And actually, that is the theme of this entire week in all the services, in all the reflections: we want to see that Jesus. It is a simple request, but it touches the heart of the Gospel. For whoever truly wants to see Jesus, where should we look for him? We may often look for him in the intimacy of our daily lives and seek a Jesus who cares for us every day. A comforting, loving, merciful, kind—well, above all, friendly Jesus, dear Jesus.

 

Or perhaps we seek him throughout history as the judge of this world. Oh, Jesus, come and set this earth right once and for all. Make everything that is crooked straight. Everything that is askew will fall into place. Justice and peace. We can also long for and seek that Jesus—the judge, the king, the ruler. But those Greeks seek him at the feast of liberation, at the feast of the passage through darkness and death. They seek him, quite rightly, at the Passover feast. Well, they still seek him as a teacher or perhaps as the one who dares to share a Passover meal with those outsiders, with people from outside. We want to see Jesus.

 

They don’t dare approach him themselves. Perhaps that is also part of our attitude—that we do talk about Jesus but perhaps allow his words to touch us only a little, that he comes close to us. We ask each other, we ask our traditions if we want to see Jesus. Whoever truly wants to see Jesus must not seek him in power or glory, not in daily comfort, not in images of our own desires or our own needs. We must seek him as we follow him this week. In the path he wanted to take, the path he chose, the path he is now walking. And that is why Jesus does not answer with a direct yes or no; let them come. He does not answer with a word that meets their desires and their expectations. He begins immediately with words that point to his cross.

 

Miraculous words, for that is how John always writes… As if Jesus were expounding deep theology there; he probably put it more simply, but in John it sounds like this: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”

 

Well, “glorified” is a kind of code word for perishing, being crucified, dying. There’s already a whole theology, a doctrine, a concept behind it. But this is how he puts it according to this Gospel: The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. And we’re going to sit, as it were, ready to witness that. Yes, Jesus, that’s why we came. Because with the glorification of Jesus, he brings that kingdom of God; he has that solution for all our troubles; then he is truly our comfort in daily life.

 

Then he takes away mourning; death no longer reigns; everything becomes peaceful and free, and will be glorified. Yes, but not the glorification we hope for and expect. His glory is not a triumph, but a grain of wheat that falls into the earth and dies. The grain of wheat falls into the earth; you can’t even see it anymore, and there that grain of wheat actually dies, no longer visible, out of sight. The exaltation of Jesus is not a throne we hope for—the one those Greeks might hope for—but a cross. Whoever wants to see Jesus, especially this week, must look not to a path that goes upward, but to a path that goes downward.

 

Fortunately, we do know where that path ultimately leads. And it leads to a vision that Jesus has made his own and that has been the guiding principle of his life. The goal toward which he is directed. In the words of Isaiah: Arise, be enlightened, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. Perhaps those Greeks read that in the Greek translation of Isaiah—that vision speaking of a light rising upon a people walking in darkness. That light does not come like a sudden dawn; it does not simply appear as if someone were flipping a light switch and suddenly the whole world were bathed in the light of God’s glory. That light comes—as we learn this week, as we hear on Good Friday, as we experience on Holy Saturday—through the path Jesus takes. He is that light that is among them for only a short time, that light that does not overwhelm us, so that we squint because it is so bright. It is a light that invites us with an outstretched hand.

 

Isaiah speaks of nations that will come to that light. And sure enough, the Greeks have read and heard it. In John we see the first signs of this: the Greeks ask to see him. Isaiah’s prophecy begins to resonate, to echo, in the reality of this encounter. But then again, that encounter sounds so different from what those Greeks had hoped for, and perhaps also very different from what we had hoped for.

 

Wouldn’t it be wonderful, brothers and sisters, to hear stories about Jesus triumphing over his enemies, smiting everything that stands in the way of justice and peace, and in a single stroke—not over a few days, but in a single stroke—putting an end to all injustice and all violence in this world? A violent end to an era of violence. Isn’t there sometimes, somewhere within us—when you watch the news on television, when you hear about all the things that can go wrong in this world, what people can do to one another—isn’t there a tiny bit of that longing for such a rough but effective intervention in our history?

 

The other words of Isaiah speak of humiliation being reversed, of desolation being healed. And then I must add this: those words are addressed first and foremost to Israel, to the Jewish people. Where you were forsaken and hated… I will make you an everlasting glory.

 God’s promise to his people. Jesus knows those words. Jesus has made those words his own so deeply that he wanted to make Israel’s path through darkness and death his own. He wanted to represent Israel in that downfall, after which the glory of the Lord would appear, after which everything would be well.

 

Isaiah speaks of Israel’s path, and it has become the paradox of Jesus’ path. Because he makes that path his own. Where does God’s glory become visible? In the spectacle, in the heights, in the exalted, in that dawning light that moves absolutely unyieldingly through the world. It becomes visible in what is despised, rejected, and cast aside. The glory of the Lord is revealed in what the world and what we naturally reject. For even the disciples struggled with this. Indeed, a triumphant Messiah—that is whom we want to follow. That is the desire of our hearts.

 

Jesus announces that he must die. The Son of Man is glorified when he loses himself, when he surrenders to that death, when he accepts the ultimate consequences of his obedience to God. And through that, and in no other way, does he become the light that never goes out.

 

Jesus speaks in very general terms, so that it applies to us as well. Whoever loves their life loses it. Whoever goes to any lengths to survive at the expense of everything and everyone—yes, that person actually loses it. Even if you were to survive physically, you would have lost the quality, the inner value, and the dignity of your life. Whoever lets go of their life in service to this God, whoever lets go of their life in following Jesus—yes, that person will preserve it. For such a person, life retains that value and dignity. It is not a call to some kind of sacrifice, but an invitation to trust that the life we cling to, the life we see before us, the life we create, is far smaller than the life God wants to give.

 

The grain of wheat that dies bears much fruit. The path that descends opens the high heavens. The darkness that falls upon the cross is not overcome by the light through its own power, but through the simplicity of that surrender out of love. In John, this cannot be said; Jesus cannot stand there talking with his disciples without God the Father also joining the conversation. The voice from heaven is not needed to confirm Jesus’ words, but to make it clear that Jesus’ path through suffering, death, and darkness is not meaningless.

 

Even though all of humanity might be jumping and cheering together, saying, “Look, none of it has come true.” This pretender, this false messiah, this pseudo-leader of the Jewish people—he’s simply going to be lost to history. John puts it this way: the Father glorifies his name in the way of the Son. What we think of that way of the Son, what we think of Grie…

Ken at a party and Jesus being crucified—in the end, that doesn’t matter, says John. What matters is what God has done. He himself has done.

 The Father in heaven has done something. And that is irrevocable and not subject to our desires or our opinions. And the result of that intervention by God in history, in that way of Jesus, is this: now the prince of this world is cast out. Now, in principle, an end has come to the domination of evil.

 

What is not yet visible? When we leave this church again shortly, when we turn on the news, then we will know it, then we will notice it. That ruler of this world is still busy confusing us, sowing despair, distracting us from what this God, the Father of Jesus, has said. But Jesus says it now. In his suffering, in his death on the cross, that prince of this world is cast out. He is rendered irrelevant. He can still stir up trouble, he can still incite violence in people, he can still deliver a newspaper that gives us headaches and nightmares, but he has been cast out. That is to say, in principle, that new age has already dawned. Not through violence, not through a spectacular display of power by Jesus, but quite simply through a love that gives itself.

 

Who can understand that? That simple act of love—Jesus remaining obedient to his love for God, Jesus accepting the path of darkness out of love for humanity—that gesture 2,000 years ago, a footnote, a margin in history. It changes everything. That love that gives itself proves more powerful than all the violence in this world. A light comes into the darkness that can no longer be extinguished.

 

That is why Isaiah says it. That is why Isaiah can already speak of it. The sun will no longer set. For the Lord himself will be our light. In Jesus we see that light. Not as a radiant glow, but as a human being who gives himself to the utmost. He is the light that is still with us for a little while, the text says there, the light that invites us to walk while it is still day. And when he hides himself, that light continues to burn within us as a promise that darkness does not have the last word.

 

But that is how it plays out in our own lives as well. Darkness in our lives, the shadow of death in our lives. We have heard it and we hear it often: people passing away, the life journey of someone we love, who is close to us, coming to an end just like that. We talk about the circumstances and how it happened and what it does to those left behind. We measure that darkness fully, we almost extend it in that way. Then comes the Gospel, which says: but take heart, stand in that light that has already dawned, and in due time accept the promise that that darkness—however real, however painful, and however deeply it may burn within us—does not have the last word. Then we lack all strength to resist it. That is the promise of Isaiah and the promise of the Gospel: darkness does not have the last word.

 

The final word tonight. Do we share the same longing and the same yearning as those Greeks who so desperately wanted to see him? We seek him; we want to see him. Come closer, teach us to recognize you in others, in the path you walk with us, in the circumstances of life. Reveal yourself to us; we seek him.

 

And the only answer we receive does not come from him, but from Andrew and Philip, from Paul, from Menno Simons, from one another, here in this congregation. We pass it on to one another. Those words that Jesus spoke, or almost spoke, intended—we pass those words on to one another. And in doing so, we pass on to one another that promise of the light that can overcome darkness without violence.

 

He points to a path of life that is by no means self-evident. But whoever follows him, whoever wishes to follow him, walks in the light that Isaiah saw and that Jesus sought to embody. A light that is gentle, inviting, yet stronger than the darkness and the night.

 

To him be the honor and the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.