"Sir, We Would Like to See Jesus"
Have we as a church and as individuals been able to introduce Christ through our lives to those around us and let them encounter Jesus?
We, as Christians and disciples of Christ, are confronted with a world that is eager to see Jesus, to know him. Writers, poets, artists, painters and other such people in India have expressed a fascination for Christ.
The Crucified Christ was one among the many motifs in the works of the Bengal school of painters. Vallathol Narayana Menon, K. P. Appan and many other artists and literary figures in Kerala have also expressed much interest in knowing Christ and articulating their understanding of Christ.
The Greeks who had evinced keen interest in knowing Jesus Christ were not ordinary mortals but people with a rich intellectual and philosophical legacy. Surely, what is evident here is a deep and enduring intellectual pursuit to know Christ.
How successful have we been in introducing Christ to the wider sections of the population in India? Missionaries, as part of their effort to introduce Christ and his gospel message to the people of the country, established schools, colleges, hospitals and other such institutions that brought liberation and succour to both the elite and the down-trodden in the Indian society.
Mahatma Gandhi was one of those who caught a glimpse of the truth embodied in Jesus Christ. He certainly integrated that into the strategy he developed, of Satyagraha and Ahimsa, as part of the struggle for independence from the British empire.
Christian higher educational institutions shaped many of our national leaders, profoundly influencing their thinking through the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is this reality that prompted M. M. Thomas, ecumenist and theologian, to write his book titled The Acknowledged Christ of the Indian Renaissance.
Through missionaries, Indian intellectuals encountered Christ and were transformed; simultaneously, the chains of oppression binding the downtrodden were broken.
Gandhi was forthright in reminding the missionaries of his time: “Oh, I don’t reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It is just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ.” On another occasion, he observed: “I’d be a Christian if it were not for the Christians.”
Millions have been prevented from seeing Jesus Christ, obfuscated by Christianity. Gandhi’s principle insists: ‘You must be the change you wish to see in the world.’ This is the challenge before us.
Have we as a church and as individuals been able to introduce Christ through our lives to those around us and let them encounter Jesus? As we enter into our secular vocations in different spheres of life in the world, we should realise that we are called to introduce Christ and his gospel of Love to our brothers and sisters.
Have we succeeded in providing a true representation of Christ? We project Jesus as the cult deity of Christians, who would bring success and prosperity to his devotees. Jesus is represented to the world as a miracle worker, a source of power that would bring instantaneous relief from distress and gratification of one’s selfish goals in life.
It would be more revealing if we tried to understand the context in which the Greeks approached Andrew with the request to see Jesus. We find the story of raising Lazarus to life in John Ch. 11, as the pinnacle of his life-giving, healing and liberating work.
But it suddenly made the chief priests and legal experts angry and they decided to do away with him. They came to the conclusion, which was stated in the words of Caiaphas, the Chief Priest: “It is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” (Jn 11: 50)
On the one hand, there was a large mass of people thronging to Jesus, not only “because of him but also to see Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead”. (Jn. 12:9) Jesus was successful in capturing the imagination of the people; he was recognised as the one who would bring liberation from foreign rule.
The Jewish people and his own family members wanted him to go to Jerusalem and proclaim himself the king of the Jews. We find in John 12, the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, an event where “many people, because they had heard that he had performed this sign, went out to meet him” (Jn. 12: 17 & 18).
What attracted the mass of people were the signs and wonders performed by Christ. His family members wanted him to go public with his claims and announce his kingship by acts of power and might. He invited their wrath because he refused to do it. (Jn. 7: 3-5)
But, on the other hand, the religious leadership in Judea was determined to do away with Jesus and also Lazarus. We read: “After this, Jesus went around in Galilee. He did not want to go about in Judea because the Jewish leaders there were looking for a way to kill him”. (Jn. 7: 1-2)
Jesus was caught between a credulous public who wanted him to be a miracle worker, a political messiah, and a religious leadership that was determined to do away with him.
All this while, Jesus was talking to his disciples and those who had followed him about the nature and purpose of his mission, and how he was going to accomplish it on the cross. Jesus told the crowd: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
For many of his disciples this was “hard teaching” and unacceptable. (Jn. 6:60) “From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” (Jn. 6:66) “Then said Jesus unto the twelve, ‘Will you also go away?’” (Jn. 6:67)
It was in this moment of extreme loneliness, frustration and imminent threat to his life, that Jesus retreated and pondered over the nature of his mission and how to accomplish it. It was then that the Greeks turned up with the request, “We would like to see Jesus.”
It was too much for Philip alone, so he told this to Andrew. Andrew always found himself playing a mediatory role. Both of them went to Jesus and told him about the visitors from Greece.
Jesus had nothing much to offer them, as they also might have been expecting a miracle worker. Hence, in response, Jesus used the occasion to announce the true nature of his mission:
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world, will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be.” (Jn. 12: 23-26)
He proclaims his life mission as one of dying to give life, the way of the cross. “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die. (Jn. 12: 32-33).
Jesus uses the metaphor of wheat to describe himself and his mission. The seed must die before it can grow into a wheat stalk, producing many more seeds and then made into bread.
And anyone who wants to serve Jesus must hate their life in this world (v. 25); in other words, die to self and live for God’s concern, for God’s creation.
We, as his followers, can show Jesus to the world only by following Jesus’ style of life of dying to give life. It is the way of love, the way of taking responsibility for our fellow human beings and the earth.
It is not the way of turning stones into bread, but one that would turn one’s own flesh into bread for others. Jesus told the Jews who had been seeking a sign from heaven so that they would believe in him, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven, …the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (Jn. 6:51)
The gift that God gives to us in Jesus Christ is God’s own self; Jesus once said, “Greater love has no one than this; to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (Jn. 15:13)
Jesus and his cross bear witness to God’s love; it is the way of dying to give life, it is the way of solidarity with those who are excluded; it is the way of self-emptying; it is the way of loving the unloved; it is the way of searching after the lost, the least, and the last.
Jesus gave us a new commandment that we should love another even as Christ has loved us. Then he concluded, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another”. This is how we should let others see Jesus Christ.
Are we miracle seekers? Know that it is not the way of the cross. Are we here to satisfy our intellectual curiosity like the Greek men who came to see Jesus?
Are we ready to die with him so that we may embody in our lives the life of Christ that others may see Christ in us? We are called to mediate and introduce Christ to a world which is badly in need of him and his gospel. As Philip and Andrew did, let us help the world to know Jesus and enthrone him as Lord of their life, so that they may experience the abundance of life in him.
Let us rise up to this task by submitting our lives to him, allowing ourselves to die so that we would produce plentiful harvest for our Lord. Amen.