Summary: Today we need to start out by talking about Philip. Not Philip the Apostle - we'll get to him in a minute - but that great conquering hero, Philip of Macedon. When he was made king in the 4th century B. C., Philip took the beleaguered and bedraggled Macedonians, and he carved an empire for them out of the Greek world that his son, Alexander the Great, would expand east and west from India to Egypt. Philip and Alexander created the imperial footprint on which the Romans would later build their own empire. Philip and Alexander created the Hellenistic world - the Greek world - that Jesus was born into. Philip and Alexander were conquering heroes - they were people who redeemed the world for their followers - and so it's no wonder that in the centuries after they ruled, people and places would be given their names. This is why Paul wrote one of his letters to a group of Christians known as Philippians. This is why Jesus could travel to a region of Galilee known as Caesarea Philippi.[i] This is why, to arrive at today's text, there were people in Israel who bore that unmistakably Greek name, "Philip." The Apostle Philip shows up time and again in John's gospel. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke we only meet Philip in the rolls of the Twelve, but in John it's different. Philip plays a central role in a number of Johannine stories, just like he does in this one, and by John's telling this story is the climax of Jesus' ministry: "Now my hour has come," Jesus proclaims to the crowds...and all because a couple of Greeks introduce themselves to Philip and tell him that they wish to see his Lord.
