John 12:20-33; 5th Sunday of Lent

“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

The Greeks, who made this request in our Gospel reading, were surely not expecting a
messiah. But they had heard about this man, Jesus, and wanted to see him for
themselves. They had no doubt heard about how he had healed the sick, raised
Lazarus from the dead, performed miracles – wonders, they must have been told. So,
naturally, they wanted to see Jesus for themselves. Who wouldn’t?

How often have we made the same request? While praying and we are not moved by
the Spirit; when we are desolate and there doesn’t seem to be anyone from beyond who
is listening; when we are troubled about someone we love who is not healing; when
things seem to be falling apart and we can’t bring ourselves to become whole again?
Indeed, we’d like to know who this Jesus is! “We wish to see him!”

The Gospel reading does not tell us what the Greeks saw. Instead, this request initiated
a conversation between Jesus and his disciples.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,
it remains just a grain of wheat;
but if it dies, it produces much fruit.
Whoever loves his life loses it, …
Whoever serves me must follow me,
and where I am, there also will my servant be.
The Father will honor whoever serves me.

The Greeks, coming from the land where philosophy bloomed, must have understood
somewhat. Living lives of convenience, or even lives of inconvenience, waking up daily
to greet a day of consequential or even inconsequential events, exciting or dull, novel or
more of the same, unless we are like “grain that falls on the ground and dies,” our lives
matter not a bit. Just like a grain of wheat sown in the field ceases to remain “just a
seed,” by sprouting and then growing into a plant that produces many new grains of
wheat, our lives are only as meaningful as it is shared, sown in the lives of others. In
other words, when we “die” to our selfishness, we “rise” to new life in Jesus Christ. To
be “buried in the earth” means to transcend our selfish desires and touch our Lord’s
face in others, especially those that our Lord favored in his lifetime and even today, the
poor, the sick, certainly those who live in the fringes of our society.
But this Jesus the Greeks have come to see – is he a god walking among men or a man
acting like a god, wishing he were one? Then they hear Jesus say:
“I am troubled now. Yet what should I say?

‘Father, save me from this hour’?
But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour.“
Even Jesus is tempted to ask his heavenly Father to deliver him from this hour, from his
approaching death on a cross. How much more human can one get? To be tempted to
be other than what one is, to escape pain and suffering, all variations on the theme of
humanity!

Sometimes, when we see Jesus, we tend to see him in his glorious resurrection and
neglect to appreciate what led to this – his passion and death on the cross. Like in our
lives, we are tempted to try and find a way that does not involve the cross. We want to
see Jesus, true, but must it be on the cross? Couldn’t we just see Jesus performing his
great miracles – healing the sick, raising the dead, calming the storms? Couldn’t we just
picture Jesus on a hillside teaching the crowds about His Father’s love? Couldn’t we
just fix our gaze on the resurrected Jesus?

But this is not the Jesus the Greeks have come to see! This is not the ONLY Jesus
there is to see! There’s also the full story of what Jesus came to do for us. When we see
Jesus on the cross, then we see our own lives upon it. Unless we die with Him, we shall
remain forever in the tomb of humanity’s darkness. And unless we follow him on His
way to Calvary, we will not ever see Jesus in the midst of our sufferings or the
challenges and difficulties we face in our lives.

Let me end with this brief story about a homilist who thought he’d make the point of the
homily even prior to delivering it. He dressed up like a beggar– shabby clothes, dirty
face, with a bottle in his hand. He came up the aisle and whispered, “Could you spare
some money for a breakfast?” Some were mildly amused, others mildly embarrassed.
One even said: “Stop the man! He’s going right up on the altar!” The homilist disguised
as a beggar jostled his way to the lectern and then said: “In the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen….If you came to the church this morning
looking for Jesus Christ, you just missed him. He came up that aisle a minute ago,
trying to scrounge some money for breakfast. And you want to know something? He
did not get any!”

Friends, this Jesus we have come to see, He is everywhere. Anxious and agonizing, He
is in everyone’s ordeals and anguish, giving meaning to our suffering them. He is in our
own grieving over the deaths of loved ones, giving hope and the promise of life
everlasting. He answers our questions on why we ever suffer: Weeping, like he did
when his friend Lazarus died, he says “Yes, I bear your burdens and pains. I cannot
prevent them, but I can heal them. “How do you do that?” we ask. And he will answer:
“By sharing it with you.” “Will all this ever go away?” We ask further. And he will say,
“Your pain? Anguish? Burdens? They will not disappear, ever. But in pain and out of
pain can come compassion, sharing and selflessness. Learn to love by loving, learn
how to heal by healing, and, in the end, in the end, the only thing left is love.”
Now, that is the Jesus the Greeks have come to see. That is the Jesus we come to see
and should continue to seek.

Let us pray that during this season of Lent, we “do all the good we can, by all the means
we can, in all the ways we can, in all the places we can, to all the people we can, as
long as ever we can” (John Wesley).

*image from the Internet