In our lesson for today there are some Greeks who want to see Jesus. I think that’s what we all want. Seeing Jesus is why we are here. I hope everyone here today came here because you want to see Jesus.

If we have any reason to exist as a congregation it is as a place where people can come to see Jesus. Jesus answer has some mystical stuff about seeds dying and glorification through dying. But at the heart of this story is not death but life.

The reason that I wanted to go to church as a child was because I always expected the Pastor to tell me something about Jesus that would allow me to see him. As a boy I thought I was the only one who didn’t see Jesus. I always thought everybody else knew the answer to that question. In all the churches that I ever attended I felt like there was an assumption that faith in Christ happened elsewhere and that the church was a place where the already converted came to gather to show their loyalty.

I still come here to worship and read the scriptures every week so that I might see Jesus. I think that each of us needs to keep looking at and seeing Jesus because he and we are living beings. As a preacher my job is to, with my words, bring Jesus to our awareness so that we can see him. True worship is a catalyst that changes us, transforming us into ever new people.

The gospel of John has a special meaning for the word see, which begins at the prolog about the light and continues throughout and reaches its fullness in the story of the man born blind. Simply stated vision occurs when you see God’s creation through the eyes of Jesus, because all other seeing is distorted by the lens that is Satan. The man born blind was rejected by his community when he was blind and then again later when he testified to the truth of what he saw through the eyes given to him by Jesus.

If the church has any relevancy it must be as the place where Jesus is lifted up so that he may be seen as we have historically inherited our vision from the credible first witnesses. Jesus told us that it was his being lifted up on the cross that was at the center of his strategy.

But simple seeing is not the same as believing in John’s gospel. Jesus’ miracles do nothing to convince people. Real seeing or vision occurs in only one place; in the glory of Christ’s cross. Luther said that the cross is our only theology, meaning that the cross is the most important event of history. We each need to see Jesus on his cross; we need to look at his cross but not through it. Because it doesn’t need to be figured out or explained or looked behind, it is the moment that reveals God’s love for the world. The cross and resurrection is the glory of God.

Verse 32 also tells us that when Jesus is lifted up that he will draw all people to himself. The word for draw in Greek is helko, it is a rough word, it means physically forcing someone or something to go where they do not want to go.

God’s grace is irresistible. It knocks you off your horse as it did to St. Paul. Many times people have asked me: why is it that some people believe and that others do not. There is no answer to that question, but there ought to be an answer to a similar question. “Why do you believe in Jesus?” “Why did you come here today? I am here this morning because I expect to see Jesus here. Did you come here today thinking that you would see Jesus? If there is any progress, growth or maturity in faith for me it has been learning to put myself in a place where I am most likely to see Jesus. I have learned to put myself in places where I will be exposed to his light, so that I might be able to walk without stumbling.

Jesus is dead man who is alive. The church that sees Jesus holds up a living Lord for all so see. This means that we need to see Jesus often. Last week we said that when we meet Jesus in our lives that the encounter changes us and in fact makes us a new person. That new person we have become needs to meet Jesus again, which makes a change in us again and I described that dynamic as an upward spiral of grace.

In last week’s lesson Jesus said; “Those who love their life will lose it, and those who hate their life in the world will keep it from eternity. The spiral of grace helps us to move forward, but then that person needs to die to its former self again and again so as to continually fall into the ground so that as changed people we can bear more fruit. If we do not fall into the ground we remain static. No mater how beautiful the moment we can’t keep it, we must move on, because only dead things are static.

When Jesus died on his cross and drew us to himself, he accomplished his work of demystifying the satanic dynamic that keeps the world working defectively. The death of our Lord Jesus as the innocent victim begins the end for all the satanic structures of our world. Jesus’ cross delegitimized all powers and principalities that do not come from his Father. The cross set us free to be the people of God, it lets us see Jesus. This true vision makes us new and it draws us back to his cross where this process ends and begins again endlessly.

1. Is it possible for us to see Jesus today?

2. When you see Jesus how does it change you?

3. How does loosing you life help you enter the spiral of grace?