John 12:20-33
The story’s told of a Palm Sunday when most of the family was able to go to worship, but the youngest, a little boy, stayed home, sick, with an older brother. When the rest of the family got back from worship, they were all holding palm branches. “What are those for?” the littlest brother asked. “They were to hold over Jesus’ head when he passed by,” his dad replied. “Man,” the boy griped, “the first time I didn’t go and Jesus shows up!”
People want to see Jesus. There’s a yearning inside of every person to be connected to the One Who made us, Who knows all about us and loves us anyway. Some of you have heard me tell the true story of the missionary in China and his conversation with an elderly Chinese man. The elderly man wanted to know what the missionary was doing in China. (This was before the Communists took over in the late-1940s.) The missionary told the man about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and how all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus will live forever. The old man began to weep. “All my life I knew He was there,” he said of Jesus, “I just didn’t know His Name.”
Jesus answers, as no one and nothing else can, the yearnings we have for connection to God, for reconciliation and peace with others, and for the power to face the worst that life brings, all because of His grace, His willingness to endure the worst of this life, and His capacity to give us resurrection hope.
Even though next week brings Palm Sunday, today’s Gospel lesson from John, takes us a to a brief interlude on that day, after Jesus has entered the city of Jerusalem to the cries of “Hosanna!” from the crowd.
Just before our Gospel lesson, John records a comment of the religious authorities. They see the adulation with which Jesus is welcomed and they’re nervous. They grumble, “The whole world is going after Him.” The whole world seemed to want to see and follow Jesus.
Then comes the incident recorded in our Gospel lesson. It begins not with Jesus’ fellow Judeans, but with some Greek-speaking people who are in town for the Passover. They go to two of Jesus’ disciples—Andrew and Philip, both of whom have Greek names and who, earlier, were the first of Jesus’ disciples to tell others of their fellow Jews that Jesus is the Messiah.
“We want to see Jesus,” the Greek-speakers tell Andrew and Philip. Uncertain about what to do next, the two of them go to Jesus and tell Him that there are people who want to see Him. If you’re not careful, you might think that Jesus doesn’t respond to this request. But, in fact, Jesus explains how all people, including you and me, can see Him.
He begins by saying, ““The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit…” Later, Jesus says, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” John explains that Jesus is saying that He will be crucified.
Jesus, God-enfleshed, took a cross He didn’t deserve. To the people of His day—Jews and Greeks, the ideas of a dying God or a dying Messiah were not what they expected. A Savior or God who dies with us is also contrary to what a lot of people who call themselves Christians expect. Many Christians view Jesus as a rabbit’s foot. Pray or say the right thing or make the right offerings, they think, and bad stuff will go away.
Others though, look at the cross as the place where the mighty God of creation cleared away all the obstructions that once kept them from seeing God, or life, or the world, or themselves clearly.
I read a few years ago about a woman who was dying. She knew it and she accepted it. But she said something interesting: “I would never wish this on anyone. But this has been the greatest experience of my life.”
Why did she say that? Because she realized that all the crutches that we use to validate our lives, to make ourselves comfortable, to deny our mortality, are baloney. Yet, at the bottom of the deepest pit into which we descend in life, there is Jesus.
The apostle Peter says that Jesus not only bore death and our sins on the cross, He also went to the place farthest from God, to hell itself, out of love for us.
It’s hard to see Jesus when things are going well: when we’re strong and healthy, when we’re happy in our relationships, when the paychecks are fat, or when we can party down. These things can delude us into thinking that we’re in control and always will be. But in the cross experiences of life, we call out to God and, if we’re open to Jesus, sense a nail-scarred hand holding us up. We see Jesus in the cross.
Jesus also says, “And when I am lifted up from the earth, [I] will draw all people to myself.” John says that here, Jesus refers to being lifted up on the cross. But, in accordance with the overall theology of John's gospel, in which Jesus' death and resurrection are part of one grand sweep, that phrase can also refer to Jesus being lifted out of the tomb. The Savior Who meets us at the cross also lifts us into new, eternal life with Him. Jesus turns death into the portal to life with God.
But the word that “lifted up” translates from the original Greek also can mean exalted, praised. Taken this way, I believe that Jesus is telling you and me as His followers to lift Him up not just in our prayer lives and not just in our worship together, but also before the world.
We’re not always very good at this. In fact, there are times when Christians act so hatefully or so indifferently to those around us that people are turned away from following Jesus.
One of the greatest people of the 20th century was Mahatma Gandhi, a Hindu whose nonviolent revolution allowed his native India to gain independence from the British. As a young lawyer then living in South Africa, Gandhi came close to becoming a Christian. He studied the Bible and fell in love with Jesus. But the churches he encountered in South Africa supported the injustice of apartheid, the separation of blacks from whites and the subjugation of blacks to a position like that of slavery. Gandhi himself was treated as an inferior because he was dark-skinned and a foreigner. Years later, Gandhi said, “I might have become a Christian had I not met one first.”
What conclusions about Jesus might some people derive from meeting you and me?
Without hypocrisy and with full honesty about the fact that we Christians are nothing but forgiven sinners, we should be willing to lift up Jesus as the source of our hope and daily strength.
In fact, if you have any interest in the question of how churches—including Saint Matthew—can grow, it’s to be found in our willingness to tell our nonchurchgoing neighbors, friends, coworkers, and classmates about Jesus, to invite them to worship with us, to invite them to our Christian activities.
If we’re willing to do that, we’ll find lots of people who want to see Jesus. A survey released just this past week said that, “Over half of Americans say they would visit a church if they receive[d] a personal invitation from a family member, friend or neighbor…” The survey also found that, “people are most willing to hear about a local congregation through a family member (63 percent) and through a friend or neighbor from the church (56 percent). Less than half are open to receive information about a church any other way, such as through an advertisement.”
The fact is that Jesus means for you and me to be His advertisements in the world. People see Jesus when we lift Him up.
That’s why I hope that you’ll invite nonchurchgoing friends to be with us on Easter Sunday, get involved in our servanthood team’s efforts to help feed our hungry neighbors, and also help our new parish health ministry as it seeks to help our neighbors care for the bodies, minds, and spirits God has given to every person.
We can see Jesus today.
- We see Him in the cross where He shares our lives and leads us to the empty tomb where He shares His eternity with all who believe in Him.
- We see Him too, whenever He is lifted up, whenever those who bear His Name feed someone who is hungry or give hope to the hopeless.
We are blessed to be part of this Christian family. But the church is meant to be more than a holy huddle where we enjoy convivial company.
We’re part of the only organization in the world instituted by Jesus Himself and our charge is simple: to lift Jesus up so that a dying world can have new life from the only One Who can give new life, God-in-the-flesh, Jesus Christ.
Our world, which, in so many ways, seems to be falling apart, needs the Savior and the new life we’ve been called to lift up.
Find a ministry, some way to share Jesus with those around you, whether it’s something we’re already doing here at Saint Matthew or it’s one that you think needs to happen, whether you need the help of ten or twenty of us or you can do it on your own, and lift Jesus up.
Our Savior is counting on you. This community, this world, needs you—you, now, today to lift Jesus up. It’s the greatest work you can do, no matter your profession. It’s the greatest privilege, no matter your age or station in life.
Lift Jesus up and help a needy world come to Him! Amen
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