"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...”