Sunday, March 25, 2012

"We Want To See Jesus"


Many years ago I came upon a poem entitled Meditation on the Greek Event, written by an unknown poet, Albert Newton:

All they said is
  “We want to see Jesus”
  and that’s the last we hear of them
no ‘Well, show them in’
    no ‘What are they up to?’
  no ‘What Greeks?’
no ‘Not right now -- I’m too busy”
no nothing
  about the Greeks
‘cause the story is not about the Greeks
but Jesus.
All the Greeks are is an event
in a way beyond our comprehend
  they are a sign
    that now is the time
      not yesterday in the wandering
      not tomorrow when it’s done
      not when we looked for it
      not when the shadow broke its shade
      not even when the wine is free
but now
  when the world says
    I’ve heard of something
      I want to see.
So it’s time
  when it may still be Greek to you
    but not to me
  though I may not yet understand
    I want to see
      and be.
As this Lenten season moves towards the great Holy Week, you and I, too, “want to see and be”. To do so we need to really look at the Cross which, already next week, will be graphically set before us in the Passion, and at the man stretched out upon it. You and I come to see God face to face only through this human Jesus who can deal gently with our ignorance and waywardness because of his own experience of human weakness. This is One acquainted with “loud cries and tears”, with obedience and suffering and death. And you and I come to be only through him who “being made perfect...became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him...” 

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