And there came certain Greeks;…the same came therefore to Philip … saying, Sir, we would see Jesus
The incident and its significance
These Greeks belonged to those numerous Gentiles who, like the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:1-40) had embraced Judaism and came to Jerusalem to keep its festivals.
They must be carefully distinguished from the Jews (Hellenists) speaking the Greek language, who dwelt in heathen lands. The spacious court of the Gentiles was devoted to these proselytes according to the words of Solomon (1 Kings 8:41-43). If these strangers witnessed the entry of Jesus, and were present at the expulsion of the sellers--an act by which Jesus restored to its proper use the only part of the sanctuary open to them--we can all the better appreciate their desire for nearer acquaintance with such a person. Assuredly they did not, like Zacchaeus, want merely to see Jesus with their bodily eyes; for such a purpose there was no need of Philip’s intervention, since they might have seen Him as He passed through the court. Besides, the solemnity of our Lord’s reply obliges us to attribute a more serious intention to this step. What they desired was to have a private conversation on religious subjects. How do we know even whether, having witnessed the opposition He encountered from the rulers of His own nation, they did not desire to invite Him to turn to the Gentiles who would better appreciate such a sage than these bigoted Jews? Eusebius has preserved the memory of an embassy sent to Jesus by Abgarus, king of Edessa, in Syria, to invite Him to take up His abode with Him, and to promise Him such a royal welcome as should compensate Him for the obstinacy with which the Jews rejected Him. This fact is not without resemblance to the one in the text, and in which we behold, in one of the first demonstrations of the heathen world in favour of the Gospel, the first indication of that attraction which its moral beauty was soon to exercise over the whole human race. Jesus was undoubtedly, at the time, in the court of the women, which was entered after crossing that of the Gentiles, and in which He frequently taught. The term “approached” has a certain tone of gravity and solemnity. The address, “Sir,” shows the respect they felt for the disciple of such a Master. “They desired,” expresses an action begun and awaiting its completion, the answer of Philip. Θέλομεν--“We have decided to … ”; procure us therefore the means--“to see.” These strangers used the most modest expression: to see Him more closely. The fact that Philip was of Bethsaida may serve to explain why they applied to him. They came perhaps from Decapolis on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, where were several entirely Greek cities. It is remarkable that Philip and Andrew are alone those whose names were of Greek origin. The Greek name went hand in hand with the Greek culture, Mark the cautious character of Philip. He feels the gravity of the step he is asked to take, and before asking Jesus to deviate from His habitual conduct (Matthew 15:24) brings the matter before Andrew, who in all the catalogues of the apostles is placed next to Philip, and are mentioned together in Chapter s 1 and 6. It is probable that the latter, the more vigorous and decided character, was the spokesman, and that this is the reason why his name is placed first. Why did this circumstance make so profound an impression on Jesus? First it aroused within Him the feeling of His sovereignty over the Gentile world. Religious wants expressed by Gentiles and to Him! It is, as it were, the first bursting forth of a new world. But this sovereignty could only be realized so far as He should Himself be freed from His Jewish covering and raised to a new form of existence. Hence His thoughts turned to Calvary. Hence, instead of answering yes or no to the question, He was absorbed in the reflections it called forth, The Gentiles were knocking at the door of the kingdom of God: it was the signal that a decisive hour had come
(1) For Himself (verses 23-30);
(2) For the human race (verses 31-33);
(3) Especially for Israel (verses 34-36). (F. Godet, D. D.)
Seeing Christ
It is one of the many curious things that assure us that the Gospels themselves are substantially fragments out of the real life and times of Jesus Christ, that these men should be Greeks, at that time probably the most inquisitive and newsy race on earth. They had come, I presume, from Corinth or Ephesus; and, when they went back home, the first question would be, “What’s the news?” Now, the news was Jesus. He was just then the common subject of discussion; and it would be a great thing for them, when they got home, to say, “We have seen Jesus, and talked with Him.” And the answer of Christ, though it seems at the first glance to be no answer at all, touches the very heart of all such question and answer, and is, beside that, a beautiful instance of the rich, transcendental nature of this Son of God: “Except a corn of wheat,” etc. As if He would say, “These men want to see Me. What can they gain by that? What they will see is not Me. The root is not the flower. This common, footsore man, with this poor brown face, so thin and worn that men think I may be nearly fifty, while I am but thirty--what can I be to men whose ideal is Apollo? My simple words about God and man, and duty and destiny, would be foolishness to them. Let them wait until the world burns with the lustre of what is sprung out of Me. When I have whispered my comfort and confidence to millions of desolate souls; when I have created new homes for purity and peace to dwell in, and brought men and women and children back to the Divine will; when the love and truth and self-sacrifice of which God has made me, though I seem but a poor peasant, shall have done what all the genius of all the ages has failed to do; when I have hushed the fevered heart of the world to rest, and quickened it into a new life--then they can see Me. But I must die to live.” (R. Collyer, D. D.)
The two Epiphanies
There were two manifestations of our Lord to the Gentiles. One took place at the beginning and the other at the close of His life. The Magi, the wise men of the East, came to the cradle of Jesus; the Greeks, the wise men of the West, came to His cross. The old world of the East, with its exhausted history and completed revelation, came to the cradle of the Child of Promise to receive a fresh impulse, to share in the new creation of God and rejuvenescence of the world. The new world of the West with its mobile life, its ever expanding history, its glowing hopes and aspirations, came to the cross of the Redeemer that it might receive a deeper earnestness and a higher consecration. In these two Epiphanies we see harmoniously united the two great systems of pagan religion which separately were but a mere fragment of the truth, and contained no hope or promise of blessing for man. The Orientals had the humiliation of the Godhead as dimly shadowed forth in the Avatars of Vishnu and Buddha; the Greeks had the exaltation of manhood as shown in the apotheosis of the heroes of the Pantheon. Thus appropriately the representatives of the wisdom of the East and the West came respectively to the birth and death of Him who, though He was the equal of God, yet took on Him the form of a servant, and whom God had highly exalted, giving Him a name which is above every name. Equally significant were the symbols of the two manifestations. In both cases they were borrowed from the field of nature. The one was a star, the other a corn of wheat. The star of the wise men of the East--the watchers of the midnight heavens--was changeless as the life and religion of the East. It rose and set, and moved in its orbit forever the same. The corn of wheat of the Greeks--those restless searchers into the meaning of everything on earth--grew to more and more, and exhibited all the changes and variations of life. The one was a symbol of the night with its dreams and mysteries and spiritual thoughts; the other of the day with its stern facts and active duties and daily bread. “Sir, we would see Jesus” was but another form of the old question which the wise men asked, “Where is He that is born King of the Jews?” The wise men of the East were guided to Christ by a star, a dead silent object of nature. But the Greeks were guided to Him by the living voice and hand of man. And how characteristic was this circumstance of the difference between the Orientals and the Greeks! The Orientals shaped their philosophy and religion in the changeless desert, under the passionless starry heavens, from the calm contemplation of the objects of nature which entered so largely into their worship. The Greeks shaped their philosophy and religion amid the ever-changing haunts of man, and in contact with the busy work of everyday life. Not through the sympathy of nature, but through the fellowship of man, did they rise to their conception of man’s origin and destiny, and their solution of the profound mysteries which surround his present and future. It was fitting therefore that they should be guided to Christ, in whom all their hopes should be fulfilled, and all their mysteries solved, not by a star but by their fellow men. (H. Macmillan, D. D.)
East and West coming to Christ
This is a companion picture to the visit of the Magi--science and thought seeking Christ. The Magi, on the one side, are the representatives of the world’s godly scientists, the forerunners of the Galileos, the Keplers, the Newtons, and the Faradays, who never stop at laws but reach to their giver, “from nature rise to nature’s God;” who refuse to see the world as a stage only on which man may stand or strut, may display his energy or magnify his pride, but who see it as an “altar stair that slopes through darkness up to God,” and on which it becomes man to kneel and pray. The Greeks, on the other side, are the representatives of the world’s godly philosophers, the theistic thinkers; they are the forerunners of the Augustines, the Aquinases, the Anselms, and the Pascals--the men who rescue philosophy from being the painted priestess of pride and purify her to be the sweet handmaid of Christ. “Where is He that is born King of the Jews?” “Sir, we would see Jesus.” (G. M. Grant, B. D.)
Certain Greeks
I. THE GREEKS. Three peoples prepared for Christ’s coming and three languages waved above His cross. Jewish religion, Roman arms and government, Greek thought. The philosopher connects preacher and politician.
1. In an age far back, when thought had become enslaved in the falsified civilizations of the Nile and Euphrates, an asylum was found in Greece. For five centuries the Greeks marched at the head of humanity. All gathered round the torch of Greek genius. Meanwhile Greek language had been fashioned into the most perfect vehicle of thought ever developed. Neither Hebrew nor Latin had the copiousness or flexibility necessary to deal with a new world of spiritual realities. And this so rich and copious became all but universal. And what a marvellous intellect wielded this weapon. To them was entrusted the brilliant but sad task of demonstrating for all time the necessary failure of culture to regenerate man. The grandeur of the effort is the measure of the greatness of the failure. Their intellectual labours were those of Titans. Of this mission and failure the apostle reminds the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 1:21, etc.)
2. At the hour when the failure was most evident. When instead of being brought nearer to heaven and God man was halting between a superstition which believed everything and a scepticism which believed nothing these Greeks said, “We would see Jesus.”
3. They were proselytes, Greek correspondents of the Roman centurion, brothers of thousands in India today who are Christian theists halting at the “gate” of baptism. We can picture the processes by which they reached their position. Born where decorous belief in mythology was professed; then emancipated into a vague scepticism by the speculations and criticisms of the schools (what Western science and literature are doing in India); then plunged into dead, unproductive negation, the spirit protesting, and the longing after positive truth eventually triumphant. The Jewish scriptures reach them, and there they find at least something of that for which they yearned; a warrant for the vague belief throughout the East of the advent of some great one in Judea. The project would be started and carried out to visit Jerusalem. How disillusioned they become at the sight of its secularities. They are permitted to enter the Temple no further than the Outer Court; and how little to solemnize they see there--tables of money changers, cattle, etc. Then comes Palm Sunday, and the benign form “riding on an ass’s colt.” Who is this? Jesus. Then follows the cleansing of the Temple. They talk it over. Something more than curiosity awakes within them--a revival of those hopes which the vitiated moral atmosphere had killed. They make up their minds to seek a personal interview, which brings us to
II. THE REQUEST. On two other occasions we hear of a similar desire. Herod, “that fox “ (Luke 23:8), had his wish gratified to his condemnation--for Jesus answered him nothing; to such as he our Lord’s lips are closed. Zacchaeus (Luke 19:3) was also gratified and salvation brought to his house.
1. The request is marked by directness and simplicity, yet there is more in it than lies on the surface. In their minds a train of possibilities hung upon that “seeing.” Jesus might turn out to be a Messiah, or only a kindly enthusiast or a popular idol.
2. But there was much more in it than they knew. They occupied a representative position and spoke for a vast constituency--the devout souls of all time who cry for a Saviour.
III. ITS EFFECT. “The hour is come” must have seemed a strange outburst in such a connection; but we can trace the connection easily.
1. Christ saw in them the first fruits of the full harvest of heathen lands--the advance guard of the multitude which no man can number. All that was needful for Him to do as a teacher was now done; what remained of His regenerative mission could be done only by dying. So He goes on to discourse concerning the life efficacy of His death.
2. Christ does not appeal to the Prophets concerning His death as He does when addressing His disciples, but appeals to the secretly prophesying mystery of nature--the prophecy of a Redeeming Death which they could discern everywhere around them, and on which philosophy had long speculated, the mystery of life through death. Only by dying could His Divine energy be set free and exerted for the life of all.
3. This analogy was appropriate to the Greeks. They had sought their ideal of life, not in self-renunciation, but in beauty, strength, self-satisfaction. Their ideal Was embodied in Apollo, the very opposite of Jesus, who was “without comeliness” and whose emblem was a cross. The lesson of dying to self was what their race most lacked and therefore most needed.
4. The influence of that interview would never pass away. That grandest prayer, the voice from heaven understood according to spiritual capacity--all that would abide as an instruction and power of life forever. (G. M. Grant, B. D.)
The inquiring Greeks
I. THE LONGING TO SEE JESUS IS A MATTER OF CONSTITUTION NOT EDUCATION (John 12:20). These were not Jews, and their visit grew up out of heart want. Man’s need and God’s supply must be contemplated together. Religious experience begins in the natural seekings of our constitution, and ends in the gratification of some higher ones which are supernatural. The natural desires demand direct communion with God; but the supernatural are created by the disclosure of a possible purity, and these demand to be led to Christ as a sacrifice.
II. SPIRITUAL INQUIRY AFTER CHRIST IS SOMETIMES LITTLE MORE THAN RESTLESS CURIOSITY (John 12:21). These men could not have known just what they wanted. The soul has vague but sincere wishes for something it does not possess--“an aching void.” Partly from need and curiosity the Greeks came to ask. Fire ascending seeks the sun; we can imagine some flames so buffeted by winds as to render it consistent for them to say, “We would see the Day-God”; or some compass needles disturbed praying, “We would see the North Pole!” For these constitutional desires will not long tamely bear to be denied of their proper rest.
III. MANY MEN TAKE THE ROUNDABOUT WAY IN COMING TO JESUS (John 12:22). They prefer some intervening Philip, some mediating priesthood. But it is not the Greek name of Philip, nor the experience of Andrew, which is to be relied on for soul rest. Redemption as an individual acquisition is the only reply to the cravings within.
IV. THE MOMENT ONE SEES JESUS HE FINDS THAT HE HAS A WORD TO SAY DIRECTLY FOR HIMSELF (John 12:23). Hitherto one may have supposed his own soul to be the object of the atonement. Suddenly he perceives that the glory of God is lying behind the Cross, and it puts a new thought in his mind to learn that the work of the Son of Man was done that the Son of God might have supreme glory. But did not Christ suffer to save souls? Yes; but what was the special need that souls should be saved?
V. THE TERMS OF THE GOSPEL ARE IMPERATIVE AS TO AN ENTIRE SURRENDER OF SELF IN ORDER TO SEE JESUS (John 12:24-25). If one wants the grand hope of the gospel in conversion; to attain the full measure of consecration, to know the secret of unfailing success--it is life for life. Jesus means that we are to put our heart into our work, to deny our ease, give our time, money, etc., and sink our selfishness in devotion to Him.
VI. WHEN A SOUL HAS FOUND JESUS IT IS TO MAKE ITSELF PERFECTLY SATISFIED WITH JESUS (John 12:25). (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
What the world owes to the Greeks?
It was the Greeks who first welcomed Christianity, and there cannot be a more striking contrast than between the eagerness with which they received the truth of God manifest in the flesh, and the difficulty which even the Jewish Christians had in realizing its full significance. It was in the Greek tongue that it first addressed its Divine message to the world. It was in the cities and homes of the Greeks that it first displayed its wonderful power of assimilating and transforming all the elements of life, and manifested what it should afterwards become in human society. The gods of Hellas were the first to fall down before the ark of the Son of God; and when He died, it is touchingly said a wailing voice was heard through all the hills and forests of Greece crying, “Great Pan is dead.” It is indeed difficult to conceive what form Christianity might have assumed had not Greek faith first illustrated its saving truths; or how it would have prospered had not the Greeks of earlier days spread their language and philosophy through all lands. What the world owes to the Greeks no tongue can sufficiently tell. From them we have received the sublime poems and splendid treatises on science and philosophy which have educated all the higher minds of the human race. From them we have received the matchless sculptures, paintings, and architectural glories which have filled men’s souls with visions of ideal beauty. From them we have received the inestimable legacy of our Greek New Testament, which is the light of our feet and the lamp of our path to immortality. It is to them we owe the boon for which we should never cease to be thankful, that the sacred Scriptures passed from the calm lonely lethargic scenes of nature in the East, associated with the infancy and early youth of our race, to the busy stimulating scenes of the West, associated with its manhood; that the lofty, vague Hebrew language, the very language of the loneliness and grandeur of nature, has been translated into the quick, precise, many-mooded Greek, the very language of business and active human life; that the stately oracles of prophets living in deserts, addressing men afar off and from pedestals high above them, have become the familiar epistles, of apostles coming constantly into personal contact with the sins, sorrows, and wants of humanity. From them we have received the noble works of the early Greek fathers of the Church, Justin, Origen, Gregory, Chrysostom, Athenagoras, Basil, Cyril of Jerusalem, and John of Damascus, which have proved such invaluable helps in expounding the sacred Scriptures. From them we have received the grand liturgies, the inspiring hymns, the glorious triumph of martyrs, and the devoted lives of saints, which have stimulated the piety and fired the enthusiasm of all Christian churches ever since. The Greeks gathered together, as it were, all that was grandest and most enduring in the world, and, holding it up in their arms for the baptism of Christianity, handed it on thus purified for the blessing of all after ages. (H. Macmillan, D. D.)
The movement of Greek thought toward Christ
In the courteous but eager desire of these Greeks we hear the longing of their whole heathen world for a Redeemer. The old rites and superstitions had lost their hold on men’s minds. Jupiter, Mars, Apollo, and Venus, had all faded from the imagination of the upper classes; End the worship of these deities was left to the vulgar and ignorant, or was retained only as a matter of policy. The oracles were dumb; the altars cold and deserted; and some tried in vain to satisfy their wants by changing religion into poetry or philosophy, or sought as a last resource to fill with sensual pleasure the intolerable vacuity of their hearts. Regretful of the past, hopeless of the future, suicide was recommended as the only cure for human misery; the darkness of despair giving place to the deeper darkness of death. But even in the utter blankness of such a night, there were men of nobler instincts who could not do without religion--“Memnons waiting for the day.” They felt about for the unknown God to whom they might cry for help amid the wreck of every religious system, and the failures and uncertainties of the world around. Some of these “seekers after God,” men of the stamp of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, had wandered into Jewish synagogues, which by a providential coincidence at that time were placed in all the chief cities of the world; and there they found to their surprise, in what they had been taught to regard as an “execrable superstition,” ledges of faith and hope by which they climbed out of the profound darkness into the happy sunshine. They were irresistibly drawn to the new religion by its unity of the Godhead, its high ideal of domestic and social purity, and above all by the hope which it held out of a coming Messiah who should redress all the evils of the world, dispel its ignorance, and bring in not a cold morality, but a righteousness which should be the offspring of a burning love. Not a few of these went up as pilgrims to the annual festival at Jerusalem; and among them were the Greeks who wished to see Jesus. They expressed the longing of the whole heathen world for Him who was the light to lighten the Gentiles. (H. Macmillan, D. D.)
The desire to see Jesus
I. WHAT IS THERE TO SEE IN JESUS?
1. God manifest in the flesh. In any other aspect the Deity is an object of fear not of comfort.
2. God anxious to save the lost.
3. God rejoicing when the lost is found.
4. God receiving before He expects amendment.
5. The way of salvation through Christ’s Cross and Christ’s life.
6. God always accessible.
II. HOW ARE WE TO RECEIVE JESUS?
1. With deep penitence.
2. With hungry expectancy.
3. With a longing to do His will. (W. Birch.)
Wishing to see Jesus
These Greeks are
I. ILLUSTRATIONS OF A UNIVERSAL TRUTH--that those who live up to the light they have will be gradually led on to more.
1. They were proselytes, or at least companions of those who feared God, or they would not have been here. They had given up heathenism, and this step was, according to God’s moral government, rewarded by another. A desire came into their hearts, awakened, no doubt, by the resurrection of Lazarus, to become acquainted with Christ.
2. There are differences of opinion how people become Christians. Some say there is first a giving up of what is wrong and false, then an intermediate stage in which one feels nothing and is nothing, and then truth taking occasion by the vacuum enters the mind. Others say there is no middle state. But the true theory is, “the wind bloweth where it listeth.” In the majority of cases, however, truth comes in and expels falsehood, just as there is no parenthesis between light and darkness, but the moment that it ceases to be dark it is light, and the moment that light has begun darkness is over.
II. EXAMPLES OF A UNIVERSAL CRAVING. Theirs was the language
1. Of the whole Old Testament dispensation. The cherubim bending over the mercy seat, as if to look into the mysteries of the ark, were emblems of all the Mosaic ages. The expected Messiah, the desire of all nations, was the point to which all faces turned. “Many prophets and righteous men,” etc. As the appointed time drew on the desire was intensified. Simeon and Anna, the Magi and the Greeks, were representatives of the whole Jewish and Gentile world. And during Christ’s life, the crowds that thronged His steps bore testimony to the feeling, and Zacchaeus was probably not the only man whose pious curiosity was rewarded.
2. Of the Christian Church in regard to Christ’s Second Advent.
3. Of penitents under a sense of sin groping their way toward the light.
4. Of Christians who have lost the glimpses they once enjoyed, and are now passing under clouds.
5. Of the dying Christian passing home. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
A sight of Jesus
I. A PERSONAL OR BODILY VIEW. No reliable portrait or representation of our Lord has been handed down to us, and we have reason to believe no such portrait was ever taken. It was, no doubt, in the order of God’s providence that it should be so, or the portrait, and not the Saviour Himself, would probably have been the object of worship.
II. HISTORICAL view. We all know about the incarnation, etc., of Christ, and the other points of His human history, as recorded.
III. THEOLOGICAL view. “I and My Father are one” human, as well as Divine--hard to some to believe.
IV. BELIEVING view. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,” etc. “Look unto Him, and be ye saved.”
V. IMITATIVE view. After believing, let us go on unto perfection, imitating Christ, “doing good.”
VI. JUDICIAL view. Christ will sit on His great white throne, etc.
VII. HEAVENLY view. “There we shall see His face, and never, never sin,” etc. (L. H. Wiseman, M. A.)
A sight of Jesus
Inspiration has given us no description of the personal appearance of Jesus. God did not intend for us to worship Him through an image. We cannot tell His appearance, but we know His spirit which shone through His earthly body. We can see Him
1. IN THE ELEMENTS OF HIS CHARACTER AND LIFE. Infidels deny His divinity, but they admire His character, and present His graces for the emulation of men. His is a unique position in history, the only one in the flesh without defect.
II. IN HIS SYSTEM OF MORAL TEACHINGS. How superior to all human writings not borrowing from Him! Plato and Mohammed taught much that is good with much that is evil. His teachings are without defect.
III. IN THE GLORIOUS SCHEME OF REDEMPTION. By the Cross He graciously solves the problem which baffled the ages, how God can be just and justify the sinner. Man was doomed, but Jesus came to the rescue. The sublime philosophy lies in its supreme adaptedness to the necessities of the case.
IV. IN THE KINGDOM HE ESTABLISHED IN THE EARTH. The Jews expected a temporal kingdom, but He came not to subdue Caesar but Satan. He despised all carnal means, and used nobler methods. “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
V. IN THE EFFECTS OF HIS RELIGION ON INDIVIDUALS AND THE WORLD. Christianity is a character builder. It alone transforms men. It has blessed whatever it has touched. I lift up before you Jesus Christ and beg you to behold Him. He is God; worship with all adoration. (C. A. Stakeley.)
We would see Jesus
1. We would see Jesus, for we have heard of Him from others. One friend has told of His love, another of His wisdom, a third of His power, a fourth of His faithfulness. Does this second-hand knowledge satisfy you? Has it appeased your spiritual hunger, allayed your discontent, removed the burden of your sins? Oh, let the testimony of others lead you to His feet!
2. We would see Jesus, for we have need of Him.
(1) To release us from the burden of our sins.
(2) To enable us to overcome temptation.
(3) To take away the fear of death.
3. We would see Jesus, for He is so accessible. No barriers stand in the sinner’s path when he seeks the Saviour. His court is an open audience chamber to all. (G. A. Sowter, M. A.)
Opportunity to be used
These Greeks seem to have seized the only opportunity ever presented to them of coming to Jesus. Shall we, with many opportunities, lose them ally This one may be our last. I have sometimes in passing through a forest seen a tree here and a tree there marked with a line of white paint. What did it mean? Was it a clue to the inexperienced traveller to show him his road? Was it a boundary line between different properties? No; these paint-marked trees were dotted over the whole woods. Then I heard the woodman’s axe ringing out in the distance, and I knew that the trees were marked for destruction. The owner had decided which should fall and which should stand a while longer. And the woodman, guided by the marks, was thinning the forest with his deadly axe in obedience to his master’s word. Brethren, God’s mark may be set upon some of us, we know not upon whom. Oh, trifle not then with your opportunities! Lay hold on them ere they pass away. Take up the language of these Greek visitors to Jerusalem, and cry out of the yearning depths of your inmost hearts, “We would see Jesus.” The request will be granted. The heavenly life-giving sight of Him will gladden your eyes, and with that vision the old cry of yearning will change to a new glad shout of hope. No longer “we would see Jesus,” but “we shall see Jesus,”--“we shall see Him as He is.” (G. A. Sowter, M. A.)
The consequences of seeing Jesus
I. REST. There are some objects so calm and restful that the very sight of them is rest. This is the chief of them.
II. PEACE. He is our peace; and to see Him is to have peace with God and conscience.
III. QUICKENING. He is our life; and the sight of Him as such puts life into us.
IV. HEALING. He is “the Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings,” and in looking to Him we have health.
V. ENLIGHTENMENT. He is the Light of the world; and to see Him as such is to have day within us.
VI. FREEDOM. He and His truth make free.
VII. STRENGTH. All power is in Him; and the sight of Him draws it out to us.
VIII. FULNESS. In Him is all fulness; and in looking we are filled. Every void disappears.
IX. GLUMNESS. We are made partakers of His joy. (H. Bonar, D. D.)
The great exhibition
Perhaps the sight-seeing instinct was never more fully developed than at present. We live in a sight-seeing age. This instinct has managed to engage the whole world as purveyor to its enjoyments in its periodical exhibitions in this and that great city. But we may profitably turn to another exhibition, not at present more attractive externally, but intrinsically far more interesting. Not works of human art and industry, but of Divine wisdom, justice, and love, are exhibited. Turn aside and see this great sight. Apply it to
I. INTELLECTUAL EXERCISES.
1. In geographical study we may see the vastness of the theatre on which Jesus’s faithfulness performs its promises. His wisdom exerts its guidance, His love pours out its treasures, His grace fulfils its plans.
2. In botanical investigation we may see His wisdom and goodness, for He painted the colours of every flower, shaded its tints, and infused its perfume.
3. In historical research we find that personages are His agents, and events are controlled for His purposes.
4. Morals take their image from His example and their vigour from His Spirit.
II. SOCIAL DUTIES.
1. Conversation; and not only in that part which is interspersed with His name. To see Him is to check trifling, levity, garrulity. To see Him is to transform the daily salutation into a benediction; for who can make “good day” but Jesus?
2. In visiting, business, recreation, etc., He is to have the preeminence. This will make the soul’s health secure, guard against temptation, encourage righteousness.
III. RELIGIOUS OBLIGATIONS.
1. Searching the Scriptures. Of these Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, and they will be unintelligible unless we see Him. The doctrines centre in Him. In the practical parts His example is the rule, His love the motive, His blood the purifier. The promises are “Yea, and amen in Him.” His testimony is the spirit of prophecy. The ceremonies and characters are types of Him. Take Jesus out of the Bible, and you have taken the sun from the system, the seal from the body, gravitation from the universe.
2. Baptism. Take Christ away and it is an unmeaning ordinance. To see Him in it is to make it a sacrament of life, promise, and power. “Go ye therefore … Lo, I am with you,” present, pledging to save.
3. The Lord’s Supper. “This is My body,” etc.
IV. FAMILIAR PLACES.
1. The devotional closet. How cold that is without Christ; how radiant with glory when we see Jesus, having expelled all intercepting objects, thoughts, cares, etc.
2. The domestic tabernacle. If in the human family Christ is a brother, how much mere in the believing family. To see Him is to hush all domestic dissensions; to sanctify all family relations, duties, etc.
3. In the public temple. What is Christ’s Church without Him? “Where two or three,” etc.
V. RESPECTIVE CHARACTERS.
1. Two characters would gladly see Jesus.
(1) The penitent. Are you sorry for sin? then “Behold the Lamb of God,” etc.
(2) The believer who now apprehends Christ by faith waits for His full manifestation in glory, and has “a desire to be with Christ,” etc.
2. Two classes must be exhorted to see Jesus.
(1) The impenitent. Your need is absolute, and your obligation unlimited.
(2) The apostate. The Greeks reprove you. They knew not Jesus but would see Him; you know Him but forsake Him.
VI. TO IMPORTANT STAGES.
1. In discouragement.
2. In temptation.
3. In youth, manhood, and old age.
4. In the hour of death and the day of judgment. (D. Griffiths.)
Manifestations of humanity
I. ITS MORAL CRAVING (John 12:21). These Greeks wanted Jesus for their soul as
1. One who could solve their moral problems.
2. One on whom to centre their supreme love.
3. One to guide them rightly on the way of life.
II. ITS GRANDEST WORK (John 12:22).
1. To bring men to Christ is something more than to bring them
(1) To science and art. Such a ministry we disparage not, but highly prize.
(2) To a church or sect. Numbers are thus engaged. Their inspiration is sectarianism; and their efforts often immoral and pernicious.
2. To bring them to Christ is to bring them
(1) To the only infallible Physician.
(2) To the only efficient Educator.
(3) To the only qualified Redeemer.
3. To bring to Christ you must be Christlike. You may bring crowds to your church by clap-trap; you can only bring them to Christ by a life of Christly stateliness, inspiration, and influence.
III. ITS SUBLIMEST TYPE (verse 23).
1. Christ speaks with magnanimity in prospect of His death.
2. With triumph at the prospect of His glory--in His resurrection, exaltation, moral victories over all the errors, curses, miseries of the world. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Andrew: Leading others to Christ
The notices of this apostle are extremely rare, but nearly all of them exhibit Him introducing others to Christ--his brother Peter, the lad with the barley loaves, the Greeks. And this is the prime duty of all Christians; let each ask how he has discharged it. Note the qualifications
I. WE MUST OURSELVES KNOW CHRIST. This is something more than a knowledge of gospel history, of Christian doctrine. We may teach these and bring none nearer to Christ Himself. Nor is it these in union with a moral life. To know Christ is to reverence Him as our Master and to cling to Him as our Saviour. This knowledge alone will help us to make disciples and Christians.
II. WE MUST BE QUICK TO KNOW OUR FELLOW MAN. The physician can tell much of the history and condition of his patients from their very looks. Like readiness is there with the Physician of souls. This quickness depends on
1. Sympathy.
2. Self-knowledge.
III. WE MUST SPEAK FOR CHRIST. We remember this requirement in preaching. But the effort of Andrew was a type of those private ways of doing good which are open to ordinary men and women. There are difficulties in the way of private personal testimony for Christ--the reticence of etiquette and culture, the sense of the shame of the cross, constitutional sensitiveness, etc. But it is astonishing how difficulties may be smoothed before a willing mind.
IV. WE MUST LIVE FOR CHRIST. Words with which the life is inconsistent will lose all attractive power. A life that is wanting somewhat in words may yet bring blessing. The disciple’s life should be attractive. (T. Gasquoine, B. A.)
Every Christian may be useful
See that well on the mountain side--a small, rude, rocky cup full of crystal water, and that tiny rill flowing through a breach in its brim. The vessel is so diminutive that it could not contain a supply of water for a single family a single day. But, ever getting through secret channels, and ever giving by an open overflow, day and night, summer and winter, from year to year, it discharges in the aggregate a volume to which its own capacity bears no appreciable proportion. The flow from that diminutive cup might, in a drought or war, become life to all the inhabitants of a city. It is thus that a Christian, if he is full of mercy and good fruits, is a greater blessing to the world than either himself or his neighbours deem. Let no disciple of Christ either think himself excused, or permit himself to be discouraged from doing good, because his talents and opportunities are few. Your capacity is small, it is true, but if you are in Christ it is the capacity of a well. Although it does not contain much at any moment, so as to attract attention to you for your gifts, it will give forth a great deal in a lifetime, and many will be refreshed. (W. Arnot.)
A lesson to pastors and teachers
An orthodox clergyman found one Sunday on his Bible a slip of paper, placed there by some members of his congregation, on which was written, “Sir, we would see Jesus.” The pastor felt distressed, but was not offended. He set to examine himself humbly and sincerely. The result was that he made the sad but happy discovery that the people were justified in making the above request. He thereupon “went into a desert place,” and within a short time he found in his pulpit another slip of paper with the following words, “Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord.” (Pastor Funcke.)
One afternoon in the Sabbath school where a lad was asked to repeat what he had learned during the week, he said simply “Sir, we would see Jesus.” The teacher was strangely conscience smitten. He remembered that he had given excellent lessons on the Creation, the Fall, Israel in Egypt, and similar subjects, but had said little about Christ. He looked at the youth who had spoken these words, and then round on the faces of the others. And then instead of using the lesson he had prepared, he talked to the lads earnestly upon the request made so simply and opportunely. He spoke with such yearning for their souls, that the lads listened as never before; and as he spoke he felt that the Master’s presence was in their midst. The want which had unconsciously been felt was met that afternoon, and souls were gathered into the eternal harvest. (W. Baxendale.)
Congregations want to see Christ
On a lovely Sunday morning in August we arrived at Osborne. We were desirous of seeing her Majesty, but did not succeed. We only saw her house, her gardens, and her retainers. Then we went to Whippingham Church, having been told that the queen would attend divine service. But again we were disappointed. We only saw the seat the august lady was wont to occupy. The ladies and gentlemen of the court came to church, and those we saw; we even heard the court chaplain preach, but of the sovereign we saw nothing. Well this was a disappointment we could easily get over. But with me it led to a serious frame of thought. I said to myself: What if the flock committed to your care should come to church to see the King of kings, and yet through some fault of yours not get to see Him! What if you, the great King’s dependent, detain men with yourself, by your words and affairs and all sorts of important matters which yet are trifles in comparison with Jesus I May it not be that we ministers often thus disappoint our congregations. (Pastor Funcke.)