“What Are You Looking For?”
January 21, 2018
Exodus 14:10-13
John 1:35-42
Around this time in January, I start to wonder: Is it too late to greet people with “Happy New Year?” We’re still really at the start of 2018. The new semester at the University is less than a week old. We’re always beginning in some way. And, really can’t we all use good wishes for happiness? So Happy New Year.
As we start out into a new year—that I do indeed hope will be “happy”—this morning and on the next two Sundays we hear stories of beginnings from the Gospel of John.
John’s Gospel, as you know, does not begin with angels singing in the night nor with magi seeking the child who had been born—it has no Christmas story at all, aside from those poetic words at the beginning of chapter one.
Of the incarnation, of God with us in Jesus, John simply—and profoundly—says: “The Word became flesh and lived among us.”
John says: “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.”
At the same time, as it starts to tell the story of this light shining in Jesus, of the word living among us in the One from Nazareth, this gospel wants to be clear that John the Baptist simply “came as a witness to testify to the light…He himself was not the light,” the gospel states clearly, “but he came to testify to the light.”
Let’s not confuse things, here, this Gospel says—John the Baptist is not the One we are looking for.
That One is Jesus.
But’s it’s difficult to get a handle on just who this Jesus is.
John the Baptist’s testimony about Jesus is slow to come into focus. First he says of this Jesus simply that he is “one you do not know.” And not Jesus is unknown not only to those who come questioning John the Baptist. Twice he says even of himself: “I myself did not know him.”
And so it is even for us today. The great twentieth century New Testament scholar, accomplished organist, and famed humanitarian Albert Schweitzer said of this Jesus who is so hard to pin down: “He comes to us as one unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside, he came to those who did not know who he was. He says the same words, ‘Follow me!’, and sets us to those tasks which he must fulfill in our time.”
Most often the tasks which Christ must fulfill in our time are clearer to us than just who this Christ is. We understand the need to welcome the stranger, to feed the hungry, to stand for the rights of all people. We don’t always understand the One in whose name we do such things.
When John the Baptist finally gets around to saying something specific about this unknown Jesus, he proclaims: “He is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” The singular word, “sin,” speaks not any particular actions that we may have done or left undone, but of the general and pervasive brokenness and finitude of the world and all who dwell in it. Just how it is that this sin is taken away is not said. But we listen to those words carefully and with hope, because we know our finitude, we know our brokenness, we know our common condition, which for want of a better word, we call “sin.” And here is the One who takes that away!
So we might understand the excitement of those two disciples of John the Baptist who are with him on the day when he again sees Jesus and again says, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!”
That is enough for them. The leave John the Baptist and follow Jesus. Even without Jesus saying a word, they follow.
As with a lot of words in John’s gospel, “follow” has a couple of meanings. There is the literal sense that they start walking behind Jesus, going where he goes. And there is also the sense that at this moment they become the disciples of Jesus, learning from him, doing what he does. And they do all of this, much as we do, without fully knowing who this Jesus, this Lamb of God, is.
Only after John has spoken his incomplete testimony, only after two disciples of John decide to follow Jesus, do we hear those first words of Jesus in John’s gospel.
Jesus doesn’t quote scripture.
He doesn’t say something profound or puzzling.
He doesn’t these two what they should do.
He only asks a simple question: “What are you looking for?”
And suddenly it’s not just those two disciples who are addressed.
Suddenly it’s you and me and everyone who has followed in the ways of Jesus Christ, known and to be made known. Suddenly you and I are pulled into this story and asked the same question.
What are you looking for?
What are you looking for as you look this Jesus?
Well?
The two of them stammer out an answer—and like the question, the answer isn’t very profound.
They aren’t looking for the meaning of life.
They aren’t looking for ways to change the world.
They aren’t looking for ways to grow spiritually.
They just want to know, well, um, “Where are you staying?” We might not be able to come up with a much better response ourselves.
We might not be quite sure what it is we are looking for—but we know we’re looking. And we know we’re looking for something.
In response to that simple question of those uncertain disciples who were yet so ready to follow, we hear what I think are three of the most important words this unknown Jesus ever speaks: “Come and see.”
He doesn’t say, “At the house down the road,” or “In the next town.” No, he simply replies, “Come and see.” What Jesus offers is more than information. He offers an invitation.
Certainly, this invitation asks for a commitment from those who receive it. They aren’t allowed to think it over, check their calendars, and get back to him. They’re invited to follow with their lives.
Come and see.
I remember a poem I read years ago:
To look at any thing,
If you would know that thing,
You must look at it long:
To look at this green and say
“I have seen spring in these
Woods,” will not do—you must
Be the thing you see:
You must be the dark snakes of
Stems and ferny plumes of leaves,
You must enter in
To the small silences between
The leaves,
You must take your time
And touch the very peace
They issue from.
When we desire to see and to know what we see, we must slow down and take our time. We must accept the invitation to enter into the small silences. We must be willing to touch the peace that is the source of what we are looking for.
Open your eyes and look around at what is happening.
Where is God bringing balm in response to suffering?
Where is God bringing love in response to hate?
Where is God feeding the hungry, healing the brokenhearted?
And how might you be a part of that?
Enter into the small silences.
Come and see.
“Come and see,” Jesus responds when questioned by the curious.
“Come and see,” the psalmist wrote. “Come and see what God has done.”
For the Hebrew people, “What God has done” was best seen in looking at the Exodus from Egypt, in calling the enslaved descendants of Abraham and Sarah into freedom and new life. In places and at times too numerous to catalogue, the God who gives life to all things is still active.
It’s strange how the psalmist writes of God’s love: “You have tested us, tried us as silver is tried. You brought us into the net; you laid burdens on our backs; you let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water.”
These are the acts of a loving creator?
This is how a benevolent God shows compassion?
What an amazing affirmation of faith! Listening, we get the sense that God is present even in the suffering of individuals and nations.
Now, I have a hard time with that. I don’t think that God is author of suffering. And yet I do hope that in the painful places of our world and our lives, God is present; that there is something—even someone—who will work to bring good out of evil, life out of death.
We heard some of the challenging words of Martin Luther King, Jr. last Sunday. But he also spoke of a comforting faith in the God who brings good out of evil, life out of death, saying:
In recent months I have become more and more convinced of the reality of a personal God…This is a living reality that has been validated in the experiences of everyday life. Perhaps the suffering, frustration, and agonizing moments which I have had to undergo occasionally as a result of my involvement in a difficult struggle have drawn me closer to God. Whatever the cause, God has been profoundly real to me in recent months. In the midst of outer dangers, I have felt an inner calm and known resources of strength that only God could give.[i]
The result of the suffering of the Hebrew people, the psalmist writes, is that God “brought us out to a spacious place, a place of plenty.” “No” is not the final word. Beyond all that would destroy and tear down comes God’s “Yes” to us and to the world.
We especially need the invitation to “Come and see” in our time, because, well, because usually we don’t see. We look past other people. We are more and more the servants of our electronic devices.
Maybe you heard Roger McNamee, a former mentor to Mark Zuckerberg and an early investor in Facebook, say yesterday that “We are all addicted one way or another to smart phones…We have smart phones that available every waking moment. Most people are conditioned to checking it within a few minutes of waking up and we use it all day long, finishing only a few minutes before they go to sleep.” He chillingly concluded: “if you can addict your user, they are a lot more valuable.”
Addicted users, we are very valuable to Facebook in its pursuit of profit, but we are missing the rainbow, the sunset, the child growing up, the smile. We are missing the homeless, the abused, the marginalized and the opportunities to make life better. We don’t see those places where the Christ is living, even in our midst.
Come and see. With open eyes, with open hearts, come and see what God has done.
With open eyes, with open hearts, come and see what God is doing even now.
[i] Martin Luther King, Jr., in A Testament of Hope, pg. 40.