Passion Sunday 2018 John 12, 20-33
Revd. Canon Leonard Doolan
Many people travel to Greece, mostly now as tourists. The Greeks have also been great travelers, not so much as tourists but in search of work, or trade. A great seafaring nation, Greeks have always been in diaspora.
Our gospel reading this morning refers to Greeks. These are not visitors to Jerusalem, as if they were part of some pilgrim group, but Hellenes. They were ethnically Greek, and firstly Greek speakers, but were also Jewish. Why else would they have been in Jerusalem to worship at the festival?
They ask a simple question of Philip, ‘kyrie, thelomen ton Iesoun idein’ – Sir, we wish to see Jesus. The message is then relayed to Andrew, and Jesus is informed. How does Jesus respond? He talks about his death. So if you wish to see the glory of Jesus, to know the glory of Jesus, to recognize the glory of Jesus, to share in the glory of Jesus, then you need to understand the need for his death, and for our own need for death.
In short he replies to the Greek request by talking about his rising, but not his rising from the dead and leaving behind an empty tomb, but rather his rising on the cross. When he is raised, lifted up, in other words crucified, then you will see the glory.
So this is the response to the Greek request to see Jesus, and it is his response to us, to those who seek Jesus.
Today is Passion Sunday, the 5th Sunday in the holy season of Lent, and the mood now begins to change. This is a transition Sunday, when we begin to think of Good Friday, Holy Friday, and the cross of Christ. This is when we begin to move from just observing Lent, to the summation of the holy season and the mystery of the cross.
If we wish to see Jesus, like those Greeks in Jerusalem, then we will be required to die with Christ so that we might live with Christ.
This death may not necessarily be a physical death, but it is certainly a death of the self. If we wish to live with Christ, first we have to die with Christ. In baptism we die so that we may live. Baptism is an Easter mystery, but Easter is about cross and empty tomb, not just about empty tomb.
St. Paul tells us that when we are baptized we are baptized into the death of Jesus – we pass through the deep waters of death, just as the people of Israel passed through the waters of the Red Sea as they fled from slavery into freedom, from danger into salvation, from darkness into light.
Jesus himself gives the agricultural example of a seed being thrown into the ground. That seed is full of potential, of new life, of growth and of producing from itself, so that what it grows into produces more seeds and so the cycle goes on; but in order to do this it has to cease to be a seed. Nothing is left of the seed, because every gram of energy goes into the new life that is generated by it. If it does not do this it remains a seed. Such is pattern for our own lives and our sharing in the cross. ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me’.
Sir, we wish to see Jesus. We will see him when we know what it is to have entered into the mystery of the cross. This we can do over these next two weeks as we approach Good Friday. Easter may have all the Alleluias, but without the cross there can be no resurrection for us. We cannot easily make the Liturgy of Holy week optional – I know we are not in step with the way Greece will keep their Great Week, and many of you will have to work on OUR Good Friday, but if you possibly can do attend the Liturgy that day, so that through the cross your celebration of resurrection will be the more complete.
It is on the cross that God’s work is accomplished, completed, perfected, and it is through sharing in the cross that our faith is perfected in the action of Christ.
‘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. Father glorify your name’.
I wonder if those Greeks knew what they were asking when they said, ‘we would like to see Jesus’.
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