by Jilene Scherenske
The Visit by the Greeks (John 12:19-22)
Lazarus has recently been raised from the dead; Jesus has just entered Jerusalem on the back of an unbroken donkey and the people have lauded Him as He came. The Pharisees are beside themselves with envy and jealousy and madness. John 12:19 records, The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him. Suddenly there are some Greek fellows that had come to Jerusalem for the Passover. Obviously, they had heard about Jesus, perhaps before they arrived in Jerusalem, or perhaps from the crowd of people who were all astir about Jesus and His miracle working powers. So, being curious and having a heart that was seeking, they sought to have an audience with Jesus. For whatever reason, they approach Philip. Perhaps it was because he had Greek connections, remember his name is Greek, and they did come from his hometown of Bethsaida. Perhaps he was just the first disciple they ran into. Here is what the Bible says about the incident: Joh 12:20 ¶ And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast: 21 The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus. 22 Philip cometh and telleth Andrew: and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus.
So what is Philip’s response? Did he take them quickly and joyfully to Jesus with the attitude of “I can’t wait to introduce you to Jesus”? No! He turned to Andrew perhaps to ask what they should do with this request. What was his indecision based upon? Why the hesitation? Why involve Andrew? Perhaps the fact that these men were not Jews was Philip’s reluctance. After all, Jesus had told them “…I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt 15:24) And in Matthew 10:5-6 Jesus had told his disciples when He sent them forth, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: [Now these statements only revealed that Jesus was not ignoring the non-Jew, but simply stating that His first priority was to the Jew (Rom 2:10)]. To the Jew these men were foreigners, Gentiles, dogs, even one step below the Samaritans, yet we must remember that they had come to Jerusalem for the Passover. Therefore, they were God-fearing Gentiles, perhaps even proselytes to Judaism and they came to Jerusalem to worship God at the Passover time. One can understand that logical Philip was checking the manual, the protocol, and is wondering if Jesus would want to see them. Again, he forgot what Jesus had done and said in the past. Did Jesus not minister to the Samaritan woman at the well and then to her entire village? Did He not heal the daughter of a Syro-Phoenician woman who had so much faith that she stated she would be happy if she just got the crumbs which fell from the master’s table (Matt 15:21-28)? Had he forgotten that Jesus had taught how God loved the whole world? So short was Philip’s memory!
Yet we must credit him – firstly, he did get advice from Andrew. He did not just cut these men off. His good heart most likely wanted to introduce them to Jesus, he was just indecisive as to what the protocol was. And he did go with Andrew to take these Greek men to Jesus. Andrew had a reputation of taking people to Jesus, but Philip didn’t leave it entirely up to Andrew, he went with Andrew to tell Jesus about these men seeking an audience with Him. He also did not delay too long until it was too late. It is assumed that these men were taken to Jesus, though scripture never tells us about that meeting.
Sometimes we can allow our prejudices to keep us from introducing people to Jesus. If we know someone who is crabby, grouchy, angry spirited, we become fearful and hesitate to take Jesus to them. Sometimes we see people in the marketplace who look very different than us, perhaps bright green hair-dos, tattoos everywhere, nose piercings. We easily judge them. Yet these are the very people who need Jesus. Let us cast aside our fears and our prejudices and be willing to take Jesus to whomever God puts in our path.