Today’s Gospel reading holds a special fascination for me, because it links the Paschal mystery with Jesus’ desire for those outside the chosen people of Israel. For a long time before my conversion to the faith, I believed that the doors of every church were barred to me as a Hindu. After all, Christ was for Christians, not for someone born to a Hindu family.
The Strangeness of the Cross
To those outside the Christian faith, the Cross is a challenge: bewildering, shocking, and incomprehensible. Even those who follow Christ may struggle to grasp the strange logic of the Cross. How does life flow from this instrument of suffering and death? Why do we worship our God nailed to the Cross? And how, really, does His death save you or me?
Today’s passage explores this central paradox of our faith. Jesus, well aware of His imminent Passion and death, tells His disciples that “unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears great fruit.” The gift He offers is superabundant life, and it can only be given through His death. Seen in this light, Jesus’ death is not simply something done to him, as the outside world might perceive, but a pure and priceless sacrifice, the total outpouring of Himself for the sake of souls.
We Wish to See Jesus
What captivates me in particular about this image of the dying grain is the verse that precedes it. We read that among those among the crowds in Jerusalem were some Greeks. Having heard of the great miracles of Jesus, they come to Philip and say simply, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip and Andrew then inform Jesus, who replies to the request not with ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ but with this haunting image of His own impending death, revealing that He must offer up Himself in order to bear fruit.
Why does Jesus respond in this manner? What does the Cross have to do with the Greeks’ wish to see Him?
Everything.
Jesus’ sacrifice of Himself on the Cross is the very means by which he will gather up all the nations, both the Jews and the Gentiles: “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” This is precisely what we see when we gaze in earnest upon the Cross, for we see Jesus nailed vertically between heaven and earth, with arms outstretched horizontally as if to embrace the whole world.
Eucharist, the Gift for All
No other religion in the world offers this strange and astonishing gift of God’s own body, blood, soul and divinity on the Cross. It is a breathtaking claim, and ought to stop us in our tracks. That the eternal God should take on flesh only to give Himself away for my sake? Surely, that is an act of love so outrageous that it compels our gaze, if not our allegiance. Jesus has come to redeem not simply the lost sheep of Israel, but all people: the Greeks, the pagans, and all outside the fold, even Hindus like me.
As we take this reading to prayer today, let us reflect upon that beautiful request from the Greeks. And declare it in our own hearts: We wish to see Jesus. How do we see Him? In Scripture, in prayer, and in gazing upon the crucifix, but above all, we may behold Him most fully in the Eucharist. He is the grain of wheat that has died in order to bear forth the gift beyond value. The very Bread of life. There, in the humble appearance of the Eucharist, He invites us to an intimate encounter with Him. The very One who became flesh and dwelt among us. The One who walked upon water, who was crucified for love of you, is truly present to you in the Eucharist.
Jesus, we long to see You!
