5th Sunday in Lent (B): We Wish to See Jesus!
By: The Rev. Paul Carlson
Carved into the pulpit of one of the churches I used to preach at in my first call are the very same words that start off our Gospel for this Sunday: “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” When I first read those words, which had been both crudely and permanently gouged into the wood with a pocket knife, I was stunned. In a simple, yet beautiful church, whose altar guild would spend hours making sure everything looked spotless for worship, I was not expecting to be confronted by such aggressive graffiti every time I stepped foot in the pulpit.
I say aggressive, because the way the message was practically slashed into the wood with a pocket knife tilted the words in a very threatening way for me. To this day I cannot help but imagine a congregation member sneaking into that pulpit on a dark night, when no one else was around, and delivering these words to their pastor with the pointy end of their blade. That image has single handedly cut away all the softness or politeness in those words. Now when I hear them, I see a person holding the knife that carved them into that pulpit and hear not: “Sir, we wish to see Jesus,” but “Give me Jesus… Or else.”
Granted, I have been mugged at knife point before and have more than likely confused my experiences with this one particularly traumatic and personal event in my own life. I suspect that no other pastor who has stepped foot in that pulpit before has experienced that message in such a threatening way as I have. But it certainly made an impact on me, and more than anything, made me view those words with the seriousness I believe they actually deserve.
Pastors get lost sometimes. We lose ourselves in stories, in clever wording, and in those wonderful ideas we sometimes get that we just can’t help but share with our congregations. And sometimes we just get plain lost, like everyone, in the struggles of everyday life.
We forget so many important things when we are lost. We forget that all this ministry we are a part of has very little to do with us. We forget that it is God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that is truly responsible with the calling, gathering, and enlightening of God’s people. And most of all we forget that it is Jesus, not us, who is given for the salvation of all.
Jesus. Not us.
That is why we gather to worship. That is who we gather to worship. Jesus. Not us. We wish to see Jesus. In the same way that it was for the Greeks at the festival who went to Philip, and for the knife-wielding congregation member, our request, desire, and need is serious. We wish to see Jesus. Give us Jesus. Or else…
…Or else we’ll get lost.
Have we—the Church—become lost? That’s an important question, I think. Sometimes, I think the answer to it is rather obvious. Yes, we have. Sometimes, I think that we the Church can get so overwhelmed by what, or rather who, people like Philip in the Gospel direct us to when we say we wish to see Jesus, that we get so frustrated—even angry—that we close our eyes. We close our eyes in the shock of who Jesus chooses to reveal himself through and we become lost.
At other times, impatience for God’s promise of the coming Kingdom causes us to be demoralized, especially when the call for justice and mercy in this world that knows nothing of the sort goes seemingly unanswered. We wish to see Jesus, but we know we won’t. At least, not like we want to. And when we know we are about to see something we don’t want to, we close our eyes and we become lost.
There was not a single one of Jesus’ disciples, friends, or family who wanted to see Jesus crucified. The disciple Peter even tried to fight back. When the temple guard came to arrest Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane and demanded, “Give me Jesus, or else!” Peter drew his own sword and immediately lost himself to violence. Yet that was where Jesus insisted he must go. With the guard and to the cross where the whole world would see him, with their own eyes, lifted up.
Then, when Jesus rose from the dead not a single person wanted to see him as he would first appear to them. Not outside the tomb behind locked doors or as a gardener or as a fellow traveler on the road to Emmaus. Yet again that was exactly how Jesus chose to reveal himself.
Sometimes even what we say we want isn’t really what we want. No one wants to see Jesus when they doubt him the most and publicly call him out in the midst of others who are claiming to have actually seen him (think Thomas.) This is why I truly believe that no matter how lost we might get; no matter how tightly we shut our eyes; whether we know it or not and whether we want it or not, Christ will always reveal himself in the way that is best for us.
Like the disciples before us, we too struggle with the way we see Jesus. We have our own particular ways we wish to see Jesus. Even knowing the story of Christ on the cross and hearing the good news we have through that cross, we struggle with following him there. At the foot of the cross it is not a “might” or a “maybe.” When we come to the foot of the cross, we WILL see Jesus. And wherever Christ on the Cross is lifted up, the Spirit will draw our eyes open and we learn an exceedingly important message about life: That those who love it lose it, and those who lose it for Christ’s sake gain it eternally.
The Reverend Paul Carlson is a Lutheran pastor, along with his wife The Reverend Lauren Carlson, at Calvary Lutheran Church in Morganton, North Carolina. Originally from the West Coast, he moved from San Diego to Dubuque, Iowa, where he graduated from Wartburg Seminary. He has served calls in Wisconsin and Virginia and is now enjoying the opportunity he gets as a half-time pastor, raising two children in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.
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