Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent
March 17, 2024
Readings:
Why do the Greeks in this morning’s gospel passage want to see Jesus?
That has been the question that has been running through my head this week as I have been reading and rereading this passage. What do these people want from Jesus? Why do they want to see him? We don’t know. The bible doesn’t tell us.
You know, sometimes I think that the things we don’t know about the Bible are just about as interesting as the things we do know. There’s a lot that we doknow about the bible and the stories and people that are in it, but there is also a lot, a whole lot, that we don’t know. Sometimes those things we don’t know can be pretty interesting.
Today is a good example. We don’t know who these Greeks are that come up to Philip asking to see Jesus. They might not have been ethnically Greek, like Toula Portokalos in my Big Fat Greek Wedding, they might not have been from Greece, they might have just spoken Greek. We don’t really know.
They might not have been Jewish. In fact, they probably weren’t. We know that they were at the temple for Passover. But these could have been Greek-speaking gentiles that found the Jews and their God fascinating and compelling. There are lots of those people in the bible; people that are sometimes referred to as God-fearers. Maybe it was them. Plenty of gentiles were moved by what they were told about this Hebrew God, but they just didn’t completely convert because…well they probably had their own reasons. I imagine that many of the men just didn’t make the cut. Yes, that’s a bad joke, but I’m not going to explain it further. Anyways, these people might have been gentiles worshipping the Jewish God. It’s a good theory. We don’t know.
We also don’t know where these Greeks actually came from, but the gospel writer is pretty clear that they aren’t locals. These are outta town folks. Strangers. That we do know. These Greeks are strangers. They are strangers that want to see Jesus.
But why do they want to see Jesus? The Bible doesn’t tell us why they want to see him, so we are left to wonder. Are these just tourists in to see the big city for a week and hoping to score the ultimate backstage pass? Do they want to see Jesus just because he is a celebrity? We don’t know. Everyone that wants to see Jesus in the scriptures has some reason, but they are often very different reasons. Think about all the people who wanted to see Jesus in the Bible:
Think of short Zacchaeus, the rich man. He wanted to see Jesus. He climbed a tree to get a glimpse of Jesus. He had heard that this man eats with tax collectors and wanted to know more. He probably didn’t know that Jesus was going to ask to come dine with him though.
Or, the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. She wanted to see Jesus. She was desperate for relief from this sickness. She didn’t ask to be presented to Jesus, she just wanted to touch him as he passed by. She was convinced that that would be enough to heal her. And it did.
Or, the Roman Centurion with the sick servant. He wanted to see Jesus. We often talk about the Romans as the bad guys, the oppressors, but this centurion had actually helped to build a synagogue in the village. But his servant was sick and he was desperate. He didn’t even need Jesus to pay a visit. Speak the word only. Just say the word and my servant shall be healed. And he was.
Or, the Caananite woman who came crying out to Jesus, pleading for help because her daughter was possessed by a demon. We like to think of demonic possession as being the sort of crisis that is only fit for Hollywood and special effects. But demons are probably more mundane and more common than you think. This woman’s daughter was struggling with a demon and she wanted to see Jesus. Some of Jesus’s disciples just wanted this woman to go away and stop bothering them. But she doesn’t give up. She wants to see Jesus. And she does, and her daughter is healed.
There was another rich man that wanted to see Jesus. Ran up to him and asked him what he must do to inherit eternal life. He was following the commandments, but it turned out that his attachment to his money and his stuff was just a little too strong for him to really become a follower.
Who else wants to see Jesus?
Blind Bartamaeus? He would love to see Jesus. He would love to see anything. He can’t see Jesus, but he hears about him. He cries out for mercy, and is healed.
There are other people who want to see Jesus that are even more desperate. Someone they love has died or is very near death. In each case, once the person dies, the people are convinced that Jesus can do no more. They just want answers. Where were you Martha asks? Where were you when we needed you?
Some people who want to see Jesus have hard questions for him, like where were you? Why? Why the suffering? Why death? I wonder if these Greeks in today’s gospel had some hard questions for Jesus. Did they just want the first century equivalent of a selfie with a famous rabbi, or were they looking for something far more important? We don’t know. We don’t know why these Greeks want to see Jesus. And in the end, we don’t even know if they actually get to look in Jesus’s eyes or shake his hand. We don’t know if they got to see him the way they hoped to.
What we do know, is that Jesus tells his disciples that his ministry is about more than just clinging onto life in this world. When he hears that people want to see him, he points his disciples to the cross. He talks about his own death. The people who want to really see Jesus, they will see him, they will meet him, at the cross. When I am lifted up, he says, there I will draw all people to myself. He’s talking about his cross. That is where people who really want to see Jesus will meet him. At the cross. There is no other way to understand who Jesus is and what he’s about, than seeing him through the cross.
The cross and resurrection are how Jesus is glorified. If we want to see Jesus, if we want to know him, if we want to understand what he is about and the deeper meaning behind everything he says, that is where we have to look: at the cross and the empty tomb. They are only a few steps away from each other. We often think of following Jesus as being some long, arduous journey, but serving Jesus and following him is really just about making those few steps from the cross to the empty tomb. That is where Jesus says we will meet him. That is where he says he is drawing all of us together. We come together at the cross, at the place where pain and desperation seem to have all the power, and from there Jesus takes our hand, and walks us to the empty tomb.
Some people think that if they just dig deep enough, if they push through all the religious hocus pocus, and legends about dead bodies coming back to life, that then they will actually be able to see the real Jesus. The historical Jesus as he is often called. Despite the fact that the people who go on these quests, and the documentaries that share their stories like to present themselves as being edgy and ground-breaking, they are nothing of the sort. For centuries there have been people that have wanted to separate the historical Jesus, the rabbi of social justice and practical advice, from the Jesus of faith, the saviour of the cross and empty tomb. It is a fruitless and impossible quest though. There is only one Jesus. Everything that Jesus said or did, was written down after that first Easter Sunday, after people had seen the cross and empty tomb. Everything we know about Jesus has been handed down to us from the people who saw his risen body. The Jesus of faith IS the historical Jesus. You don’t need an inside connection to see him or meet him. You don’t need secret knowledge. And it doesn’t matter why you want to see Jesus.
That’s the thing about the Greeks in today’s gospel: I like to sit around and wonder why they want to meet Jesus; what are their motives? Do they want answers? do they want healing? do they want their broken hearts mended? do they want hope for new life? There are so many reasons why these Greeks, the strangers, these outta town folks might want to see Jesus, but he doesn’t seem to care what their reasons are. Maybe the bible doesn’t tell us, because it doesn’t matter. Maybe it doesn’t matter why we want to see Jesus; maybe it only matters where we go looking for him. I am going to be lifted up where everyone can see me, he says. If they want to come to me, to know who I really am and what I am really about, send them there. We don’t know why these Greeks want to see Jesus, but we do know where he says they will see him: at the cross.
Inwardly Digest 