We Wish to See Jesus
November 19, 2023
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
Scripture Reading
John 12:20-43
20 Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. 21 So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” 22 Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. 23 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.
27 “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” 29 The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” 30 Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33 He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die. 34 So the crowd answered him, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?” 35 So Jesus said to them, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. 36 While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”
When Jesus had said these things, he departed and hid himself from them.37 Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, 38 so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
“Lord, who has believed what he heard from us,
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
39 Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said,
40 “He has blinded their eyes
and hardened their heart,
lest they see with their eyes,
and understand with their heart, and turn,
and I would heal them.”
41 Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him.42 Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; 43 for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.
In the last verse of last week’s passage, we read of the religious leader’s complaint: “Look,” they say, “the world has gone after [Jesus].” They don’t want that. They want the world to stay with them. At first their comment could feel like the type of exaggeration we all do when we complain. “Look, this traffic jam is the worst,” we say. None of us have probably ever been in the worst traffic jam. But we say that.
And they complain, “Look, the world has gone after [Jesus].” That feels too over the top, but John, the author of the book, plays on their words, and in the very first verse of our passage we read that even the Greeks (meaning Gentiles, non-Jewish people) wish to see Jesus. And these Greeks (the world) go out of their way to see him, even though it is costly. They make a point to find the disciples and ask for an audience with Jesus.
Now, what they wish to see in Jesus—or who they understand him to be—that we’ll have to talk about. Just as we’ll have to talk about what we wish to see when we wish to see Jesus. Let’s pray as we begin to study it together.
“Dear Heavenly Father . . .”
The National Park Service is the government agency that oversees federal parks, memorials, and historic sites. And each year they release annual visitation figures, the number of people who went to see the various parks. For example, last year Shenandoah National Park had almost 1.5 million people come. I’ve been there before. And in a few days, on the way to see family, we’ll drive right alongside Shenandoah. It’s glorious. Last year, Grand Canyon National Park had 4.7 people come to see its glory. Yosemite had 3.7 people come to see the white granite wall that is El Capitan. Almost 3.3 million people saw the glory of Yellowstone National Park. Over a million people saw Sequoia National Park. Isle Royale National Park is very small. It’s an island in Lake Superior. It had only 25,000 visitors.
But not everyone who goes to these beautiful places sees something glorious. A few years ago an illustrator named Amber Share had the desire to make artistic designs of for all of the national parks. But to be more creative, she added to her poster’s terrible reviews of the national parks, and they became a meme maybe you’ve seen. They also became a book. But the reviews are just terrible, and that makes them hilarious.
I’ll show you a few of them.
Shenandoah National Park: Not a lot to offer unless you want to hike.
Grand Canyon National Park: A hole. A very, very large hole.
Yosemite National Park: The trees block the view and there are too many gray rocks.
Yellowstone National Park: Save yourself some money; boil some water at home.
Sequoia National Park: There are bugs, and they will bite you on your face.
Isle Royale National Park: No cell service and terrible wifi.
Now, those are funny, right? Here’s the question: Why are those funny? Stop and think about it for a moment. Why do we laugh at these reviews? The people who wrote them didn’t seem all that impressed. To use the words of the passage, why could they not see the glory of these national parks? Would we say the people were blind? No, they could see. But they couldn’t see, could they? I think of the review that says, “No cell service and terrible wifi.” When you hold your phone right in front of your face, it’s not that you become blind, but it does make you unable to see. And to again use the language of the passage, you can’t see the glory of God when you love the glory that comes from man. To be more specific, you can’t see the glory of the cross of Christ when you love the glory that comes from one another.
1. Jesus wants your eyes to see him.
This sermon starts with good news, though. Here is our first point: Jesus wants to be seen. Jesus wants your eyes to see him.
It might be hard to keep in your mind exactly all that happens in this passage. People come to see Jesus. And he speaks, the crowd speaks, God the Father speaks, John the narrator speaks. Isaiah, the Old Testament prophet, speaks. In a way, this passage is three shorter passages. But they hold together on theme of seeing.
Look again at a few of the verses.
20 Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. 21 So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” 22 Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. 23 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” . . . 27 “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. . . . 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” . . . 35 So Jesus said to them, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. . . . 41 Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. (12:20–23, 27, 32, 35, 41)
That’s a lot of verses. But you can see the cluster of phrases related to seeing. Greeks wish to see him. Jesus speaks of coming for this very hour, which is the hour he’s lifted up and becomes more visible. Then there are statements about light, which makes things more visible. And then we read that it can be said of Isaiah, a prophet who lived something like 700 years before Jesus, that he looked forward by faith and saw the glory of Jesus. That’s amazing. One passage all about sight.
So that’s the first point: that Jesus wants you to see him. And that’s good news. Be encouraged, church, that when you ask God to show you more of himself, you’re not praying something crazy. When you ask to see and know more of Jesus, asking to go deeper in what your eyes of faith see of Jesus, you’re not asking for something peripheral, or on the side. You’re asking something central to God’s desire, his will for your life. The people in the passage wished to see Jesus. The good news is that Jesus wishes to be seen.
2. Jesus wants your heart to understand his glory, the glory of the cross.
Here’s the next point. He wants your eyes to see him, and he wants your heart to understand his glory, specifically the glory of the cross. Jesus wants you to understand what you see when you see him. To go back to the posters, he doesn’t want you to come to him and say, “no cell service and terrible wifi” or “just a big hole . . . in the ground.” What’s so special about Jesus?
If we weren’t so accustomed to being around Christianity, when we think of glory, we would have never thought of the cross. Glory goes with victory. And victory goes with life. Glory goes with advancement, promotion, thriving, getting ahead, staying on top, and defeating others. But here in this passage, Jesus keeps connecting glory with sacrificial death. Not only can it be hard for us to understand, it is hard for them. Which is why, over and over, Jesus repeats in different words this connection between his death and glory.
Look at v. 24. Jesus speaks of his death like a grain of wheat falling to the ground.
24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
Then right after that, in the context of death, and grains of wheat falling to the ground which feels so glorious, the audible voice God the Father speaks, calling it glorious. Now, they are so blind, they equate the voice of God to thunder or an angel. This is John’s way of saying they don’t get it. It’s like they go to Yellowstone National Park and Old Faithful and think, “I’ll just save some money and boil water at home.” Nothing glorious about the death of Jesus.
We also see their confusion about linking glory and the cross in vv. 32–34.
32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33 He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die. 34 So the crowd answered him, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?”
When Jesus says, “lifted up,” they know lifted up is shorthand for execution by crucifixion. In a similar way, execution by the electric chair might just be called the chair or execution by hanging might be called getting strung up. And execution by firing squad might just be called standing against a wall. This crowd knows what Jesus means when he says lifted up. He’s spoken that way before back in chapter 3, and he’s doing it again. So they understand, but they don’t understand. They see, but they don’t see.
This connection between death and glory confuses them. They say in v. 34, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains forever.” Now this is key. They see Old Testament passages that speak of the promise of the Messiah to remain forever, to thrive, to get ahead. And those are real (cf. 2 Sam. 7:13; Ps. 61:6–7; 89:3–4, 35–37; Isa. 9:7; Dan. 7:13–14).
But if they were being more careful, they might have said, “We have heard from part of the Law that the Christ remains forever.” That would have implied that their hearts understood that there are other parts of the Old Testament that seem to speak of a defeat of the Messiah on the way to a costly victory. But they can’t see those verses. They are blind.
And that’s such a real temptation for us, isn’t is? We see the verses we like, the ones about glory and life, And we don’t see the ones we don’t like. We know “I can do all things through Christ,” but we don’t know that’s in the context of suffering in prison for Jesus. We don’t can’t see the verses about God’s purpose in our suffering and in our dying, whether literal death or the kind of death of our pride, death to our sin, death to our ability to determine our own glory. We don’t like that. We love to be lord of our lives. That’s the glory of our moment, perhaps every moment. And this leads to our last point.
3. Why don’t our eyes see Jesus and our hearts understand glory?
Why don’t our eyes see glory in the cross? The passage gives us one clear reason. Look at the end of the passage.
42 Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; 43 for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God. (12:42–43)
Now it’s feeling real, right? It’s hard to see Jesus as special, specifically to see his death as glory, when other shiny things are right in front of our faces. To paraphrase a book title, when people are big, God seems really small.
Now, John describes them as believing. He writes, “Many even of the authorities believed in him.” However, he adds, “but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it.” So what do we make of this belief? Is it real or not real? To be honest, I’m not fully sure what to make of their belief. In other words, which way is their belief trending? John says they kind of believe, but they kind of don’t believe. Which way is it trending? Are they those who are wanting to see, wanting to remove the obstacles from their face that obscure Christ’s glory? Or are they trending toward indifference? I think of the Shenandoah poster with the review that says, “Not much to do unless you want to hike.” So, do they hike, and realize it’s glorious, or do they say, “Nah, let’s go home; this is too much work to follow.” Which way is their faith trending?
It’s an interesting question. But to be candid, I’m far less concerned with them and which their faith is trending compared to my concern for you and which way your faith is trending. Are we those who are so concerned with what others think of us that we can’t see the glory of Christ? What would God write about us? “They believed in Jesus but nevertheless, on account of their love of self and the fear of their neighbors and friends and family, they did not confess Christ, because we love the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God”? I don’t want that to be said of us.
Conclusion: What happens when we do see and understand?
I’ll close with a quote from a pastor from another generation. J.C. Ryle was a pastor in London in the 1800s. Related to this passage, he said, “A believing view of an unseen God, and unseen Christ and unseen heaven, and an unseen judgement day,—this is the grand secret of overcoming the fear of man” (John, Volume 2, 150). I’ll say it again. “A believing view of an unseen God, and unseen Christ and unseen heaven, and an unseen judgement day,—this is the grand secret of overcoming the fear of man.” In other words, when God is big, people are people.
In this passage, God wants us to see a lot of good news. Look what the eyes of faith can behold.
In v. 31 we read of judgement taking place. In his death, Jesus is judging the values systems of the world as empty. And he’s casting out the rule of this world who rules by those values. That’s glorious.
In v. 26 we read Jesus say, “If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.” That’s glorious! Instead of getting fleeting honor from people, which will come and go, Jesus says you can get honor from God.
In v. 24 we read that when the grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, what happens? It bears so much fruit. That’s glorious.
In the second quote from Isaiah, from chapter 6, we read of Isaiah speaking of turning to God to see him and being healed. That’s pretty wonderful.
And most especially there of the in Christ’s sacrificial death. The quote from Isaiah comes from chapter 53 of Isaiah, which leads us to communion. Let’s pray, and I’ll read that to frame the meal.
Let’s pray, and then we’ll prepare for the Lord’s Supper.
“Dear Heavenly Father. . .”
