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A Sermon for DaySpring
By Eric Howell
“We Want to See Jesus”
John 12:20-33
March 22, 2015
“We want to see Jesus.” It is pretty much a simple, straightforward request. One
first given voice by a group in John 12, and echoed through time by many whose
spiritual orientation run to the simple and straightforward out of necessity or
frustration with the alternatives. For many of us, it’s the unsaid hope about church
life and all that can go with it, “I just want to see Jesus.”
Some Greeks were in Jerusalem for the Passover feast and they came to one of Jesus’
disciples, Phillip, possibly because Phillip’s name was the most Greek-sounding of all
of them, so perhaps he would be the one most sympathetic to their request as nonJews to see Jesus.
Or perhaps because Phillip, since the beginning, was inviting people to ‘come and
see’ as he said to Nathanael. And so the Greeks ask Phillip. Phillip asks Andrew.
And together they ask Jesus. There’s quite a chain-of-command operation
happening here. John’s gospel gives us lots of details about the circumstances
around the request, but not the details we want.
What we want to know, and don’t ever find out is:
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Who are these people? Where did they come from and what did they want?
Did they ever get to see him? It doesn’t say. They just evaporate from the
story.
What was it about the arrival of these particular people and this particular
request that prompted Jesus to answer, “The hour has come . . .” and then to
speak of his looming death and the cost of discipleship.
As is typical in the fourth gospel, John doesn’t tell you all you want to hear, but tells
you everything you need to hear. John doesn’t show you all you want to see; he
shows you what you must see, and from which you must not look away, and for
which you must look deeper than what you might see on first glance.
John’s gospel is all about seeing. What do you see? The word translated ‘see’ is used
in John more than any other gospel, over 100 times. Sometimes in English it is ‘see’
like you see with your eyes. Sometimes it is ‘know’ like you comprehend something
that is deeply true. To see and to know are joined, even in English, where we might
say, “Oh, I see,” and by it mean something deeper than just that we observe,
something visible, but we understand, we have knowledge of, we know intimately.
The same word has both this meaning of our physical senses and this deeper
meaning of our hearts.
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John consistently weaves through this spectrum between the literal and the
metaphorical, the visible and the mystery. And so in chapter 2 the miracle of water
into wine is on one level a generous gift of Jesus rescuing an embarrassed wedding
host. On another level, it is a sign of the transformation Jesus will bring—it was the
best wine. Likewise, in chapter 3, being born again, to Nicodemus, is a strange,
impossible concept physically; spiritually understood, it is new life that we are given
in Christ. In chapter 4, for the woman at the well, water quenches your parched
throat; it comes from a well. Spiritually, Jesus is the source of living water; drink
from me and you will never thirst again. In this gospel, Jesus is almost always heard
literally; he almost always is speaking spiritually, metaphorically, about the mystery
of the good news inbreaking into the world by signs all through the gospel for those
who have eyes to see.
By the time we get to Lazarus’ tomb in chapter 11, at least one person has wised up
to this. Martha has figured out that when you hear something from Jesus, you
interpret it spiritually and metaphorically, not literally. Jesus says, “Martha, your
brother will rise again.” Martha has Jesus figured out by now. Through her tears
she replies: “I know that he will rise at the last day.” But this is about life and death,
and on matters of life and death, she’s got it backwards, “No, Martha, he will rise
now. Roll away the stone.” Jesus means it shockingly literally.
In the days after the crucifixion, another disciple has wised up to this too. Thomas
has figured out that often when you hear something from Jesus or about Jesus,
you’re supposed to understand it spiritually, metaphorically, not literally. So when
the other disciples start running around saying they have seen Jesus risen from the
dead, Thomas immediately does the math and says, “Oh, you mean a spiritual
resurrection. It feels like he’s come back and is still with us. That’s nice.” “No,
Thomas, he’s really back.” “Well, I won’t believe that unless I can see the nail marks
in his hand and the spear wounds in his side.”
How Thomas must have been surprised when a few days later there stood Jesus
with the nail marks and the spear marks. What a reversal! Just when he thought he
had this language game figured out, Jesus turns the world upside down.
Jesus usually said things that were first taken to be literal but he means them to be
spiritual: living water, bread of life, born again. But when it comes to life and death,
and resurrection, Jesus reversed the order. You thought he meant them spiritual,
esoteric, heavenly. But he means them here and now. Touch my side Thomas. See
and believe.
“We want to see Jesus.” How you read the desire determines how you read the
story. Are they saying they just want to see him, like with their eyes, maybe greet
him, get an autography, or interview him? Or do they mean, “We want to know
Jesus” like they are asking the deeper question of their hearts? Are these guys
spiritual tourists or are they spiritual seekers? Are they fans of Jesus, or disciples?
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John’s gospel doesn’t resolve this for us, but it is as if Jesus understands the more
profound dimension of the question. “The hour has come.” It’s a matter now of life
and death, death and life. To see Jesus, to know Jesus, is to see him in the shadow of
the cross. It is as if there is no seeing Jesus now without seeing the cross.
There was once a pastor of a church a lot like ours that had a sanctuary that looked
something like ours. Clean lines, simplicity. One day the pastor had what he
thought was a lovely idea. He was probably something like our pastor in that
sometimes his ideas didn’t turn out the way he had in mind. He asked an amateur
wood carver in his congregation if he would devote some of his time and talent to
fashioning a professional cross for the church to use during Lent. It would be, in the
pastor’s mind, something modern and clean to match the style of the room. It would
also be lightweight, so that it could be easily lifted by the white-robed adolescent
who would carry it down the center aisle at the beginning of worship. But it did not
turn out that way. “Instead what we got on the first Sunday of Lent was a dramatic
sort of cross, heavy, complete with a realistic, bleeding corpus, a hanging, crucified
Christ, blood and everything.” (Willimon, Christian Century, March 24, 1982.)
How did the congregation respond to that? Some managed to like it because a nice
person made it. Some liked it because they appreciated the intricate carving. But
many were upset because it was too “Catholic,” “gory and depressing,” or “didn’t go
well with our colors.”
The bottom line, especially when you’re this deep into Lent, is if you ask to see Jesus,
it may not be pretty. What you see with your eyes and come to know in your heart
may be a lot more real than you were counting on.
If you want to see Jesus today, you may find yourself looking into 21 pairs of eyes on
a beach in Libya; eyes that are seeing their captors’ blades press their necks.
If you want to see Jesus today, you may find yourself looking at someone with whom
you have profound disagreement and then find yourself serving that person
communion, and hear yourself say, “The body of Christ was broken . . .for you.”
If you want to see Jesus today, you may find yourself with some pretty smelly
people, in some pretty dingy places, confronted with some tough stuff that’s going to
cost you something.
If you want to see Jesus today, you may see yourself looking at the other, the
outsider, with fresh eyes and asking how to draw the circles wider.
If you want to see Jesus today, you may see yourself in the mirror and you might
even not like what you see anymore and wonder how life got this way. And you may
look a little closer and wonder how it is that you are so totally and fully beloved by
one whose cross you’d barely be able to carry.
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And then look a little closer, a little longer, a little deeper. And hear the gentle call,
“My beloved, when I look at you, all I want is to see Jesus.”
Copyright 2015, by Eric Howell