In Search of the Master 8/15/48
Scripture: John 12: 16-26
Text: John 12: 21b; -- “Sir, we would see Jesus.”
Getting started in one’s chosen vocation is exciting -- sometimes it has its anxious moments. The young surgeon at his first major operation “on his own,” the insurance salesman making his first call, the teacher meeting the class for the first time, the minister entering the pulpit for his first service, the lawyer appearing in court with his first case -- each usually has a sense of the importance of doing the job well, and not a little concern for his initial success. It takes the assurance of repeated success, and the discipline of his mistakes, to mature one’s confidence in his abilities.
I preached my first sermon before I was 21 years of age, in a little village 20 miles over the prairie from the nearest railroad. Whether or not I was then, or could be, any kind of public speaker, let alone a preacher of the gospel, was still to be settled in my mind. And I was so anxious over it that I could hardly eat my meals for most of the week before that Sunday morning. The fact that people received the sermon so kindly helped me tremendously in getting over the high hurdle of that first-time experience.
I appreciate, therefore, the story which you may have heard, of a young minister who entered his pulpit for the first time and found a note there, on which was written a phrase from the Bible: “Sir, we would see Jesus.” Some devout soul may have feared that this fresh young chap might attempt such brilliant oratory as to eclipse Jesus.
The suggestion, at any rate, was so effective that the young preacher found another note at the pulpit a few months later in the same hand: “Sir, we have seen Jesus.” The story is an old one, pungent enough to be worth repeating.
The story in the book of John, from which the phrase, “Sir, we would see Jesus” came, is full of meaning. Certain Greeks came to Philip requesting that they might see the Master. Theirs was the same desire for knowledge as that to which Paul later addressed himself at Athens.
The story provokes questions which should be answered by all who would serve Christ and point the way of his salvation to other people.
There is a universal restlessness among people that is good, but poorly understood. Rightly interpreted, it means that God created man with a spiritual thirst for which there is no satisfaction until he finds himself in right relationship to God. This is common to all people -- persons of learning or those who are illiterate; men of means or those in poverty; people of social standing or men of no social prominence.
Augustine gave expression to this truth when he wrote the prayer which we sometimes repeat: “Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless until it finds repose in Thee.”
And those who repose in God find their restlessness supplanted by the “peace that passeth understanding.”
Evidently these Greeks were attracted to Jesus by their spiritual thirst. But why did they want to see Him rather than someone else? Probably they knew people who bore testimony of the things Jesus had said and done. They may have known Philip earlier. Or they might have been in such a crowd as that when Jesus called Zacchaeus down out of the sycamore tree to stop at his house, and if so, they would have known the great transformation in Zacchaeus’ character after that experience with Jesus.
What actually happens when people see Jesus depends considerably on the impulse which motivates them. Some seek him out of curiosity; some critically; others with a desire to know him for what he really is and can do. Only those who seek him sincerely discover what God can communicate through him.
To those who seek Jesus in such sincerity, several significant things may appear. (1) For one thing, they discover in a man God’s creative and redeeming purpose. They see man as God wants him to be. Jesus often referred to himself as “Son of Man.” Those who knew him as such came to regard him as Son of God.
Nicodemus was skeptical concerning Jesus, but he made this honest confession: “We know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do these signs that thou doest except God be with him.” [John 3: 2]. That is what happens to the experience of man when he sees Jesus in faithful sincerity. Only God can account for Jesus.
When Simon, in the light of what he saw in Jesus, got a glimpse of what he himself could be, he cried out, “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” [Luke 5: 8]. Probably he had previously thought of sin, if at all, as lightly as the average thinks of it. Once he perceived his sins, in the light of Jesus’ sinless life, he realized that his own sin was a terrific force in his life. It is practical to think of sin as that which defeats God’s purpose in human life.
The discovery of sin in your life will probably either make of you a fatalist, or set you in search of a remedy. This latter course is the beginning of what we call repentance which opens the way to the newness of life which we call salvation.
A British botanist, wanting to study the heather bell, carried his microscope to the Scottish highlands where the heather grew in abundance. On the native soil of the heather bell, he put a blossom under the microscope, and there, under the sky, studied its intricate beauty. An old highland shepherd, seeing this strange performance, approached him and asked what he saw in that thing. Realizing that he could not adequately explain it, the scientist bade the shepherd look for himself in the microscope. Arising from his knees after a long and wondering look, the old highlander exclaimed, “My God, mon, to think that all these years I have trampled them under my feet!” No less do we wonder when we see ourselves as God wants us to be.
(2) Further, when we see Jesus, we discover God as He wants to be known to us. The late Dr. S. D. Gordon wrote that “Jesus is God spelling himself out in language that man can understand.”
Philip said to Jesus, on the night before the crucifixion, “Lord, show us the Father and it sufficeth us.” [John 14: 8]. And Jesus replied, “Have I been so long a time with you, and dost not know me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; how sayest thou, show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I say unto you, I speak not from myself; but the Father abiding in me doeth his works.” [John 14: 9-10].
God wants to be known to lost, confused, sinning men as a compassionate Father always seeking man’s greatest good. He is so known through Jesus.
Maude Royden went to see a woman in London who had been her best friend in college. She was told that the friend’s little girl was critically ill and that the mother would not leave the child’s bedside. Feeling that she must comfort her friend, Miss Royden stepped quietly to the door of the sick room and stood there. The mother, bending over the child, knew nothing of her presence. The little girl, quite delirious, tossed restlessly and kept crying, “Momma, Momma.” And all the time the mother was bending over her and saying, “Here I am, dear, don’t you know me?” And Maude Royden later said, “That’s God!” This world, deliriously sinsick, is searching for something it cannot find. And all the while God is saying through Jesus, “Here I am, don’t you know me?”
(3) And when we really see Jesus, we discover the vital relationship in Christian living. When Jesus called his first disciples, saying, “Follow me,” he invited them to live, in heart and soul, as he lived. The New Testament knows no other formula.
We know that the component parts of water are hydrogen and oxygen. We may know just as surely the two component parts of Christlikeness. They are (1) our relationship to God and (2) our relationship to all people. The first was the source of Jesus’ life -- and is ours. The second was the object of his devotion - and ours. This two-fold, divine law of life was in existence before Jesus came, but he made it clear. People saw it in flesh and we still see it in Christ.
These simple, compelling things we ought to keep clear in our lives. We may get engrossed in theological controversy; have our minds distraught by the dogmas and modes of worship among the churches of men. Some of that has its place in due proportion. A church school teacher said that the children in her class wanted to know about the story of Jonah and the “whale” and she asked her advisor, “Shall I tell them it is historical or allegorical?” Now I have some rather definite opinions on that matter which I should be glad to discuss with those to whom it is a problem. I am not convinced that any historical man spent some hours in the digestive inwards of any fish and lived to tell the tale of that excitement. Some others apparently do so believe and will not have the story told as allegory.
But all this discussion misses the point of the story! The great spiritual lesson of that story of Jonah, told in this vivid form, and for this purpose, is that Jonah knew the will of God for him and refused to do it! He was “going on his own” rather than with God. And soon he found his own resources utterly inadequate to the circumstances of his life. His happiness and peace of mind came only when he returned to go to the people to whom he knew God was sending him!
Jesus was obedient even to crucifixion. “My meat,” he had said, “is to do the will of him that sent me and to accomplish his work.” [John 4: 34].
Thinking as Jesus thought, and believing as he believed, - that is the key to life as he lived it, and to the resources by which he lived. On these two precepts hang the whole meaning of the law and the teaching of all the prophets, said Jesus: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” [Mark 12: 30]. “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” [Mark 12: 31]. To this he calls us when he says to all men, “Follow me.”
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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, August 15, 1948 (Union service).