"Sir, we wish to see Jesus." That is the request that we heard at the beginning of the biblical reading for this message. The inquiry came from the Greeks. That is a fascinating detail. John’s Gospel is filled with a variety of groups of people. There are the Jews and the Pharisees and the disciples, for example. These groups appear many times in John’s Gospel. Not so the Greeks. This is their one and only appearance in John’s Gospel. 

Their appearance is surprising in a way. What are Greeks doing in Palestine anyway? This is Roman occupied land. This is the land of the Jews. So what are these Greeks doing here? Knowing a bit about the ancient Greeks, we can certainly make an educated guess that they were in Palestine on a truth-finding mission. The Greeks were probably the first ancient …