The Greeks who old Philip, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus,” is a reminder behind everything we do in the church and everything we Christians attend to in the world as living witnesses to him. People want to see Jesus and we need to introduce others to him by what we say and do.

These words also remind preachers that the people have come to see Jesus and hear the gospel message. We’d better preach about him and not some abstracted, Christless, cross-less Christianity of moral therapeutic deism where the message is a feel-goo about ourselves message and that good people go to heaven. Instead, we need to preach about the reality of sin and the good news of the cross in which we experience the sacrificial love of God in Christ.

The arrival of a group of Gentiles signals the great climactic moment in the ministry of Jesus, the cross. As he gives his life for the life of the world, the world would never be the same. As Jesus is lifted up—glory! All nations stream to His light.

Like the bronze serpent Moses lift up for the Israelites to look at and be saved, Jesus says that he too will be lifted up and that all who look at him and believe in him will receive eternal life. The gospel declares that Jesus paid the penalty for our sins so that we can be forgiven. In an ironic twist, Jesus defeats Satan, not in power, but in weakness, giving a new definition and meaning to grace. The gospel declares that the cross both heals us from our sins and from those sins committed against us.

The only dark things in our lives that will judge us forever are those things we refuse to lay bare to the light of Christ and his Cross.

What does Jesus have against pigeons? The cleansing of the temple is one of the only times we see Jesus visibly angry. But why? They had missed the heart of the authentic worshiper, and the heart of God.

What happens on Sinai is a kind of vision of cosmic harmony: what it looks like when God wants to live with his people and God’s people let him!