Jeremiah 31:31-34
Hebrews 5:(1-4)5-10
John 12:20-33
Psalm 51 or 51:11-16
"We wish to see Jesus." That's what the Greeks at the festival say to Philip.
But there seems to be some kind of communication problem here. The Greeks don't go straight to Jesus. They talk to Philip, who then talks to Andrew, and then they tell Jesus. Then Jesus' response to all of this is a flight of theological speculation. This long-chain communication pattern is suspiciously familiar – Is it perhaps some ancient variation of a new ministry team?
But clearly something really important has been communicated to Jesus. The Greeks asking to see him seems to be for him a sign - a sign that his time has finally arrived. The Messiah's hour has come. He is going to die. And the whole world is going to change.
Those Greeks who wish to see Jesus are the sign of all this... and a sign that Jesus is for the whole world, Greeks as well as Jews. But we are not told if those Greeks ever got to see Jesus. "We wish to see Jesus," they said. Maybe they were believers wanting to join his followers. Maybe they were curiosity seekers, who had just heard that Jesus pulled his dead buddy Lazarus out of the grave. They want to see a miracle. A lot of people are still wanting that.
"We wish to see Jesus," Or at least we want to see someone who can change our lives. Someone to make it all better, to heal the pain. Someone to help us let go of the stupid and hurtful things we do. To love us out of loneliness. To bring us all peace.
Who wouldn't wish to see that? Though folks don't always name it "Jesus," most of the world is seeking those godly things: life and love, forgiveness and peace.
So where do we look for those things? Maybe self-help books? Perhaps hard work for status or money? Or escape into fantasy in books or TV or virtual reality? Sometimes the places we look are hurtful, like alcohol and drugs, gambling or warfare.
Sometimes we look to a friend to provide the miracle. Sometimes we look inside ourselves.
But what we're really looking for is God. And eventually everything falls short of that, even the best self-help book and the most loving friend is not enough. We're looking for someone to save the world and us. "We wish to see Jesus."
Like those Greeks, we may wonder just what this Jesus looks like. We want to see God for ourselves.
Well, I do have a picture. Here's one of my favorites.
Once Jesus was born and people could see him; it became okay to make a picture of the invisible God.
Of course we don't have any photos of the face and hands that were most really real. But there are a lot of pictures that are true. I have a collection of hundreds of them, all different and all true. The truth they tell is that God lived as a real human person. Once upon a time there really was a perfect human being who was also perfectly divine. Maybe he looked just like you? Or at least he might have looked just like you when you are most fully real and most really yourself, when you are exactly the way God wishes you to be.
Remember those old fun-house mirrors? You'd see your reflection all twisted out of shape: A really short body and a great big head. Maybe one funny eye and two jumbo ears. You could suddenly gain or lose 200 pounds that way. You wonder if anyone would recognize you at all like that; Or maybe you even wonder if it's even really you looking back out of the mirror.
I think that's the kind of world we live in. That's what sin does to us all, twisting our lives all out of shape. Each one of you was created perfectly in the image of God. And yet most of the time that image is so distorted that it takes God's own eyes to look past the sin to see the real you. But the image is there in every human being, Jew or Greek, male or female, American or Iraqi. Perhaps at times you have caught glimpses of that Image in someone else? When suddenly the brilliance of Christ shows with startling clarity in someone's face or life.... And often just as suddenly the fun-house distortion of sin slips back into the picture.
How does this happen? How do people see Jesus? Where would you look? You might look in the Bible. You might look here in Church; after all he's promised to be here. You might spend time looking at one of these icons, or prayer pictures, of Jesus. Or like those Greeks, you could ask his friends, people you suspect already have seen Jesus somewhere. (Doesn't need to be a spiritual director or priest; what about the woman who sits quietly in the back pew every Sunday?)
It seems that people who spend a lot of time wishing to see Jesus – or, indeed, actually somehow looking at Jesus – often reflect God's image more clearly and are also more likely to catch that glimpse of Christ in others. Somehow the mirror of their lives is beginning to straighten out a bit.
That can happen during Lent, or whenever people make time to look for Christ all around them. It is when we let go of our selves – to be buried like the seed that gives new life – that we are able to look beyond ourselves to see Jesus. And it is then that the mirror of our own lives becomes more clear. v If we wish to see Jesus - to find that love and life, forgiveness and peace – it is our task in this distorted world to keep looking for Christ: in Scripture and in prayer, in creation and in the people around us. As we do so, we ourselves are re-formed in Christ's image. Watch for Jesus in the street and on the evening news. Try sticking a scripture verse or a prayer, an icon or a photograph to your mirror. Look for Christ and watch it happen: your life will be re-formed more and more in Christ's image. You were born to grow more like Christ every hour. You were baptized to help change this distorted world into the Kingdom of God.
Jeremiah wrote about a new covenant when all people, from the least of them to the greatest, will know God. Then Greeks won't need to ask Jews about seeing Jesus everyone will know where to look for him.
When that hour has come, everyone will see clearly that Christ is glorified, and drawing all people to himself.
When we are lifted up with him the distortions of our lives will be straightened out and we will see Jesus all around us, and in the mirror.
If you, too, wish to see Jesus, very truly I tell you, the hour to look is now.