January 20, 2008
The Second Sunday after The Epiphany (Year A)
Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 40:1-12; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42
It’s amazing, isn’t it, how fast the years can sometimes seem to fly by! It doesn’t feel quite like yesterday but it is only a short time ago that our first gandchild was born. Oops! He’ll be sixteen in April (and can’t wait to start learning to drive!) And not only does real time fly by, especially when we’re having fun, but so also, it seems, does “Bible” time. A bare three weeks has past since we celebrated the birth of Jesus. Two weeks after that, we were still in Bethlehem as the wise men arrived with their gifts. In real time possibly some months had gone by before they made it there. Then suddenly “time” takes off, as a week later, last week, we were witnessing John baptizing Jesus, now a grown man, thirty years of age. One might well say, “Where has the time gone?” There were no childhood stories; we didn’t even hear the “do it my way” teenager story – that’s one way of looking at the incident when the family traveled up to Jerusalem and Jesus disappeared only to be found by his distraught parents a day later in the temple talking with the elders. And now today we are totally immersed in the beginning of his ministry.
There can be a certain amount of confusion at this point between John the author of the Gospel and John the Baptizer or Baptist. According to John the gospeler, who did not himself record the baptism event, it is John the Baptist who identifies Jesus on this day as the one the Spirit descended upon when he baptized him. “Here is the Lamb of God,” he proclaims. “This is the Son of God.” This is what John the Gospeler wants everyone to believe, that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah, and what better way to start his story than to have John the Baptist point out Jesus to the world. So we have Day 1 of what is to be an account of Jesus’ ministry.
Day 2 has John again standing in a place near Bethany across the Jordan where he had been baptizing (1:28). It is an area steeped in tradition. It was here that Elijah was swept up into heaven by a whirlwind and that Elisha received a share of the prophet’s spirit and his mantle with which he parted the waters of the River Jordan. Moses, too, died on or near Mount Nebo which overlooks this area, and Moses’ successor, Joshua, possibly brought the Israelites across the Jordan in this vicinity. The stage is set for “new” things to happen! And John once again seeing Jesus walking by repeats his pronouncement of yesterday as he says to two of his disciples, “Look, here is the Lamb of God.” The two disciples immediately leave John, and start to follow Jesus.
There follows the question that I think is central to this passage. Jesus turns and addresses the two disciples, “What are you looking for?” Note: he says “what” not “whom.” I have played that question back and forth in my mind trying out all the different inflections, emphases. “What are you looking for?” “What are you looking for?” “What are you looking for?”
We don’t know, of course, what was going through Jesus’ mind at that moment and as a result we don’t know how he actually put the question. But we can speculate. “What are you looking for?” Have you lost something? Is there something maybe I can help you with? Then again, “What are you looking for?” You two, in particular, not the others around here, you two, what is it you’re after? Why are you following me? And still again, “What are you looking for?” What is it that you want? What specific thing is it that you are searching for? And, of course, although it might be stretching it a bit, behind that question could be another, “Why me? Why are you following me?” I ask you, how do you thank he was asking that question? What was the important piece of information, what was the response, that he, Jesus, was looking for? What answer did he want to hear? What answer would you give?
One of the rules in our household when the children were growing up was that you never answer a question with a question. But that’s exactly what happens here. The two disciples, maybe not wanting to be caught out saying something mundane or foolish, or maybe because they really don’t know why they’re doing what they are doing, ask, “Where are you staying?” Isn’t that begging the question? What is the relevance? Well, Jesus didn’t get all riled up; he didn’t criticize them for not answering his question; instead he just said, “Come and see!” And they did and they stayed with him throughout the day; and whatever he said to them must have been very convincing because the one disciple, now identified as Andrew, goes and gets his brother, Simon, telling him, “We have found the Messiah!” I think this is the first instance of “bringing a friend to Jesus!” And, of course, the rest is history. Simon is renamed Peter by Jesus and goes on to be a leader, first, of Jesus’ disciples and, in time, of the young church.
But let us look again at that scene where Andrew and his companion turn and follow Jesus. They were probably nearby on that first day when John the Baptist, up until then, their teacher, their mentor, said – and you can almost feel the awe in his voice, “Here, is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” And of course they were there the next day, as John played down his role in the salvation story, maintaining that he was just an instrument of God, saying the same thing, “Look, here is the Lamb of God.” In Jesus John has seen the coming of the savior of his people, the savior of the world. He has recognized in Jesus what Isaiah prophesied, “I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” Yes, indeed, Jesus came as a light to all people, all nations. The wisemen were the first to acknowledge that and now years later we see Jesus taking the first tentative steps in carrying out that vision.
“What are you looking for?” Jesus asks.
The verses that we read from Psalm 40 are a wonderful song of thanksgiving for God’s intervention in our lives: “Great things are they that you have done, O Lord my God! how great your wonders and your plans!” (40:5) Is there anything greater that God has done for us than send his Son into the world as a Light for our salvation? I think not!
So, again, “What are you looking for?”
How do we, here, today, respond to that question? Not, I hope, by equivocating or answering a question with a question as John’s disciples did. I would hope it would be as faithful followers of Jesus Christ, that as baptized, committed Christians who have accepted his invitation to “come and see,” we would be about his work. We would be looking for all the ways we can carry his light into the world, starting right here in this church, this building, then going out, taking it into the communities in which we live and work, and thus spreading it far and wide. That light of his is for us his grace and his love and if we let ourselves be so infused with that power, that grace and love of God, we will indeed move mountains, bring peace to all nations. It will be the natural thing to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and those in prison. We will in simple terms, love one another as he loves us.
It occurred to me as I was writing this sermon that one year from today, the 20th of January 2009, we will be inaugurating a new president. “New” things will be happening just as they did for those disciples of old. But we don’t have to wait till then. “New” things can happen NOW! So let us put our faith and our trust today and all the days to come in our God who went beyond asking us, ”What are you looking for?” to inviting us to “come and see” and has provded us with the Light to go forward. To paraphrase the MDGs prayer, “The world now has the means to spread love and bring peace; we pray we will always have the will.”
Amen.
Sonia F. G. Stevenson, M. Div.
Church of the Good Shepherd