We would see Jesus

Now there were certain Greeks among those who came up to worship at the feast. Then they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." – John 12.20-21

This is another one of those interesting little stories of scripture. Here we have a number of Greeks who came to worship at the Passover feast. The Pharisees were already getting worried about Jesus. We see that in verse 19 when they bemoaned the fact that their best efforts were doing nothing to stop Jesus – ‘the whole world is going after Him.’ Now these Greeks show up as if to evidence that fact.

It is hard to know exactly who these Greeks were. They at least had in interest in their Jewish neighbours. There was a Greek settlement not too far from Bethsaida, so perhaps they knew or knew of Philip so they came to him.

‘We want to see Jesus’ they said.

Philip went and got Andrew and the two of them took the request to Jesus. And then, well, we don’t know what happened. We don’t know if the Greeks got to spend time with Jesus. The next we read is that Jesus began one of His final discourses.

Maybe we don’t know because we don’t need to know. But I think we can take something from this.

The Greeks came because there was something that drew them to this Jewish teacher. There was something that made them want to know more.

When Paul preached on Mars Hill some of the hearers said that they wanted to hear more about Jesus.

I have to ask myself today about my life – ‘is there anything about me and my life and my testimony that would make anyone say ‘I want to know more about Jesus?’