John 12:20-33
Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.
“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.
Do you remember way back at the very beginning of John’s Gospel when Mary came up to Jesus at the Wedding in Cana and told her son to fix the “out of wine” situation? In that moment Jesus told his mom, “My hour has NOT yet come.” (Then of course he turned water into wine because not even Jesus tells his mom “no”.) Well, here we are, three years later in Jesus’ ministry and it turns out that now… NOW, is when Jesus’ hour HAS actually come.
This was the moment. The “judgement” of the world. Not a guilty or innocent kind of judgement. Not a who’s in and who’s out sort of judgement. But the kind of judgement that comes from the Greek word “krisis” which is where we get our word, you guessed it, crisis. This was a crisis for the world. The moment the world would completely change. That change would create an opportunity for everyone to walk out of the darkness and become the light... to go from death into life. That change would also create an opportunity to bring down the powerful and lift up the lowly… to fill the hungry with good things… to scatter the proud… and send the rich away empty. This was the time that outsiders would be turned into insiders… the time for the world to return to what God created it to be.
The “Judgement” that the world was going to return to the way God created it to be sounded GREAT to some, but sounded like a horrible crisis to others. People threatened with the loss of power back then, were just like people threatened with the loss of power today... and they would do ANYTHING for things not to change. Greeks included as equal to Jews? Women to have control of their own bodies? People of all sexual and gender identities being brought from the outside to the inside? Borders opened for brown people? Widows and orphans set on their own two feet? Debt forgiven? That much change to the way things have always been is dangerous! An opportunity for those who had been forgotten, sure, but dangerous for those who have always been in charge.
Jesus, of course, was the very center of this moment; this opportunity for the lowly and forgotten and this mortal danger for the rich and proud. This moment was THE moment to which everything in John’s Gospel had pointed and this moment, the moment of opportunity and crisis, was inextricably woven into the moment of his death and resurrection. That would be the moment the world would be turned upside down… the moment death ceased to have the last word… the moment of infinite opportunity for some and the moment of terrible crisis for others. THIS was the moment.
But this moment would not just be a one and done thing. This moment would then ripple out from there in infinite waves impacting every time and every place from that moment on into eternity. For those of you who are deeply into Greek grammar… and who among us isn’t, really? There’s a special Greek verb tense used here that indicates that an action in the past is still affecting the present and will continue to affect the future… forever. It’s called the Perfect Tense. So THAT moment was to be THE PERFECT moment in which God turned the world upside down, but like the perfect moment of a stone being dropped into an infinitely large pond. The ripples from that moment would continue to change the world… to change us… even here… even today. Today, right here and right now, the changes that began in that moment way back then continue to wash into each of our moments like waves upon a beach. And just like waves upon a beach, to some they feel like gentle, healing ripples, while to others they feel like world ending tidal waves.
ALL OF THAT crisis and opportunity is what those Greeks walked into all those years ago. They knew the dangers of seeing Jesus… the earth shaker, the world changer. They knew who Jesus was making uncomfortable and angry. But as outsiders they also knew that in Jesus they had the opportunity to be transformed… to be lifted up to be Children of God… to be accepted unconditionally into a community of faith… to be wrapped up in God’s love and surrounded with God's peace... a peace which passes all understanding… to not just walk in God’s light but to become part of God’s light that shines into the world's darkness.
Those same ripples, from that same moment, are here today, lapping up onto this very moment and they ask us the same question they asked the Greeks. Will you join with Jesus in this moment… will you join with the earth shaker, the tidal wave maker, the God’s Kingdom bringer and continue to transform the world? Will you join with the One who says, “when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw ALL people to myself” and insist, along with Jesus, that ALL really does mean ALL and that a few or even a bunch just isn’t enough and that only ALL people and ALL of creation will do?
Because THAT is Christianity! Joining with Jesus to change the world into a world ruled by radically inclusive love and unlimited compassion, and working on that project endlessly, incessantly, interminably, on and on, tirelessly, perpetually, relentlessly, like the waves of the ocean work on thousand foot high cliffs of stone. THAT is what those Greeks came to see Jesus about that day. May we too have the courage of those Greeks to want to see Jesus. Amen.
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