RBWords

     These words of Jesus are said in reply to a request from a group of Greeks:  "Sir, we should like to see Jesus."  The context is the approaching "hour" of Jesus when he would be "glorified" by being "lifted up."  Some traditional interpretations of the words have taken them to mean physical martyrdom, which Jesus and many early Christians would undergo.  Once the Christian community was freed from official Roman persecution through the conversion of Constantine, the understanding developed toward conversion of life.  This, in itself, could mean a kind of death and resurrection of the kind that St. Paul speaks of in Romans 6, when he refers to baptism into the death and resurrection of Christ and the necessity to be "dead to sin but alive in Christ Jesus."

     This process of "conversion" can take a lifetime.  In a few cases, it can be dramatic and rapid (St. Paul started quickly but even he took time after his conversion event before starting a public ministry), but I suspect that in most it is a step by step growth.  As one who enjoys gardening and prefers growing plants from seed, I am often amazed by the way a tiny hard seed can become a very large and beautiful plant.  Each kind of plant grows at its own rate and is impacted by environment as well.  However, the transformation from one state to another still remains dramatic - from seed to plant.  That transformation is not reserved to some spiritual "elite," but is available to all of us.  This is what the Greeks would learn when they ask to "see" Jesus.  Our own formal introduction takes place at baptism, but it is easy to "lose touch" with the power of that event.  The seed that is planted there can be dormant or have seasons of slow growth.  Lent offers the opportunity each year to improve the environment and facilitate that growth.  To truly "see" Jesus will mean we must truly change.  AMEN