We Wish to See Jesus
John 12:20-33
Morningside Presbyterian Church
Rev. Dr. Baron Mullis
March 25, 2012

We Wish to See Jesus
John 12:20-33
Morningside Presbyterian Church
Rev. Dr. Baron Mullis
March 25, 2012

Some years Lent seems to drag on forever.  Like the six weeks that make up the 28 days of February, the call to look at our own sin can be relentless, pun intended.   It’s a somber season; perhaps you can tell in the tone of our worship.  There aren’t any trumpets; rather there was a cello.  The descants are gone…we work pretty deliberately to keep our triumphal impulses at bay, though Walter and I did accidentally let an “alleluia” in a hymn slip past us a couple of weeks ago – but rest assured having caught ourselves, there will be no more “alleluias” until Easter morning.  In other words, during this season of penitence, we tone it down just a bit.  (If you’re visiting with us, I should tell you, this is subdued… by Morningside standards.  Be sure to come back for Easter and we’ll really put on the dog to celebrate the resurrection.) 

For me, this year, though, Lent hasn’t really dragged on so much.  There are years when it feels like we’re in the slough of despond, but not this year.  Maybe it’s the early advent of spring and the gorgeous weather, or maybe it’s because this time last year I didn’t yet have a permanent place to live, but Lent just hasn’t seemed so well, long, this year. 

Indeed when I’m standing in my yard with the flowers in bloom, wearing flip-flops chatting with the neighbors with an ice-cold drink in my hand, about the furthest thing from my mind is sin. 

It was a bit of a rude awakening to open the lectionary on my computer this week – the lectionary is just the way I select texts for the sermon – and realize that we need to drag ourselves back into the season for a bit longer. 

As I looked at yet another Johannine pre-passion passage I thought to myself, “it’s not time yet.  We have to get through the crucifixion to get to the resurrection.” 

And it’s true.  We do have to walk the rest of the way through this valley of Lent to get to the other side.  We do have to remember our sin a bit more.  We have to think on the things that Jesus said and did in the run-up to the cross if we are to be able to celebrate with integrity come Easter.  In other words, we can’t race to the triumph of the resurrection without facing the train-wreck of the cross. 

In light of this, there are two things about our text for today that strike me.  The first is the arrival of the Greeks.  The second is Jesus’ declaration that “the hour has come.” 

Both are instructive for us as we consider the claim of this text upon our lives. 

Let’s begin with the second one.  In order to understand it, it’s helpful to know a little about John’s Gospel narrative.  Structurally, John has four parts, a prologue that is about a chapter, an epilogue that is about a chapter, and nineteen chapters in between.  Those in between chapters are divided into what scholars call the “book of signs,” and “book of glory.”

The “book of signs” runs from chapter 2-12 and it is the Galilean ministry of Jesus.  It is in the course of these chapters that we see seven significant miracles from Jesus.  The miracles are interspersed with many of the “I am” discourses where Jesus tells his listeners something about who he is.  You remember some of them?  “I am the bread of life… I am the living waters… I am the way, the truth and the life…”  That’s just a sampling, there are others, and they are interspersed as theological teaching from Jesus in between all of the miracles that he is performing in order that the miracle won’t simply be a parlor trick, but rather, will teach the people who encounter it something about who Jesus is and what his life and death will mean.  And throughout the book of signs, as Jesus does his miracles and talks about who he is, he periodically says, “my hour has not yet come.”  Indeed prior to his first miracle in Cana where he turned the water into wine at his mother’s request, his words were, “woman, what business is this of ours?” 

(Now to our younger members, this is one of the times not to emulate Jesus… Generally speaking, referring to one’s mother as “woman” is not advisable.)  But then he says, “My hour has not come.”

Now, though, at this moment, Jesus says, “the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”

It would be easy, particularly in John where Jesus does make of all those “I am” statements to miss the significance of what Jesus is saying in this moment.  John has easily the most developed Christology of all of the Gospel writers.  Which is to say that Jesus understands his role as messiah much more clearly in John.  If you want to read a story where Jesus’ understanding of who he is and what is mission is unfolds through the progression of the story, read Mark…  In Mark, Jesus’ motivation for what he does is to preach the Gospel and his dogged determination to keep going, no matter what obstacles he encounters are what landed him on the tree.  This is less so in Matthew and Luke, but still true to a certain extent.  But John is different.  The way John understands Jesus makes it clear that Jesus knows who he is and what he is doing.  Jesus understands himself to be sacrificial lamb and his motivation is to see his mission through, no matter what. 

So in John, Jesus knows what needs to be done and is going to do it. 

And when Jesus makes his statement that the hour has come, the book of signs ends and we move into the book of glory and all of the events of holy week, the passion, unfold.  We see the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday and then of course Jesus gives his disciples their commands on Maundy Thursday before ultimately being betrayed, before he “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified dead and buried.”  That’s all the “Book of Glory,” and we’re coming to that in the next weeks. 

But just before we get to this point, there is this odd interlude where Jesus acknowledges that he knows he is going to suffer. 

He acknowledges that he knows he is going to suffer but he’s going ahead anyway.

John is the favorite Gospel of folks who don’t want to see Jesus suffering.  He appears so stoical throughout the trial and execution and indeed his last words in John are not the cry of dereliction from the cross, those pathos laden words, “my God, why have you forsaken me,” but rather the more philosophical sounding, “It is finished.” 

In light of this, it would be easy to let the death of Jesus trouble our minds rather than our hearts. 

But that would be wrong.  That would be wrong even in John’s narrative.  We heard today the words from his own lips, “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say--' Father, save me from this hour'? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.”

To move quickly past these to the triumphal finish of the Gospel is to miss its point. 

Our sin matters.  Our sin matters so much that God decided to do something about it. 

God would make the sacrifice, indeed, God would be the sacrifice, that would bridge the abyss of our sin. 

Remember our lesson in Trinitarian Theology from last week: one God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost.  God doesn’t love us because of the sacrifice in Jesus.  God is the sacrifice in Jesus because God loves us…

The God we worship is the God who suffers for our sins. 

But with that said, I want to introduce you to some Chalcedonian theology this week that will add to our Trinitarian theology from last week.  You remember – Father, Son and Holy Ghost, One God – because of that, when one suffers, they all suffer, right?

In the early church there was a heresy that went something like this: Jesus didn’t really suffer like a human because Jesus was God.  To suffer like a human, to be unsure of oneself, to go to death not knowing whether resurrection would follow… that would be positively unseemly.  No, Jesus just appeared human.  Problem solved.  Except that it’s not.

Again, for those who want to show off, that’s the heresy of docetism with a dash of patripassianism thrown in. 

The early church really was trying to understand what happened on the cross and so there were a number of struggles as they worked out ways to understand the mysteries of our faith.  And the Chalcedonian formula affirmed that Jesus Christ is both fully human and fully divine.  That’s glossing over a lot, but that’s basically the formula: fully human, fully divine.  Jesus didn’t just appear human when he was on earth, and it wasn’t a bait and switch with the Father on the cross, it was real suffering, really done for us. 

Indeed, the penultimate words that Jesus speaks in John before he dies are words of concern for his mother, entrusting her to his best friend to be sure she would be cared for in life and in her old age. 

That’s sort of the opposite of stoical resignation to fate. 

Which brings us to the reminder that for us, and for our salvation, Christ died on the cross.

Which brings us to that first part of the passage that struck me, the arrival of the Greeks to see Jesus.  They came to the disciples, to Philip, and said the words that I just haven’t been able to get out of my head this week, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

It is a throwaway line, easily forgotten – John doesn’t say anything more about the Greeks.  He doesn’t mention them again and we don’t know whether they got to see Jesus or not.  It’s a throwaway line.

Except that if there is one thing to know about John, it’s that he doesn’t throw away lines. 

“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

How many times have I heard that this week?  How many times have you?  “Ma’am, we wish to see Jesus?”

That’s the problem with Christ’s suffering: it demands a response from us.  Not in order to be effective for salvation – God has already done that – but so that we might have some salvation in our lives, in our world.  Christ’s disciples hear the words, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus?”

It is hard work to show people Jesus because in order to show people Jesus we’re going to encounter some suffering.  Real suffering, by the way, not for show. 

That’s why it’s so easy to want to slide right on through Lent. 

That’s why it is so hard to answer the request, “Sir/Ma’am, we want to see Jesus. 

This is very easy to say, but much harder to do.  I read an old homiletical chestnut this week that has also been a burr under my saddle, and I’ll share it with you.  In a text about preaching, the admonition was given, “Don’t preach about the Gospel; preach the Gospel.”

That’s the burr that’s under my saddle and now I want to share it with you.  Don’t talk about the Gospel, talk the Gospel. 

“Sir, we want to see Jesus.”

What are we going to say about urban poverty?  We’re not so far from Ponce, are we?  I’ve just agreed to go on the board of a very fine organization, Intown Collaborative Ministries, who seek to address issues of homelessness and hunger in the 30306 and 30307 zip codes.  I did it because I believe in the work that we are doing together with them and I don’t have a sweet clue how I’m going to be useful to that organization, but I mean to find out and I’m going to need your help.   

“Ma’am, we want to see Jesus.”

I read an article last summer that I cut out and kept.  Here’s a little clip of it.  “Despite the stratospheric levels of her success, she hasn’t forgotten being a misfit.  ‘It wasn’t until I put my music out into the world that I was able to look into myself and honor my own misfit and honor the reality of how I was treated when I was a kid, not by my family, but by my peers in school, and how it affected me.’  Consequently, Lady Gaga’s message to her devoted fans is that it is all right for them to be ‘little monsters.’  Others may regard them as too fat, or too skinny, or harass them because they are gay or otherwise different.  But she reminds them that they have real worth.”[1]  The author concludes, “Intentionally or not, Lady Gaga reminds us that Jesus came among us as a misfit.”

She’s a wonderful entertainer and its wonderful that she can bridge the gap of hurt feelings for so many, but with all due respect, that’s our job!

“Sir, we want to see Jesus.”

When the Greeks came, the disciples had to talk amongst themselves about whether or not to let them see Jesus, and we don’t know the answer as to whether or not they did.

Letting folks see Jesus can be awfully hard work. 

Lent is here to keep us from prettifying the Gospel.  It’s good news.  It’s life-giving, life-renewing, life-changing good news.  But it’s not pretty.  It came at a cost. 

And that cost demands a response from us.  We don’t just talk about the Gospel, we tell the Gospel. 

We tell the Gospel to poverty.  We tell it to homelessness.  We tell it to homophobia.  We tell the Gospel to our personal politics.  We tell it to racism.  We tell the Gospel to white privilege.  We tell it to everything and everyone who says, “well, this is just the way it’s going to be, there’s nothing to be done.”

There’s always something to be done. 

“Ma’am, we want to see Jesus.”

It is two weeks until Easter.  I don’t want to make too bold of a prediction, but I’m pretty sure I can make this one.  Somewhere, somehow, in the very near future, someone is going to say to you, “We want to see Jesus.”

What will the answer be?

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.