Isaiah 40.27-end

John 12.10-26

The Reverend Canon Kathryn Percival Canon Chancellor and Vice Dean

‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus’.

The irony surrounding our celebration of St. Philip and St. James, this evening and tomorrow, is that we really know very little about them.  Their feast is kept now, because this is the date of dedication of the church in Rome where their relics were brought, so, although they were quite distinct followers of Jesus, they are lumped together, colloquially referred to as ‘Pip and Jim’.  James has a particularly raw deal, since he needs to be distinguished from a host of other Jameses, and he ends up sounding rather insignificant.  In the lists of the twelve apostles, two are called James, and this one is commonly identified as James the Less, son of Alphaeus, as distinct from James the Great, son of Zebedee. This might be a reference to his short stature or to the fact that he is the younger of the two.  Either way, despite the fact that St. Jerome holds him to be a brother of Jesus, his life is shrouded in mystery.

Philip we know a little more about, but still not much.  He brings Nathanael to Jesus, he makes the pragmatic point that six months’ wages would not provide enough bread to feed the 5,000, and here, he is approached by a group of Greek Gentiles wanting to see the Lord.  And this scene shows us why both he and James are still remembered today.   Most of the detail of their lives might have been forgotten, but the overriding thing – the thing that matters most – is that they enabled people to see Jesus.  They walked so closely and so faithfully with him, and they listened so intently to those around them, that they enabled that seeing to happen.  And that is both a calling and an encouragement for us.  It is entirely possible that none of us will have our name in lights when the history books come to be written.  But in common with all the saints who have gone before us, we have been invited to see Jesus, and to enable others to see him too.  It matters not whether we are visible, for it is not our appearance but our task which is at the heart of our Christian identities.

In this Easter season, our lectionary is replete with resurrection appearances – those opportunities for the disciples, in their fear and confusion, to experience the peace and joy of the risen Christ.  But here, in response to those who wish to see him, Jesus’s words and actions are full of paradox.  The answer he gives is full of life through death and love through hate, and when he has finished speaking, we are told that he ‘hid from them’.  This is not plain sight, but the kind of seeing which starts in a subterranean way: veiled; in secret.  And yet Jesus couches this veiled seeing in language which will be familiar: ‘…unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain;  but if it dies, it bears much fruit.’  It is only through descending to the depths that the seed brings forth life, and so it is with Jesus:  it is only through the grave that he brings salvation. Likewise, it is only through its falling and rising that the seed multiplies.  And again, it is through the death of Jesus that we are brought into abundance – no longer only individuals, but grafted into his body as a new community, through death into life.

Like the planted seed, so much of our experience of Christian discipleship is quiet, nascent, full of potential: unseen perhaps, like so much of the work of the saints, but by the grace of God, bearing fruit.  We are in the midst of our Season of Generosity, and I mentioned this Season to a friend the other day – incidentally, my friend lives in Germany and has signed up for the Cathedral notices, so our reach is becoming global!  She said, ‘I keep wondering what you call the rest of the year – Season of Parsimony?’  The word season itself comes from a Latin root, via Old French, meaning a time of sowing.  Now is the time when we turn our attention to planting seeds.  The gifts we give now are given quietly, nestled in fertile ground.  We do not necessarily know what will come of them:  but it is through that quiet giving that new life, new abundance, new community comes. 

So this is the seed-time.  And what will be reaped from this sowing – the way in which people will come to see Jesus - is down, not to our own efforts, but to grace.  It’s easy to forget that, and so we need to hear this evening’s reminder from Second Isaiah.  This is part of his ‘Book of Comfort’ – the section which starts with those beautiful words, ‘Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God’.  The buried seed-time can lead us to conclude that our salvation itself is obscured - to say ‘My way is hidden from the Lord’ -  and this in turn can make us try ever harder, and end up experiencing a prominent concern for the writer – weariness.  ‘Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted,’ he says.  What we need to do instead is to ‘wait for the Lord’:  to recognise our own need of him;  to know that flourishing and abundance are his stock-in-trade, and that if we give our weakness to him, he will make us strong.  This Season of Generosity is simply a time to recognise that for him, for the one who never wearies, all time is a Season of Generosity – a sowing-time leading to growth and new life.

Generations of our predecessors have been laid in earth having enabled people to see Jesus – even those who, like Philip, have struggled to recognise his crazily abundant economy.  That economy is here, showing us that we can run and not be weary; stubbornly, lovingly, pushing up through the dark; filling us, even when we do not know it, with the light of our risen Saviour, so that in all his seasons, we shine.

Amen.