[AI translation] Dear brothers and sisters, the so-called Church year, which begins with the first Sunday of Advent, turns in these days into the period of fasting before Good Friday. It is a long-standing tradition to preach the Gospel of the events of Jesus' life that point to his Passion on Calvary. That is why I have chosen to read the passage for this Lenten Sunday. This is the story which, according to the Bible reading guide, many of us have been reading over the past week. Now, brothers and sisters, what you need to know about this story is that this scene takes place on the day that Jesus makes his memorable Flower Sunday entry into Jerusalem, the day he cleansed the temple. So this scene is also one of the events of Palm Sunday. There were a lot of people in Jerusalem at that time. People were gathering everywhere to participate in the celebration of the coming feast, and the whole city was understandably full of people shouting the name of Jesus. Everyone was talking about the events of the morning. How the procession had happened, how the cleansing of the temple had happened. Friends and foes discussed the events of the day. Among the crowds that came to the feast were these so-called Greeks, the ones spoken of in the Scriptures - that is, Gentiles sympathetic to Jewish monotheistic worship - who, perhaps because they had heard so much about Jesus, were themselves now beginning to do their own research. Someone apparently directs them to one of Jesus' disciples, and so they come to Philip, himself a man of Greek learning, and they ask him, saying, "Lord, we want to see Jesus!Obviously they did not want to see Jesus by looking at him from a distance, as is the custom today at a parade to see a worldly figure, a politician or a head of state, since they had seen Jesus perhaps at the morning procession. But precisely because they have seen him from afar, they now want to see him up close. They want to meet him now, to meet him in person. That is why they go to Philip, to see Jesus. Brothers and sisters, I can imagine Philip's joy when he heard this demand of these outsiders that they want to see Jesus. For it is always a great joy when a human soul comes to the point where what it has heard about Jesus is no longer enough for it, but it now wants to see him. He now wants to meet him in person. And that is such a joy because, unfortunately, there is also the opposite. There are even among church-going believers who say: Aren't you tired of always talking about Jesus? Nowadays, all you hear in church is Jesus this and Jesus that. Haven't you had enough? But then there are also those who, the more they hear about Jesus, the more burning the desire in their hearts becomes to see him now. They want to meet him now. How do you, dear brother, who have heard so much about him, think about this? Which group do you belong to? The one who is bored or the one who wants to meet him. Perhaps you think to yourself that you already know all about Jesus. You have all the knowledge, what more can they tell you about Jesus? Well, that may be true, and I can't tell you any more. But I would like to say that it is not enough.
It is not enough, brothers and sisters, to know exactly what He did and what He taught. Has there never been a longing in your soul to meet Him once, to see Him once - with your spiritual eyes, of course, with the eyes of your faith. But see Him as your living Saviour. Having full assurance of Him. Because there is a huge difference, you know, between knowing someone by hearsay and knowing someone by personal encounter. To know someone by the word of others, or to know someone by one's own experience. It's a very big difference. Once, a long time ago, I was talking to a woman at a conference, and she was telling me how she was agonizing over this very thing, that she had all the knowledge of Jesus, but she didn't have a living Saviour. She can tell you exactly why Jesus had to die on the cross - but it doesn't mean anything to her. He knows exactly why Jesus died, but he also knows that his sins were not forgiven. He also knows very well that whoever believes in Jesus has eternal life, but he also knows that he does not have eternal life. He acknowledges that everything God has revealed in Jesus is very beautiful and very good and great, but as he said, it just isn't mine! It is only in my head, but not in my heart.
Have you never felt that? It is an agonizing feeling, when one wants certainty, when one wants to see clearly, to see firmly, to come to a full conviction about the person of Christ. That is why I said that it is a great joy when a soul comes to the point of wanting to see Jesus. And indeed it is so, brethren, that it is of no profit to a man to see Jesus through the eyes of others, as others tell him, and as others describe him. No matter how great a preacher may tell you of the greatness of the person of Jesus, there is no vision that can be a certainty. That would really reassure you, and that would be life for you, that would be a blessing, that would imprint the features of His face indelibly in your soul - for each one must stand face to face with Jesus and see Him for himself. You are surely familiar with the scene in the Old Testament when the wandering Jewish people are plagued by poisonous snakes, and then Moses, at God's command, makes a serpent of coin and lifts it up on a pole high above the camp for all to see. For whoever looks at this coin snake will be saved from being bitten by the poisonous serpent. Well, so everyone had to look up at this ore snake himself. It was not enough for the mother to look up to it instead of her child. It didn't help if her best friend looked up for her. Well, in a way, it doesn't help anyone if one of their family members is already Christ's. It doesn't help your family if your wife is Christ's, or your husband is Christ's, but you're not. It won't help you if you can show that you come from a family of Reformed clergymen going back 300 years - it won't help you. Every man must see for himself, and if you have not yet seen Jesus up close, then brother, this passage today warns you to try to see Him up close! Try to get to know Him personally as soon as possible, because it doesn't help if you know Him as I tell you or as someone else tells you. It only helps if you know Jesus as He can be known by meeting Him in person.
These Greeks asked one of Jesus' disciples to introduce them to Jesus. The most precious task of a disciple of Jesus is to take someone by the hand, lead them to Jesus, and introduce them to Jesus. This is what a serious believing spiritual brother did to me at one time, and I have done the same thing to many a seeking soul since. But let me say that even this is not necessarily necessary for someone to introduce you to Jesus in this way. Jesus is not some worldly, earthly greatness to whom some earthly recommendation or protection is necessary to approach. There is a free way directly to Him for everyone, because He is not a stranger to anyone who truly seeks Him. And He is always pleased when He can reveal Himself to a man, when He can show a man who He is. Believe me, brother, Jesus is not far from you. You can find Him very easily. Introduce Him yourself, face to face, in private. You have heard so much about Him, you have heard His call so many times - and so many times that's all it is. Well then, not to leave it at that, but to have a real encounter for once: introduce yourself to Him! Let me tell you a very good way of introducing yourself, the only really good way. If you really want to meet Jesus, if you really want to see Him, then, brother, today, now, when you go home from here, lock yourself in a room, kneel down before Him, before the invisible Jesus, and really introduce yourself to Him! Tell him who you are! And tell him everything that is in you. All the ugliness, all the secrets, all the problems, all the sins - this is the surest way to be convinced of His living reality.
Just the other day I read a 36-year-old man's testimony of his own conversion. He tells how he was in a terrible deep, soul-crushing sin of the high life, so much so that he almost hated himself. Many times he had resolved to change his life, but only succeeded for a short time, and always relapsed again, as is always the case. He was almost at the point of ending his life. And just when he was at the lowest ebb, a miracle happened to him: a co-worker took him to a church where the Word was that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. As he said, he had never heard Jesus spoken of in such a way in his life. And the desire rose up in his heart that it would be good for him to get in touch with this great friend of sinners, maybe he could be helped! And that very day at home he began to pray in a very strange way. Jesus, if you are really alive, help me! I want to meet you, and then unlock the shackles of my life if you can! She pretends that for the first time in her life she prayed on her knees, but physically on her knees. He said, word for word, that when I touched the ground with my knees, I made contact with heaven. I was sure, I felt Jesus standing next to me. I confessed everything to him. Burdens were lifted from me. I received strength from heaven. Jesus took possession of my life and truly loosened my shackles. He went on to say that this moment was a turning point in his life that made him a different person, a new person. And since then he has been very happy to proclaim everywhere that he has seen Jesus. He saw!
Let me just add, brothers and sisters, that this is how I met him 33 years ago, on my knees. The first time I really dared to introduce myself to him. You go yourself. I don't need anyone's mediation. You can go alone. No one else can do it for you.
When Jesus heard that these Greeks wanted to see Him, He said something that seemed as if it didn't belong. He said, "Unless a grain of grain that falls into the ground dies, it remains only by itself, but if it dies, it bears much fruit". Jesus said this so that these Greeks would not have the wrong idea about the Messiah. Particularly when they saw the great royal procession on the morning of Palm Sunday, lest they get the wrong idea that Jesus was some sort of the king-like hero that they usually imagined and expected the Messiah to be at that time. Jesus says: make no mistake! Whoever wants to see Him, sees Him correctly, if he sees Him as a grain of wheat sown in the ground. We understand the meaning of this example, this image: imagine a grain of wheat. A grain of wheat contains a wonderful rich life, but compressed, compressed, compressed into a tiny little space. And in order for that rich life to unfold, that grain of wheat has to be in the ground. There it must rot, and from this death new life will arise, from this will come the fruit, the harvest. If it does not die, it remains alone; if it dies, it bears much fruit. So it is precisely by accepting death, by being willing to die, that the grain of wheat triumphs, triumphs. You understand this image, don't you, because it refers to Jesus. Jesus is the grain of wheat, Jesus is the seed of eternal life whom God has sown in this earth. Jesus is a piece of God's life, whom God has cast down from heaven to this earth, and here on earth into the earth, into the grave. There lay this heavenly seed, lying there in the earth, in the grave, like a grain of wheat in the furrow under the clods, and if from the wheat, from its death, new life can spring, how much richer and more glorious life can spring from the death of the heavenly seed! Yes, if the life of the wheat is multiplied 30-60-100 times by the death, the life of one Jesus is multiplied by the very death, by the very death on Calvary in the lives of millions and millions of people.
Yes, brothers and sisters, this is how God transplanted eternal life, His divine life force in Jesus, to the earth. And each one will truly see Jesus when he begins to see the result of this heavenly, Calvary sowing in himself. When he begins to feel the fruit of this sowing ripening and bearing fruit in himself. You know what the first fruit of this sowing on Calvary is, Brothers and Sisters: forgiveness of sins. This is the very first fruit. When someone presents himself on his knees to Jesus, Jesus always says to him, "Your sins are forgiven you. Go away and sin no more. And it is precisely in this liberating power of forgiveness of sins that the presence of Jesus, the person of Jesus, first becomes a reality for man. This is where the encounter with Jesus begins.
The other fruit of this sowing of the seeds of Calvary is the Christian life itself. Jesus says that whoever serves me must follow me. So Jesus died so that we might now follow him, liberated by the power of forgiveness of sins, because the whole Christian life is nothing other than following Jesus and serving him. This sounds very general, we have heard it many times, but let me try to say it a little differently: The request of these Greeks, these outsiders, to Philip, the disciple of Jesus, was this: we want to see Jesus. Well, brothers and sisters, the outsiders, the unbelievers, the non-believers, this is their request, whether confessed or unconfessed, to the disciples of Christ, we want to see Jesus. We do not want to hear about Jesus. We have heard a lot, now we want to see him. We don't want to believe in him because we don't believe in anything. We want to see him! When we see him in you, in you, in your life, then we want to hear about him. And then we will believe it. So: we want to see Jesus! A believing woman asked me the other day how she could give her husband a Bible, because she wanted him to receive the blessings of the Scriptures. I told her, don't give the Bible to her husband, give it to him! For the time being, her husband should not read from the Bible, but should see from his wife's life what Christian love and kindness and patience and gentleness and forgiveness are. Then he will understand better. Let the wife's life, let the believer's life at home be a Bible that bears witness to Jesus, that speaks of Jesus, without voices, without words. It would be so good, brothers and sisters, if our children could know Jesus through us! But often the problem for Christian parents is how to bring up their children in the faith in which they themselves have grown up. How can he pass on the faith of his ancestors to his child? Well, brothers and sisters, the surest way is to show your child, in your own actions, in your own life, who Jesus is. He shows it so that the child can see Jesus! Let every believer feel this need of the world, of the outsiders, of the people around him, that they want to see Jesus - through him. Not to hear, but to see him as he is revealed in you and in me. Everyone who is not yet walking in faith wants to see Jesus, in you, in your actions, in your deeds, in your whole attitude.
Jesus says that whoever loves his life will take it away, and whoever hates his life will keep it for eternal life. What does that mean? Every human being is by nature selfish, self-centered, serving and serving his cherished dear self to others. He loves his own life. It is the basic nature of all of us. That's what Jesus says to hate, this basic nature. To fight against it, to fight against it relentlessly, not to give in to it, to fight it down. Brothers and sisters, in a selfish world, where everyone lives only for himself, it is a truly selfless person, a person who lives for others, in whom Jesus is most clearly revealed. Do you know what it means to follow Jesus and serve him? Well then, to make every effort to meet the need that the world wants to see Jesus in us: in you, in me. This, of course, is also the result of that heavenly sowing. That Christ should be revealed in us is not the fruit of our own efforts, but it is also the fruit of Christ's death and resurrection. It is in contemplating Jesus, in contemplating Christ crucified and risen that the Christian life is produced. So it is not as if I make up my mind and gather my strength and now I am going to portray Christ. Just as it is not that I resolve or vow to get a tan, but that if I want to get a tan, I must expose myself to the sun's rays. So it is somewhat the same with this, as the Apostle Paul says, "And we all, beholding the glory of our Lord with unveiled face, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, as of the Spirit of the Lord".
How right these Greeks were when they asked to see Jesus, and how good for us that we can see Jesus, that we can still look up to him, for he is here among us now! Let us tell him, in spirit, with the words of the song:
My faith now looks to you,
My Saviour, my God,
On Calvary:
Hear my prayer,
And take away my sin;
From now on let me be
Yours only.
(Canto 466, verse 1)
Amen.
Date: 6 March 1966.