Nothing in the story tells us that 'the Greeks' - maybe Greek-speaking Jews - ever get to see Jesus. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. There's a bit of 'passing the buck' going on. Raising the question of how we handle people out in those margins somewhere & any desire to 'see Jesus' they may have. How far down the line does the buck stop?

Assuming they do get to see & hear Jesus, might / will these 'Greeks' understand what he's saying any better than the rest of his followers? It's strong meat, high-powered stuff, coming as it does at crunch time for Jesus! Three things occur to me: i) do we take personal responsibility for introducing people to  Jesus, leave them to the 'evangelicals', or simply to 'the system'? How many people ever do get to see Jesus through us or through 'the system'? Any?  ii) Is the meat we feed to people when we preach Jesus too strong for them to chew, or, pap not worth chewing? Are those who've 'heard it all before' taking in anything we say (worth saying)? iii) Jesus seems to be more approachable for some through what he says, & for others through what he demonstrates, but can we really separate them? Do we do this to Jesus' peril sometimes?

Before & after the theophany, highly-charged expressions crop up: glorify/ied, dying, loving life / losing it, eternal life, follow, serve, honour...judgment, rule... Jesus gives them meaning, makes them come alive by entering into his Passion. What about us? Do we spend more church life avoiding such a costly way of investing them with meaning, than we do working out how to do what he asks? What might the latter really mean in our particular circumstances? Or do we leave that to 'the system' too? Is that why little changes?

The theophany is remarkable in that Jesus actually provokes it. The crowd then is as divided as we are still about such things. Is it just a matter of hearing what we want to hear? Seeing what we want to see? Surely there must be more to encountering God than that? Ever thought about how we might react to such a happening today, seemingly provoked or not? Or don't such things happen in the 21st C.? If the voice of God speaks still for our benefit, how are we to hear it?

What is the 'judgment of this world'? Who is the 'ruler of this world'? Australian forces are still, with others, deployed in Iraq - against the will of the vast majority of the Australian people! So who rules the world? Not God! We've handed it over to the likes of Saddam, George, Tony, John, the recently dead Slobodan, & their minions, barking dogs of war. How are we to win Rule back for God? What of ordinary people, like those of Iraq, Palestine, the Balkans, etc.etc. not to overlook those suffering through famine, AIDS, etc.? Little people still suffering at someone or something's hands? Aren't they the ones being 'lifted up' this time around? What will our judgment be?

There's a strong connection between what happens in this passage, what happens in Gethsemane not long after, & then at Golgotha. That old snake on a pole in the ancient Hebrew wilderness story is never far from Jesus' mind! He draws on it again now, committing himself to yet another step along the way to making JN 3:14-18 happen. No wonder the people go on to ask how can this be immediately following what he says! This is where Faith kicks in, isn't it? But who / what kicks it in?