TITLE: “Sir, We Would See Jesus ”

In the name of the Father and of the † Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.  Our text for today is the Gospel lesson just read with focus on the words: Sir, we would see Jesus.

Those words are so simple, yet so profound.  They get at the very heard of who we are as a church, and why we come together here this day.  In the midst of fear and pain, heartache and sorrow, the Christian longs for Jesus more than anyone else in the world.  As we struggle to understand, and gather here to pray, we want to know that God is with us, and that He has not abandoned us.  So our cry this day is that same cry, Sir, we would see Jesus.

We all have things we would like to see.  We want to see justice.  We want to see that the men who perpetrated this horrible attack come to their rightful end.  We want to see that families and friends are safe.  We want to see that our lives can be normal again, and that we don’t have to live in fear.  When I look on the television and see the financial might of America as rubble in the dust, it causes me to ponder that perhaps we have put our hope in ourselves a little too much.  Sir, we would see Jesus.  And when we are talking about Jesus, we are talking about life and death.  For that is what God is all about.

It should not surprise us, then, that Jesus comes back to speak in life and death terms to Philip and Andrew and these Greeks.  Jesus said, I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.  But if it dies, it produces many seeds.  The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.  Those words are spoken to this day at funerals.  With those words, Jesus wants to show the Greeks who they are coming to see.  This Jesus was not a great leader or inspirational speaker.  He was not going to make their lives easier or more interesting.  No, Jesus came down to earth to die.  And in His death He would be glorified.  We like to think that Jesus’ glory was in the resurrection.  But really His glory began at the cross.  For it is there with his limp and dead body, the salvation of the world was accomplished.  There could be no empty tomb without a body on that cross.  So Jesus points out to them that in order for a seed to grow and spread, it must first die and be put in the ground.

It is significant that the symbol of the Christian faith is one of death.  If we were to turn this into contemporary language, it would be an electric chair or an execution needle or something like that.  Christianity deals with death.  Because it is only Christianity that finally and truly answers the question of what death is all about.

Our text ends with these words, Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out.  But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.  He said this to show the kind of death he was doing to die.  Jesus Himself says that when He is lifted up, that is when He is lifted up on the cross, that it is that event which will draw men to Himself.  It is the cross, it is the sacrifice and the suffering that He would undergo, that is what draws men and women of all times and places to Him.  That is the Jesus who came into our flesh.  That is the Jesus who lived a life not unlike yours or mine.  That is the Jesus who suffered, innocently bore our sin, and carried the weight of the sin of the whole world on his shoulders.  That is the God to whom we cry, “O Christ, you lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on us.”

Jesus cross and death may be a scandal to the world. It may be just too much pain, too negative an image for most of the world to accept as real.  But for you, for you, O Christian, that cross is not a symbol of death but of life.  For it is that body hung on a tree that you eat and drink for your salvation.  It is that Jesus, who died and rose again from the dead, that can give you hope in the midst of sorrow.  It is that Jesus, the one who dies and lives again, who will raise you up from the dead on the last day.

As we mourn and suffer with our nation, we grieve as those who have hope.  We grieve because of the sadness and pain that has been inflicted on us.  We grieve because of what our nation and nations around the world will endure.  But If we can find any good in a horrible event such as this, the good must be that our false idols and false security has been knocked away.  All that is left for you and for me is the cross of Jesus Christ.  But in that cross you will conquer.  In that cross of Jesus you have life, you have hope for the future, and you have the certainty of knowing that no matter what assaults the devil and the world may throw at you, Jesus Christ has been there.  He will see us through this tragedy.

God bless you this day and always.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen.