In Nomine, etc..
“...Some Greeks...came to Philip...and said to him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus’”. And as we just heard, Philip passed it on to Andrew, who passed it on to Jesus. “Jesus answered them,” the Gospel says. It is not clear who ‘them’ are, just Philip and Andrew, or the Greeks, or all of them together. But we need not make too much of this ambiguity; it makes sense to assume that Jesus is including the Greeks in his audience. We may take it that Philip and Andrew lead the Greeks to Jesus. And that is the point of the opening of today’s reading: the Greeks, that is, the non-Jews, Gentiles, are as much in Jesus’s following as Jews are. His teaching, his work, are intended for all, and reach into Gentile territory, into the whole world.
Keep in mind where and when we are in this story. We are in Jerusalem a few days before Passover, just after Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem. This is the situation, the context, of Jesus’s teaching, right after Philip and Andrew and the Greeks approach him. Jesus has heard that the Greeks wish to see him; this gives him his starting point: the wish of Jews and Greeks to see him, and what this ‘seeing’, this encounter, will entail, both for the disciples and the Greeks. Their desire to see Jesus will have consequences, and Jesus wants to help them understand what these consequences will be, for him and for them.
Jews and Greeks are thrilled by Jesus’s triumphal entry into the city. No doubt they are looking for more triumphs, perhaps a miracle. Earlier in the chapter, before today’s reading, it is the raising of Lazarus that stimulates the crowd’s interest in Jesus. They are looking for more. But there is a lot more to ‘seeing Jesus’ than a miracle and a triumphal parade.
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” Now that sounds very promising to the crowd. The Son of Man will be glorified. The Messiah will save the chosen people from the foreign oppressor! He will be elevated like the Davidic king that he is! And probably there will be more miracles too! This is what the Greeks, and everybody else no doubt, have come to see.
Jesus deflects this kind of expectation, these hopes for a spectacular earthly kingdom; he talks about a grain of wheat dying in the ground. I can’t think of a better way of bringing wild expectations down to earth, than that. From a messianic kingdom down to a tiny grain of wheat. A comedown, to be sure.
And what does that grain of wheat do? It dies, that is, it ceases to be a grain and sprouts into a plant that “bears much fruit” as the Gospel says. This image, of dying grain to living plant, is what Jesus wants the crowd to see as a type, a symbol of the real nature of his kingdom. His kingdom does not imitate earthly kingdoms and their triumphalism, but is like the grain that is transformed into a glorious new plant bearing many more grains; we may think of this as transformed souls ready for eternal life. Jesus reinforces the point when he says “Those who love their life will lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” This may sound grim to us, but it is just a stronger way of making the same point as the grain image: when we let go of our worldly attachments (which is what “fall into the earth” means), then our liberated soul will “bear much fruit” --- that is, it will reveal its true nature, our true nature, and enter “eternal life”, that is, life as God means it to be. And eternal life, that is, life with God according to our true nature, begins in this world. It is not restricted to the next.
And it is the dark side of life in this world, the side of this world that Jesus speaks about next, whose character he reveals. This dark side attempts to restrict God and keep us in darkness. Jesus says that he must submit to this darkness, so that we can perceive it for what it is, and not be overtaken by it. And he does this by accepting the darkest experience of all, or what we perceive as dark, this side of it, the experience of death.
“Father, glorify your name,” Jesus says. “Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’” Now this may sound strange to us, this acceptance of death by Jesus associated with the glory of the name of the Father. The root meaning of ‘glory’ is ‘light’, the uncreated light of heaven, the uncreated light of the invisible world, of which the created light of our world is a reflection, an image; for the Father to glorify his name in the death and resurrection of Jesus is to bring the uncreated light into our world, to bring into being in our world as fully human, the divine, eternally begotten Son, the eternally flowing and coming into being of the Father’s Word, the Logos. The glory of the Father lightens, enlightens, himself, the Son, the world, and ourselves, to reveal all as they, we, really are, in the light of divinity. That is why Jesus says, “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.” The darkness that would restrict, would deny, God, that would kill Jesus, cannot, in the end, overcome, blot out, the divine light, the glory of the Father. Jesus confirms this when he says, “while you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.” To be children of the uncreated light is our origin and destiny, is what we are made for, is our true nature.
Jesus says, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself.” This is usually understood to be about the Crucifixion, but it can also be about the Resurrection or the Ascension, or all three, and it can also mean what the Prologue to John’s Gospel means when it says: “all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.” That is, all things came into being through Jesus, and are seen in their true nature in relation to him, in the light that he brings into the world. “I am the light of the world,” he says. He brings the uncreated light into the world, and by it we see Jesus, the Father, the world, and ourselves, as they, we, really are.
So the Greeks who would see Jesus, will see far more than miracle and public spectacle. They learn to see the world as created through Jesus, as the Father sees it. They are helped to see the world in divine light, promised that they are, will be, children of that light. We, like they, must “walk while [we] have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake [us].”
In Nomine etc.. (17.III.18. Adv.)
