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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
You have come here this morning, in‑person or on‑line, and, in one way or another, you will see Jesus. But, you are not the first to “come and see”. Shortly after John the Baptizer baptized Jesus, two of John the Baptizer’s disciples, likely including the Divinely-inspired author of the Holy Gospel according to St. John, followed Jesus, and He essentially told them to “come and see” (John 1:35-39). The next day, Jesus went to Galilee and found Philip, who was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter, and Philip found Nathanael, and Philip told Nathanel to “come and see” (John 1:43-46). So, there should be little surprise that, some three years later, as we heard in today’s Gospel Reading, some Greeks, who had gone up to worship at the feast, came to Philip and asked him to see Jesus, and Philip went and told Andrew, and Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. We are not told whether the Greeks came with Philip and Andrew to see Jesus, though we easily might imagine that the Greeks did come with Philip and Andrew and did see Jesus, even as a crowd was standing there that day and saw Jesus, in some sense, and heard all that Jesus said, the final words of Jesus’s public ministry that St. John records, before St. John explains why others who came and saw Jesus did not believe in Him. This morning, then, considering primarily today’s Gospel Reading, especially its first two verses, we direct our thoughts to the theme, “Coming and seeing Jesus”.
The Processional Gospel ended with the Jewish leaders essentially lamenting that the world had gone after Jesus (John 12:12-19), and the immediately-following Gospel Reading begins with the Greeks essentially as a case in point. As St. John’s Gospel account uniquely reports, these at least non-ethnic Jews had gone up to worship at the Passover. The Greeks may have seen Jesus come to Jerusalem, met by people waving palm branches and crying out “Hosanna!” Or, the Greeks may have heard about that meeting and maybe also heard about Jesus’s miraculous sign of raising His friend Lazarus from the dead. Perhaps, like the Samaritan leper whom Jesus cleansed and told to go to the Temple but who returned to Jesus (Luke 17:11‑19), maybe the Greeks decided that true Passover worship should be directed to Jesus. However the Greeks were drawn to Jesus, they came to Philip. As to why the Greeks came to Philip in particular, Bible commentators usually point to Philip’s Greek name and his predominantly-non-Jewish hometown. Regardless, the Greeks at least began to ask, or maybe even repeatedly asked, to see Jesus. As we heard read, the Greeks said that they “wished” to see Jesus (confer NASB, NKJV), but we should not think of some fanciful wish like a wish you make after blowing out the candles on your birthday cake, for the Greek verb can refer to a will or an intention, even a determined purpose. In this case, the Greeks’ intention was “to see” Jesus, maybe to “speak to” Jesus, but the same Greek verb is used throughout the passage to refer to a deeper seeing, a mental perception, arguably equivalent to belief. For example, today’s Gospel Reading quotes Isaiah’s words about God’s “blinding” the eyes of those who do not believe, lest they “see”, and today’s Gospel Reading says that Isaiah “saw” presumably Jesus’s glory and spoke of Him—we might or might not say that Isaiah “spoke to”, or “spoke with”, the Son of God before He took on human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary. And, we know from elsewhere in Holy Scripture, that not everyone who wanted in some sense “to see” Jesus necessarily got what they wanted: whether Jesus’s family, who wanted to seize Him because they thought that He was out of His mind (Luke 8:20; Mark 3:20), or King Herod, who simply hoped to see some sign done by Him (Luke 23:8).
Why do we come and see Jesus? Do we want something from Jesus? If we do not want something from Jesus, then why do we come and see Him? If we do want something from Jesus, then what do we want from Him? When we get what we should get from Jesus, are we content with that? Or, do we even know what we should get from Him, and can we even tell if we have gotten it? In the Gospel Reading, the Greek’s insistent, persistent request of Philip—“Sir, we would see Jesus” (KJV, ASV)—is sometimes engraved in pulpits in order to remind preachers why the preachers are in the pulpits, namely, in order to show their hearers Jesus. If the preachers show their hearers Jesus at all, some preachers may show their hearers Jesus only as a lawgiver, while other preachers may show their hearers Jesus only as a Savior, without ever mentioning why their hearers even need a Savior. Still other preachers may show their hearers Jesus both as God Whose Word condemns sin and as God Who saves people from their sin. Can you tell the difference? What would you do if you heard neither law nor Gospel, or only law or only Gospel, but not both law and Gopsel? (I would hope that you would talk to me, or to whomever the preacher was.)
Earlier in St. John’s Gospel account Jesus had said that no one could come to Him unless God drew him or her (John 6:44). On the basis of such passages, we believe, teach, and confess in the Small Catechism, that we cannot by our own reason or strength come to Jesus Christ, our Lord, or “see” Him in the sense of believe in Him, but that the Holy Spirit calls us by the Gospel, enlightens us with His gifts, sanctifies, and keeps us in the true faith (Small Catechism II:6). By nature, we are dead in trespasses and sins, St. Paul writes to the Ephesians and to us, following the prince (or, “ruler”) of the power of the air, the spirit that is at work in all those who disobey God, and so we rightly deserve God’s wrath, now and for eternity (Ephesians 2:1-3). In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus spoke about the judgment of this world and the casting‑out of the ruler of this world, and Jesus arguably contrasted the devil’s being cast‑out, no doubt also including the casting‑out of all those who follow him, with Jesus’s being lifted up and drawing all people to Himself. All those who come and see Jesus in contrition and faith are saved.
As we heard Jesus say to Nicodemus in the Gospel Reading two Sundays ago, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must Jesus, the Son of Man and the Son of God, be lifted up, so that whoever believes in Him might have eternal life (John 3:14; confer John 8:28 and Isaiah 52:13). Jesus’s being lifted up on the cross was Divinely necessary for our salvation. God carried out His plan of salvation first by means of the Jewish leaders, who were already plotting to put Jesus to death, and eventually also by means of the Romans (John 11:45-53; 12:9‑11). Out of God’s great love for even us sinners, Jesus died on the cross for us, as our substitute. As the Proper Preface for Holy Week puts it, the serpent who overcame by the tree of the garden is by the tree of the cross overcome (Lutheran Service Book: Altar Book, for example, p.190). As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading, Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross, and then He rose from the dead (Philippians 2:5-11). As we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading, our King first comes to us righteous and having salvation (Zechariah 9:9‑12). Then, He draws all people—like the Greeks in the Gospel Reading, and like you and me—to Himself, so that we can come and see Him in contrition and faith. He draws all people to Himself in ways that can be resisted, His Word and Sacraments.
Have you come here to see Jesus in contrition and faith? The once‑crucified and now‑resurrected Jesus is in His Word read and preached. The once‑crucified and now‑resurrected Jesus is in the water with the Word of Holy Baptism. The once‑crucified and now‑resurrected Jesus is in the pastor’s touch with the Word of Holy Absolution. And, the once‑crucified and now‑resurrected Jesus is especially in the bread and wine with the Word of the Holy Supper, which bread and wine are His Body and Blood, given and shed, for you and for me, for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. By God Himself’s working through these Means of Grace, the once-fishermen turned fishers-of-men drew—and their successors, pastors today, draw—people into the Church, as a net full of fish is drawn into a boat (John 21:6; especially KJV, ASV; confer Henrichs, CPR 34:2, p.30).
Who comes to you or to me wanting to see Jesus, as the Greeks came to Philip? How do we show them Jesus in our words and deeds? Do we invite them to come with us here to see Jesus in hymns and liturgy, in Word and Sacraments? In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus said that if a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it bears much fruit. We might like for Jesus’s Word and Sacraments to bear more fruit—and if we want more fruit, imagine how much more Jesus wants more fruit! In today’s Gospel Reading, St. John says that, though Jesus had done many signs before the crowd, some people still did not believe in Him, and St. John says that their rejection fulfilled God’s prophecy through Isaiah (Isaiah 53:1; 6:10). The same is true in our time. People resist the Holy Spirit Who wants to work within them (Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration XI:78), and then, in at least some cases, God hardens them further so that they cannot believe and are not saved.
By God’s grace, we in contrition and faith come and see the once‑crucified and now‑resurrected Jesus in His Word and Sacraments, not only today, Palm Sunday, not only during this Holy Week, but all through our earthly lives, until we—resurrected, if necessary—live with Him for all eternity. As we sang in today’s Psalm (Psalm 118:19-29; antiphon: v.26), we give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love—His “mercy”—endures forever.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +