The Time Had Come

Someone has written that this incident of the Greeks who came to see Jesus is the "second Epiphany" of Jesus Christ (after the Magi's coming to worship the infant King). These Greeks believed Jesus could lead them to the worship of God. But their arrival prompted Jesus to declare that the supreme hour of his earthly mission had arrived: his death on the cross which would produce much fruit for the kingdom of God, even as a seed must die and be buried in order to produce many seeds.