out of love, for Love. It is this God that sees Christ in the meek and lowly, the poor, the unwelcome, the misfits, and often those who are denied a seat at the table. And I’m willing to bet that each one of us has someone in mind we would rather not be sitting at our table. Which makes it really hard to point the finger at folks. The Gospel of John is pointing out to us followers of Jesus that it’s not about you, it’s about God, and paradoxically the Good News is that Jesus is about all people. Jesus is saying, I am going to judge the oppressive Systems of this world and drive them out, and “will draw all people to myself.”

Jesus asks us to let go of our lives and live for something other than ourselves. The difference in letting go of our lives and letting go of clinging to what we think we want and what we think we deserve is that we don’t do it alone. Jesus isn’t asking anything of us he himself wasn’t willing to do, and we go together. Are you afraid of where following Jesus leads? That’s ok, so was Jesus. “My soul is troubled,” he said. “But what am I going to do–not see this through? No, the stakes are too high. I’ve come to this hour for ALL people and I will be that little grain and fall, and get buried in the rich soil of the earth, and I will be lifted up.” You want to see Jesus? You’re going to see him lifted up on a cross. You may think death is the end. But stay with Jesus, and you will see, not triumph of an earthly violent battle, but triumph over death itself. We are about to walk into a week where we celebrate a Christ that was not only lifted up on a cross, but lifted up from the grave, and lifted up from this earth into the Glory of God. Our faith is trust that that is our eternal life. Begun now, and will be. 

The seed that falls to ground does not die. It begins life. 

We are today’s followers of Christ. As we near the Passion of Christ, a celebration that was once celebrated as the Passover, suppose a group of folks showed up here that were clearly “not one of us” and said, “Excuse me, we wish to see Jesus.” What would we show them?