Many of you will know this nursery rhyme:
Pussy cat, Pussy cat where have you been? I've been to London to see the Queen.
Pussy cat, pussy Cat what did you there? I frightened a little mouse under her chair.
All the way to London, but instead of seeing the Queen in all her royal regalia, this poor cat sees only a mouse. Basically, this feline missed what it went to London to see. Now I’m sure we’ve all gone to the shop to pick up some milk and when we’ve got home we’ve done a whole heap of shopping but we still do not have any milk to put in the fridge. It is one of the things that it is so natural for us to do as human beings to get distracted from the task at hand to fail to remember or see our task.
So for us, one of the things our Gospel invites us to do is ask ourselves when it comes to looking at Jesus, what do we see? Do we see a teacher, do we see a miracle working, do we see an example of how to live our life, do we see our Saviour the one who gives us eternal life, or maybe we see him as all these and more?
But, how does Jesus want us to see him? Our story begins, by some Greeks, meaning some people who were not Jewish but who spoken the trade language of the Eastern half of the Roman Empire namely Greek, who come to Philip and request to see Jesus. I am certain that in our own Christian Journey’s we’ve at some staged prayed, or asked someone to show us Jesus and we’ve probably been asked by others in one way or another to show them Jesus.
These Greek’s approach Philip from Galilee, a person with a Greek name from a fairly strong Greek speaking area with their request, Philip though is unsure what to do so he goes and tells Andrew before they all go to Jesus. However, the response that Andrew, Philip and these Greek’s get from Jesus is probably not what any of them expected.
Jesus responded by saying that the hour has come, early in John’s Gospel we are told several times that Jesus was not arrested because his hour had not yet come. So the mysterious hour of John’s Gospel finally has come and Jesus declares that it is the hour for the Son of Man to be glorified. We so often have a trouble understanding what Glory is, we sing hymns about it and we know it is something that belongs to God but it is a hard concept.
The Bishop of Durham Tom Wright, speaks about God’s glory:
God’s Glory is “God’s overflowing, generous, creative love - God’s concern, if you like, for the flourishing and well-being of everything else. Of course, this too will redound to God’s glory because God, as the creator, is glorified when creation is flourishing and able to praise him gladly and freely. .... That is the sort of God he is, and ‘God’s righteousness’ is a way of saying, Yes, and God will be true to that character…It isn’t that God basically wants to condemn and then finds a way to rescue some from that disaster. It is that God longs to bless, to bless lavishly, and so to rescue and bless those in danger of tragedy - and therefore must curse everything that thwarts and destroys the blessing of his world and his people. [1]
So we see that for Jesus to be speaking of being Glorified is about God’s overflowing, generous, creative love for God’s creation.
So perhaps because God’s Glory is found in God’s love for creation, that Jesus starts to speak about something that is simple in creation, a seed. That unless the seed is buried and dies, that it will stay by itself, this is something we all know, we’ve all planted a seed of some form and seen it grow.
Then Jesus goes on talking about loving and hating one’s life. What does that mean and how does it fit in with Jesus' glory? The person who is fond of their life, the person who wants to live for themself, always getting their way and advantage, this person will destroy it.
Why is that? Because there is no way that you and I are smart enough; can look at all the factors and ensure that we are the winner in life. We only have to go ask some of the great super fund managers and those who were on top of the world’s markets, they have discovered all too well that what one has built for themselves can so easily be lost in a twinkling of an eye. So Jesus here is challenging directly, those who believe they can make it for themselves, in fact Jesus Challenges even the concept that there are winners in life.
If this is the case, though, then to understand the glory of Jesus, we shall have to see it in his dying. There in the cross we see his glory. He is dying to give many life. He is being lifted up on the cross, so that we can live.
That seems altogether strange, that the only way to give life is to die.
However, we need to remember that what destroys our life as well as our truly living is sin in our lives. There is no one here that can say, "I have lived my life until this moment and have done nothing wrong.” Evil in the world has affected all of us both in what we have done and the things done to us. We sometimes blame our own wrongs on those that have done wrong to us or sometimes we dismiss it as not wrong or not harming anyone, but, as God points out, life becomes a lie, and truth has left its place in us.
It is on the Cross that Jesus takes on Sin and death and it is only in his dying that we are able to see him overcome Sin and Death on Easter day.
It is there on the cross that we see Jesus' glory. He is about giving life to us, who without him are dead in sin. Jesus reveals his true nature and God’s nature of Glory, not a condemning God, but a God who has compassion beyond anything you and I have ever felt. The cross is God's great act of love towards us.
God moves toward us in the only way God can, by removing what will kill us, by removing sin from us. God removes sin through the cross, the suffering and death of Jesus. Jesus is asking his Father, to glorify his name. Jesus knows his Father has sent him, to die on the cross. Jesus does not want to be saved from the cross, a thought that totally transcends our way of behaviour.
We would escape all suffering, all blame, all taking of others burdens, if we could.
Jesus wants to show us the nature of the heart of God that is forgiving, carrying the burdens of others, giving others life.
Jesus' cross attracts all people and either it is accepted as God's glory because of the resurrection or dismissed as a worthless myth because the reality is too much to accept.
Today as we Journey through Lent towards the Cross we are called again to see Jesus as he truly is; more than we can imagine; For in Jesus, we see God’s Glory, the Glory that we are called into, all we have to do is Look, See and Follow.
May we do that. Amen.
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