5 Lent—March 21, 2021

Where are you spiritually today? Are you, like so many others, in a place of darkness and despair—the pandemic continuing, a return to life as we knew it a year ago apparently as far away as ever? Is your despair or hopelessness related to news this week, the continued suffering on our borders as people seek a better life? Or are you, as so many of us are, devastated by the senseless and racist killing of Asian-American women in Atlanta suburbs, a heinous crime perpetrated by yet another good white boy who “just had a bad day.” Are you wondering about the future of our country, our neighborhood, our congregation?

Or are you in a very different place? It’s spring after all, and in spite of the snow we had earlier this week, it feels and looks a bit like spring today. We are emerging from the pandemic, perhaps you’ve been vaccinated and are eager to reconnect face to face, with no masks intervening, with family and friends you’ve not seen in person in months or over a year.

We’re in something of a holding pattern. We know that it’s likely the pandemic will lose its grips as more people get vaccinated and we approach herd immunity. It’s likely that everything we’ve put on hold for over a year, whether it’s school, or a vacation, or a meal inside at a favorite restaurant, is not too far away. We even expect that one Sunday, in the not-too-distant future, we will be able to gather for public worship here in Grace Church. 

It may be, in fact, that there’s so much going on in our lives and in the world around us, so much to worry and wonder about, jobs, school, our personal, family, community’s, nation’s future, that little time is left for us to think about or focus on our own spiritual growth or that of our families. We may even be catching this service at a free moment in our lives a day or two from now, when there is a moment of unexpected or unplanned peace and quiet in our lives. In the unfamiliar world we are negotiating right now, the sure foundations of faith in God and a relationship with Jesus may seem more elusive than ever.

Still there’s that longing in us, the desire to connect with something deeper, a yearning for God that may be often unexpressed or even unnoticed but still beckons to us, even as we feel guilt that we aren’t able to make the time, find the energy, or, as I talked about it in my sermon on the first Sunday in Lent, to observe a “Holy Lent.”

To us, to the world we live in, to the spiritual chaos some of us may be experiencing, today’s gospel reading speaks with comfort and hope. 

The disparate way we encounter the Gospel of John in the Sunday eucharistic lectionary prevents us from comprehending its overall structure and discerning its deeper themes. We read from John each year during Lent, often during the season after Epiphany, on the Sundays of Easter, and this year, Mark’s year, we will hear a series of readings from John 6—the discourse on the Bread of Life. Our reading today comes from chapter 12 which is a transitional chapter. So far in the gospel, we have been introduced to Jesus’ public ministry of healing and conflict with the religious elite of Palestinian Judaism. He also has a series of encounters with individuals like Nicodemus to which we alluded last week, and the Samaritan woman. Beginning with chapter 13, there’s a very different focus. The scenes are first of the last supper and then of Jesus’ arrest, trial, and crucifixion, and finally, of course, his resurrection and appearances to the disciples.

So what we have before us today is the end, perhaps the climax of Jesus’ public ministry. It occurs just after Jesus’ triumphal entry, in the runup to the Passover, which is the festival mentioned in the beginning of today’s gospel. Some Greeks come to Jesus’ disciples Philip and Andrew, and ask “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” This is one of those details from John that I find endlessly fascinating. Philip and Andrew both appear in chapter 1, as disciples called by Jesus. Their names are both Greek in origin, as well. While Jesus told Andrew when Andrew asked him where he was staying, “Come and see,” now it is others, Greeks, who want to see Jesus.

Just as in chapter 3 and the encounter with Nicodemus, it’s not quite clear from this text that the Greeks actually do see Jesus or are present for Jesus’ words. Now there’s a great deal that could be said about Jesus’ statements here, a great deal about what they tell us about the gospel’s overarching themes and how it relates to the other three gospels, but I don’t have time for any of that. Instead, I would like to focus the rest of our time on a single verse: “And I, when I am lifted up, will draw all people to myself.” 

This is the heart of John’s gospel, the heart of Jesus’ ministry and person. In the cross, we see Jesus, in the cross, on the cross, Jesus draws us and the whole world to himself. In the cross, on the cross, we see God’s love for us.

Did the Greeks see Jesus? In the gospel of John, “seeing” is a prelude to faith, at most, it is an inadequate, partial faith. It is a first step, an entrance and first exposure to the abundant life that is offered through relationship with and in Jesus Christ.

I see myself, I see us and hear us in the Greeks’ plea, “Sir, we would see Jesus.” Separated from each other and from the body of Christ, encountering one another only virtually, seeing, experiencing Christ through the mediation of technology with all of its noise and frustration, we would see Jesus. We long to see Jesus. We struggle to make sense of the devastation of the pandemic, the deaths of 530,000 Americans. We struggle to make sense of the deep divisions in our nation and community, the violence that erupts from and deepens those divisions. We struggle to make sense of the pain experienced by people of color, by African-Americans, Asian-Americans, the deep racism that pervades our society. The heart of our nation is breaking; the heart of American Christianity is breaking.

We would see Jesus. Jesus, lifted high on the cross, the victim of imperial violence and oppression, the victor over hate and oppression. We would see Jesus, but our eyes are blinded by tears, and by our own insensitivity to our participation in the oppressive and violent systems in which we live and from which we profit.

We would see Jesus but our own blindness and self-interest clouds our vision. Nonetheless, Jesus, lifted high on the cross, draws all people to himself. His outstretched arms beckon to us, invite us in, welcome us

May we see Jesus and may his love heal our hearts and our vision, that we can see our fellow human beings with love, lament and repent our sins, and create the beloved community to which we are called and in which all can flourish.