We Wish to See Jesus

John 12:20-26

This morning we will worship by observing the Lord’s Supper. In our communion service we will be remembering the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. My desire for you is that this remembrance will not be just a meaningless ritual but that it would truly be a time of worship that expresses your deep love and commitment to Christ. I would hope that through the elements of the bread and the cup, you would see Jesus and that it will serve to remind you what is most important in life.

And what is that? The most important thing in our life, in light of Jesus’ death and resurrection, should be living for Him, the one who loved us and gave Himself for us. In other words, the most important thing in our lives should be serving Christ and following Christ. Nothing is more important than knowing Christ and following Him. Christ is more important than our comfort, our possessions, our accomplishments, our family, even our very lives.

This truth is highlighted for us in the passage that we are studying today. We are in the Gospel of John chapter 12. It is the week of the Passover. Jesus had ridden a donkey into Jerusalem while multitudes of Jewish pilgrims waved palm branches and cried out (John 12:13), “Hosanna! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’ The King of Israel!”

This very public entrance by Christ recorded for us in John 12:12-19 was no accident. Jesus arranged to enter into Jerusalem with this kind of fanfare. By doing so He purposely pushed the Jewish religious leaders to the point of desperation. John 12:19 tells us, “The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, “You see that you are accomplishing nothing. Look, the world has gone after Him!”” The Pharisees were clearly frustrated. All of their efforts to subdue Christ’s growing popularity were failing. They were already plotting to put Jesus to death (John 11:53). This event just served to speed up their timetable. So in fulfillment of scripture in obedience to the Father Jesus must be glorified by dying during the Passover as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

This brings us to our passage today, John 12:20-26:

20 Now there were certain Greeks among those who came up to worship at the feast. 21 Then they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” 22 Philip came and told Andrew, and in turn Andrew and Philip told Jesus.

23 But Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. 24 Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. 25 He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.

This text answers two questions for us. First, how do we see Jesus and His glory? And second, what difference will seeing Jesus and His glory make in our lives?

The Greeks come to see Jesus (John 12:20-22)

Notice the powerful transition that John makes for us here. In John 12:19 the exasperated Pharisees exclaim, “Look, the world has gone after Him!” And immediately the world comes to Jesus even through some Gentiles who want to see Jesus.

We are not told the background of these certain Greeks. They may have been Greek converts to Judaism. They may have been Greek God-fearers, those who had great respect for Judaism but didn’t fully convert and become circumcised. Just like the Jewish pilgrims they are there to worship at the feast. John 12:21 says, “Then they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”” This may not seem to be a very significant request, but it was. These Greeks were on the fringes of Jewish religion. Unless they had been circumcised as full converts they were excluded from the inner courts of the temple on penalty of death. For Jesus to take the time to meet with them would have been very unusual since Jesus ministry so far was almost entirely, with only a few exceptions, to Jews.

These Greeks had heard of Jesus, perhaps of His reputation as a teacher and worker of miracles. What they did know of Jesus made them want to know more about Him, so they came to Philip asking to see Jesus. Why Philip? It could be because he was the disciple with a very Greek name. John also points out that Philip was from Bethsaida of Galilee, an area very close to Gentile territory.

So, how did Philip respond? Philip may not have been sure how to handle this request, and so he came and told Andrew (John 12:22). The two of them then must have pressed their way through the crowd, back to our Lord’s side. I can see Andrew and Philip standing by our Lord as He taught, and at an opportune moment, getting Jesus’ attention and then whispering in His ear, “There are some Greeks here who would like to talk with you.”

I’m not sure what Philip thought Jesus would do, but I am fairly confident that what Jesus did was not on the list of what Philip might expect from Jesus. Jesus doesn’t say anything about the Greeks. In fact, they kind of drop out of the story at this point.

The hour has come (John 12:23)

How did Jesus respond? He responded to this request as if He had been waiting for it. John 12:23, “But Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified.”

This request from these God-fearing Greeks was the trigger for Christ to communicate more specifically to His disciples about His glorification. Jesus sees this request as a pivotal point in His ministry. As I showed last time, up to this point, there has been a repeated theme in John’s Gospel that Jesus’ hour or time had not yet come. (John 2:4; 7:6, 8, 30; 8:20). But now, in response to the request of these Greeks to see Him, Jesus announces (John 12:23), “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified.” Why? What was the significance of these Greeks and their desire to see Jesus? The answer is that Jesus knew that very shortly the wall that kept these Greeks from being fully and totally accepted into the community God’s people was shortly going to be torn down at the cross. These Greeks signaled a turning point in which the Jewish people have rejected Jesus as their Savior and that would result in the gospel going out to the Gentiles as well as the Jews. Salvation in Jesus would soon be proclaimed to the whole world. John wants us to see that the Jews’ rejection of Jesus did not thwart God’s plan of salvation; rather, it means good news for the world (Rom. 11:15).

What did Jesus mean when He said, “the Son of Man should be glorified”? If you were to ask the disciples at that moment what Jesus meant when He told them that He was about to be glorified, they probably would have thought He was telling them that He was about to set up His earthly kingdom. Hadn’t Jesus just encouraged the crowds as they proclaimed Him to be “The King of Israel” (John 12:13).

But the verses that follow make it clear that this is not what Jesus was saying. Rather He was referring to the cross. In John 12:24, Jesus immediately begins to teach about His death. He says, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.” Jesus is the grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies.

In John 12:27 Jesus says “Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour.” Jesus says His soul is in anguish about that hour. It is the hour of His death on the cross. But it is because of His death on the cross that He is glorified. In John 12:28 Jesus prays “Father, glorify Your name.” Then the Father answers from heaven, saying, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.” Jesus glorified the Father and the Father glorified Jesus through the cross. Jesus would go on to say in John 12:32 “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all [peoples] to Myself.” And John instructs us in John 12:33 “This He said, signifying by what death He would die.”

Jesus would die by being lifted up from the earth on a cruel Roman cross. How could something so shameful as dying on a cross be in the mind of God so glorious?

Christ is glorified on the cross (John 12:24)

Jesus uses an analogy from agriculture in John 12:24. A grain of wheat by itself, sitting on the shelf, remains alone. But if it falls into the ground and that outer shell “dies,” the life inside is released and produces a plant containing many grains of wheat. Listen, if the Son of God had come to earth; lived among us as a perfect man; taught us the ways of God; performed signs and wonders proving who He was; and then left earth to go back to heaven, He would have gone alone. He would have been the only human being in heaven because He is the only sinless man. When the rest of us died we would all have perished, separated from the presence of the Holy God forever in hell.

Unless Jesus died for us, we are all hopelessly lost. That’s how important the cross is. Our salvation, our eternal life, depends on the death of Jesus Christ.

Christ is glorified on the cross because:

There God judged sin when His wrath was poured out on Jesus. In John 12:31 Jesus says about His coming death on the cross, “Now is the judgment of this world…”
There He triumphs over Satan to win a world of people. John 12:31 continues, “now the ruler of this world will be cast out.”
There He draws all peoples to Himself. Through Jesus’ finished work on the cross, His resurrection from the grave, and His ascension back to God’s glorious right hand, He accomplished the salvation of all peoples, “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself,” (John 12:32).
There He produces much fruit. “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain,” (John 12:24). If Jesus skips the cross, if He does not die, He remains alone. There is no salvation. But, since Jesus endured the cross dying in our place He brings forth much fruit. And you are that fruit if you have believed in Jesus. Just as millions of grains of wheat come from the death of one grain so the salvation of the nations comes from the death of the only Son of God. Eternal life depends on the death of Jesus Christ.

The death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus didn’t just show us something, they secured something. The cross means that Jesus did everything necessary for our salvation. He paid in full the debt that we owe. He satisfied God’s righteous judgment against our sins. As Jesus said (John 6:39), “This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.” He did not shed His blood in vain, hoping that some might be saved. He shed His blood to save all whom the Father had given Him. The glorious work of Jesus Christ on your behalf secures your salvation.

So the cross reveals Jesus’ glory by having all people come to Him alone for salvation. There is no salvation, no eternal life, outside of faith in Jesus’ death for our sins.

That is why we come to the Lord’s Table today. Because as Paul writes (1 Cor. 11:26), “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.” We proclaim the Lord’s death. We proclaim that His death is necessary for our salvation because we are sinners. His death is sufficient for salvation because He is the sinless Lamb of God. The heart of the gospel is this, “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3). The salvation of sinners did not come through Christ’s birth, nor His teachings, nor His miracles, nor His example. It came through His death on the cross.

The cross reveals Jesus’ glory. As we come to the Lord’s Table ask God to open your eyes to see Jesus, to see the glory of Christ and Him crucified! The cross of our Lord puts everything else in its proper perspective. There is no better way to see things clearly than from the vantage point of the cross. Meditate often on the cross. It will humble your selfish pride, which is your biggest obstacle to loving God and loving others. It will stir your heart with love and worship for the Savior, who gave Himself for you when you were a sinful rebel. It will give you compassion and hope for the lost, who can be saved by looking in faith to Jesus as the substitute for their sins. And, as we’ll see next time in John 12:25-26, seeing Jesus’ glory in the cross will transform you so you will become more like your Lord.