“Sir, we would like to see Jesus”

“Sir, we would like to see Jesus” (John 12:21). These words come from the Gospel of John and it is heard from the lips of the Greek pilgrims who had come to Jerusalem for the Jewish Passover. These Greeks were among the many people, Jews as well as Gentiles, from throughout the Roman Empire who had come to Jerusalem for the celebration of the Jewish Feast of Passover. These Greeks were pagans who had converted to Judaism. They probably attended synagogue worship in their hometowns and regularly travelled to Jerusalem to celebrate the Jewish festivals. But when they come to the temple, they can only go up to the court of the Gentiles. There was a wall separating Gentile worshippers from the rest of the temple area and they could not go past it. Despite this restriction, these God-fearing Greek pilgrims wanted to see Jesus.

There is no doubt that they had heard so many good reports about Jesus, including the recent news that he had raised Lazarus from the dead at Bethany (cf. John 11:17-43). They approached Philip, probably because he was from Bethsaida, which bordered their own Gentile towns. The Decapolis (meaning Ten Cities) shared land borders with Bethsaida. Another probable reason why they approached Philip was because he was bilingual and spoke the Greek language. When Philip heard the request of the Greeks, he went to another apostle Andrew and together they went to tell Jesus.

There are two remarkable points about Philip and Andrew, which we need to bear in mind as we meditate on the request of the Greeks. First, Philip was the one who said to Jesus in John 14:8, “Lord, show us the Father and we shall be satisfied.” Jesus answered Philip, “How can I be with you for so long and you still do not know me, Philip? To have seen me is to have seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?’” (John 14:9-10). The second point is about Andrew and it is at the beginning of the Gospel of John. Andrew was one of the two disciples who were with John the Baptist, when John the Baptist saw Jesus coming towards him and pointed him out as “the Lamb of God” (John 1:35). At these words, we are told that Andrew and the other disciple of John the Baptist followed Jesus and asked him, “Master where do you live?” Jesus said to them, “Come and see!” So they went and spent the rest of the day with Jesus. Later on, Andrew went and told his brother Simon that he had found the Messiah and he brought Simon Peter to see Jesus (cf. Jn. 1:35-42).

So Philip and Andrew are two of the apostles of Jesus who have expressed interest in knowing Jesus intimately. For this reason, they are able to accompany anyone who wants to see Jesus. When the Gospels talk about seeing a person, it means to grasp a person intimately. More so, Philip and Andrew are from Bethsaida (cf. John 1:44) and they are the only two of the Twelve Apostles who have Greek names, even though they are Jews. The reason for this could be because their town of Bethsaida shared land borders with the Decapolis. As such, they were influenced by Greek culture. This is probably why the Greek pilgrims did not go directly to Jesus but were comfortable to present their request to Philip and Philip went and presented it to Andrew and both of them went and presented it to Jesus. They were the most suitable mediators to help connect the Greek pilgrims to Jesus. 

We should be certain that the desire of the Greeks to see Jesus was not a trivial curiosity to meet an important figure or a frivolous desire to meet the celebrity of the moment. They wanted to see Jesus because they wanted to meet the one who could change their lives forever. Another man who also strongly desired to see Jesus was Herod Antipas, the Roman Prefect of Galilee, but Herod’s motives were different from those of the Greeks. Herod wanted to see Jesus perform some miracles so that he could be entertained (cf. Luke 23:8). But the Greeks had a better intention. Even though the Gospel does not explicitly state it, we could be sure that they wanted to hear the words of Jesus and to ponder them in their hearts. At the time when the Greek pilgrims wanted to see Jesus, the Jewish leaders were rejecting Jesus on account of the miracles he had worked, which made many people to believe in him. Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead and on account of this many people began to believe in him. The popularity of Jesus offended the Jewish leaders and they started to plot how to arrest and kill him. But the Greek wanted to see the man that the Jewish leaders were rejecting. They were in effect saying to Philip, “Sir, we understand that the Jews are rejecting Jesus, but we want to accept him. We want to see him, we want to hear him, we want to believe in him.”

The spiritual restlessness of these Greeks is a manifestation of our own spiritual journey. We want to see Jesus. The Greeks represent all of us who have a restless longing for God, a restless yearning to meet Jesus. And when we meet Jesus we no longer remain the same. Every meeting with Jesus is a transforming spiritual encounter that changes our lives. No one comes to Jesus and remains the same. If we remain the same way it means that we have not encountered Jesus. We come to Church not because it is the convenient thing to do on a Sunday. We come to Church because we want to see Jesus. Our worship, everything we do is directed to Jesus. Our worship should lead us to Jesus. Our worship should help us to find Jesus. Our worship should impel us to bring others to Jesus. But we cannot lead others to Jesus if we ourselves do not know him. We cannot lead others to Jesus if we ourselves have not found him. We cannot lead others to Jesus if we ourselves have not encountered Jesus.

Lent tells us that the best place to meet Jesus is at the foot of the cross. To want to see Jesus is to look the way of the cross. There, under the foot of the cross is where we should all be. It is on the cross that Jesus’ true identity is revealed as our Messiah, as the Saviour of the World. On the cross, Jesus reveals God to us and he reveals us to ourselves. When we encounter Jesus at the foot of the cross we not only get to know him; we get to know ourselves better. So do we want to really see Jesus? Are we going to see Jesus because others are doing the same? Or do we have genuine reasons to want to see him? The Good News is that Jesus wants to see us too, he wants to meet with us, he wants to encounter us, he wants to find us, he wants to get to know us, our challenges, our problems, our hopes, our joys, our struggles, our pain, our anxieties, our distress and our worries. The Season of Lent is an opportune moment for us to deepen our longing for the Lord and to encounter him. We encounter him in his Word and we encounter him in the poor and the suffering. Let us ask the Lord to open our eyes and cure us of the spiritual blindness, which often prevents us from seeing him. We want to see Jesus. “Lord show us yourself and we shall be satisfied” (John 14:8).

Ojeifo is a priest of the Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja.