John 1:29-42
“What Are We Looking For?”
By: Rev. Kenneth Sauer,
Pastor of Parkview UMC, Newport News, VA
www.parkview-umc.org.
John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus’ first disciples had been disciples of John the Baptist.
And when John saw Jesus passing by he said: “Look, the Lamb of God!”
John’s work had been done.
He pointed them to Jesus and they “turned around”…
…and began to follow Him.
One of these disciples was Andrew, a Galilean fisherman, who had been following John in Judea.
The other disciple is not named, but from early times it has been thought that he is the author of this Gospel.
When Jesus sees these two men following Him, Jesus asks them: “What do you want?”
That’s a big question.
Really, in a very literal sense…
…that is the question that we are all asked to answer.
What do you want?
What do you want to do with this gift you have been given…this gift we call life?
What do you want to produce or achieve?
What are you looking for?
What is important?
What is it that will fill your life with purpose and joy and meaning?
As some of you know, I was out of town this past week…
…Monday through Thursday I was in Blackstone, Virginia with approximately 260 other United Methodist Ministers.
We spent these four days studying, in depth, the meaning behind our Wesleyan understanding of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
It was one of, if not the most spiritually refreshing Christian retreats I have ever experienced.
Never was it boring. Never was it dull.
We spent the days, from seven in the morning until nine at night, learning and dialoguing about the minutest details of the two Sacraments of our Church.
Then, after all this was over, some of us went to bed, some sat in the lounge area and talked for hours, and some of us played basketball in the gym.
Can you guess what I did?
I played basketball with other ministers, and with district superintendents…people from around our conference I had never before met.
I also got to know our Bishop pretty well, as she was with us the entire time, dressed casually and walking among us from Bible study to workshop, to worship, to dinner…you name it.
And during this time, I was reminded of what had first attracted me so to Jesus Christ, and to the ministry as a vocation and a lifestyle.
As a child, I spent a lot of time around ministers—United Methodist ministers, that is.
My uncle was a minister, and he and his family and my family spent every single holiday together when I was growing up.
We would also take trips together in the summer.
My parents and my uncle Jack and aunt Dene were best friends.
We were also close to all the ministers we ever had…
…and we had a number of them because we moved around so much.
I barley remember the pastor we had in Dayton, Ohio because we only lived there until I was five years old…but he and my folks still stay in touch.
I remember, quite well, both of the pastors we had in Bowling Green, Kentucky because we spent quite a bit of time at their houses and they at ours’.
The same held true when we moved to New Jersey, and then, finally to Syracuse, New York.
What I’m getting at is that I was blessed to have been surrounded—very early on in life—by some of the most fantastic human beings…who were, yes, very human…very down to earth, but at the same time, very in love with Jesus Christ and completely committed to His Church.
These were truly nice people.
I saw the way they lived, I experienced the grace of their love and friendships, and I wanted to be one of them when I got older.
And being surrounded by so many United Methodist ministers this past week, I was once again reminded by their presence, their niceness, their grace, their love for Jesus Christ and His Church and their friendship that these are the exact same type of folks I had experienced as a youngster…these people are the reason I wanted to become or to have what they had….
…to live the kind of lives they lived…
…to love the way they loved.
Because more than any other persons I had met, these persons seemed to have found what many of us are looking for…
…for what is important…
…what is it that will fill ours life with purpose and joy and meaning?
So in our Gospel Lesson, Jesus asks John and Andrew: “What do you want?”
And these two men respond to Jesus’ question with a question of their own.
They ask Jesus where He is staying.
They feel so immediately drawn to the spiritual power of Christ Who asks them the most important question of their lives, they feel so connected to Him that they want to be with Him…
…not in some geographical place, not in an architectural place, but in a spiritual place.
“Where do you stay, where do you abide, where do you rest your spirit and body?” they ask.
And, “Can we come and stay, can we come and abide, can we come and remain with you?”
To which Jesus responds immediately, “Come. Come, and you will see. Come and be. Come and abide with me.”
And so they went and saw where Jesus was staying, and they spent the day with Him.
And Andrew, after having spent the day with Jesus…
…after having the question of his life answered in the experience of following and abiding with Christ…
…the first thing he does is go to find his brother—Simon Peter—and tell him: “We have found the Messiah” (that is the Christ). “And he brought him to Jesus.”
As we think about our Gospel lesson this morning let’s ask ourselves: “Who or what are we following…
…What is it that we are looking for?
If the answer is Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, the One Who can take away our sins and make us whole…
…if we are trying to find where He is staying…
…or where we can find Him…
…or how we can find Him…
…well, the answer is a simple invitation to “Come, and you will see.”
And when we come and see, when our life’s question is answered by a personal relationship with Jesus Christ we cannot keep Him to ourselves, we must share Him with others!!!
And that is exactly what Andrew did!
Andrew found his brother, told him about Jesus, and as verse 42 of John chapter 1 simply states: “And he brought him to Jesus.”
What a witness!!!
It’s easy to get into the habit of talking about the disciples as if they are somehow much bigger and greater than we.
Yet, in reality they were very ordinary people.
It’s funny, when I was telling my dad about my experience at Blackstone this past week, over the phone, I was telling him how nice these ministers were.
Then he said, “and you are one of them.”
I just kind of laughed, but inside, I said to myself: “No. That can’t be true. I know myself too well. I’m nowhere near as nice a person as these folks…I’m not even close.”
Could it be that what I was seeing this week was not just a bunch of nice people, but instead, very faulty human beings—people like all the rest of us—but, people who are allowing the love, the grace, the sufficiency of Jesus Christ make up for their very human shortcomings?
Could it be that these great people are no better than you or me?
Andrew just barely hovers on the edges of the inner circle of the disciples.
He is given no really great prominence in the Gospels.
But when we do get a glimpse of him, he is always doing the same thing, bringing others to Christ!
And in bringing others to Christ, some of those others go on to great prominence.
Peter was Jesus’ closest friend, and it was Andrew who brought him to Jesus.
And then, when we think of how great a witness Peter became, we are reminded that he was one of the most intensely human—but of course, very loveable disciples.
He is the one who was as sudden and as fickle in his quickly changing moods as the Sea of Galilee…
…and yet when Jesus looked down on this impulsive and unstable young man he told him that his name would be Peter—which means Rock—sturdy, tough, dependable.
And when we look at the Book of Acts we see that Peter, did indeed, become a rock for the early Church.
Jesus named Peter not for what he was but for what, by God’s grace, he would become!
What could we become if we would only follow Christ, and allow Him to shape us into His image?
Jesus called Andrew and John to “Come”…
…to come and abide with Him, to stay with Him, to become like Him in whatever fragile and finite ways they could.
And Jesus calls all of us…not necessarily to a particular career…
…but to a particular relationship—and to a particular vision—and to a particular answer to the all-important question: “What are you looking for?”
My friends, all of us are called—called through our baptism to be God’s person in the world.
We are called to imagine seeing what God sees when God looks at the world, to abide with God in the passionate places where God lives, and to share that passion by being God’s presence in this world and bringing others to Jesus.
Barbara Brown Taylor writes: “One midnight I asked God to tell me as plainly as possible what I was supposed to do.
‘Anything that please you.’
That is the answer that came into my sleepy head.
‘What?’ I said, waking up.
‘What kind of answer is that?’
‘Do anything that pleases you,’ the voice said, ‘and belong to me.’”
After that things fell into place for Taylor. She could pump gas or clean out latrines.
But as long as she remembered whose she was, her “calling” was a true one.
Jesus Christ has promised that we can all grow into His very likeness.
It’s still far away; and it may seem even more impossible than ever.
But, as Paul tells us in Romans: “Anyone who trusts in [Christ] will never be put to shame.”
If Christ said it, He can do it, and He will.
And one day it will have come true, and our dreams will truly be the only reality.
Thanks be to God.
Let us pray: Lord You know that no matter where we are on this journey called life, whether we see clearly or are confused, You are calling us—You are wrapping Your warm grace around our restlessness, and Your call gives voice to that ancient prayer of Your Church: “Lord, we know that our hearts are restless until they find rest in thee.” Thanks be to God that in You we can and will find that rest…if we will only come, and see. In Jesus name, Amen.
