John 1:29-42 - Come and See

John 1:29-42
I don’t know where Jesus was heading that day. I don’t know what he had on his agenda. I don’t know where his day planner told him he should be or by what time he was suppose to be there but on this day, Jesus was going about whatever it was he had set out to do as he was going merrily about his day, he was interrupted by John the Baptist, who decides that at this particular moment as Jesus walks by would be a great time to declare to all those within hearing distance who it was John believed Jesus to be.

I don’t know if you have ever spent much time comparing the 4 gospels and how they relate the story of Jesus to their readers and now to us, but each one tells us about Jesus in a different way. Many of them will tell us the same the same event in Jesus’ life but they will tell us about the event in Jesus’ life in a different way. Now the first three gospel writers, Matthew, Mark and Luke tend to be fairly similar to one another but John, John’s telling of the life of Jesus is quite different than the other three. The other three pretty much begin their retelling of Jesus’ life with narrative, while John begins with a theological exposition about Jesus being the Word of God. All the other writers let us figure out who Jesus is as the story of Jesus’ life unfolds but John, there is no mystery, there is no surprise, John gets straight to the punch line and then tells us the conclusion we are to come to before he even introduces the story’s main character. He begins by telling us who Jesus is and then gives us the events of his life which show us how it is he came to this conclusion.

John’s narrative begins with John the Baptist explaining that he is not the messiah but that the messiah would come after him. Then John the Baptist tells us, who is actually the messiah. John looks up and sees Jesus passing by and declares that although he himself is not the messiah but merely the one who comes before preparing the way, this man right here passing by just now is the Messiah, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He then gives an explanation as to why it is he has come to this conclusion. He knew Jesus was the messiah because God told him that the one on whom he saw the Spirit of God alight like a dove would be the messiah and John saw the Spirit alight on Jesus, therefore Jesus must be the messiah, God’s anointed.

Once John knows to whom he has come to make the way for, he cannot keep the information to himself. It is almost as if he has to make sure everyone he knows,
knows that Jesus is the messiah. Because the very next day, he hijacks Jesus’ day again. He is standing around, (it seems that in John’s gospel, John the Baptist has a lot of time on his hands) with two of his disciples and Jesus is walking by once again, having nothing better to say than what he said last time, he tells his two disciples to look, here is the lamb of God. At this point John’s disciples must have understood what this cryptic phrase meant, or perhaps they figured if they went and checked him out, John would stop bothering this poor man as he walked by every day. So they left John and began following Jesus.

Now this is kind of strange. Here Jesus is just going about his business and two days in a row his cousin calls out to those around him telling all who will listen that here Jesus is the lamb of God and now two of his followers are now following him, so Jesus turns to them and asks them a simple question, “What are you looking for?”

And these two disciples being ever so good at understanding and quite good at following simple instructions and having the ability answer basic questions, completely fail to answer Jesus’ question by avoiding it all together and asking him another question, “Where are you staying/abiding?” Since they were already in the game of not answering each other’s questions clearly and precisely, Jesus answers by telling them to, “Come and see.” So they followed Jesus to his home to go and see. They must have liked what they saw because not only did that stay with him thyat day and ten choose become his disciples but one of them, Andrew went to get his brother Simon, to tell him he needed to come and see this guy, he believe to be the Messiah. Simon then in turn, comes to see this Messiah his brother had found. Immediately Jesus sees him and tells him that his name is no longer Simon, but will from hence forth be Cephas which when translated is Peter. So as we conclude the narrative we are looking at this morning Jesus now has his first three disciples, the last of which will be a pivotal figure, not only in his life and ministry but in the founding and building of the church.

When I began my sermon, I was going to look at what it meant for Jesus to be the Lamb of God, but as I worked my way through the passage this week. I kept coming back to the latter part of the passage when these two disciples decide to leave John, baptizing by the river and follow Jesus. Jesus asks them as very good question, “What are you looking for?” And it seems all they want to know is where it is that
Jesus is living at this point in his life.

Although it does not come across well in English, when they ask him where it is that he is staying or some translation use the word abiding, what they are actually asking Jesus is a much more complex question. Thing is translating something from one language to another is always a tricky process. Words in one language often times have meaning and connotations which are nearly impossible to carry over into another language. Sometimes in order to get the full picture of what one seemly simple word means in one language you need a whole sentence to explain it, when you translate that one word into another language. The word used here in Greek is not so easy to bring into English. The word which is translated, “staying” or “abiding” actually means two things at the same time when John uses it here in this passage.
The first meaning is fairly simple; Andrew and his friend are asking Jesus where is the location of the place where Jesus is living. But on another level they are also asking Jesus, “What is at the center of your being?” “What is it that defines who you are?” “What is at the core of all who you are?” Which then makes Jesus’ answer to them all the more interesting; Jesus does not tell them what it means for him to be the Messiah. Jesus does not explain to them about being the Son of God or even give them a brief description about what his purpose was here on earth. Instead, Jesus turns to them and simply answers “Come and see.”

So they went with him to see. Jesus took him to where he lived and by spending the day with Jesus they saw who he was. They were convince by what they saw in Jesus, they saw in whom he abided, they saw what was at the center of his being, they caught a glimpse of who Jesus was and what he was up to and decided they wanted to be a part of it, that wanted what Jesus had, they wanted to center who they were in the one whom Jesus was centered. In short they wanted to be like Jesus, so they choose then and there be become his disciples.

But it did not stop there. Andrew was so impressed by what he saw in Jesus that he sought out his brother and decided it was pertinent for Simon to also come and see where Jesus abided. Jesus was not just another rabbi, he was not just another teacher or a prophet he was the real deal, he was the one they had been seeking for and it was evident in who he was, it was evident in how he went about his life, it was evident in all he did and all he said. It was evident and he wanted his brother to come and see what he saw.

I don’t know why you are here this morning. I could fool myself into thinking that you have come here this morning because you have figured out what an great speaker I am and that that you came here this morning just to hear what amazingly profound wisdom I would bring before you this morning, and if that is the reason you came this morning, I am a little more than flattered that you think so highly of my speaking abilities. But let us be realistic, we all come to church on any given Sunday for our own reasons. Some of them are good and noble reasons, of us are here for some more self serving reasons and sometimes we get up, get ourselves ready and find ourselves within these walls out of habit and little more. We have, for whatever reason, found ourselves within these walls, listening to this sermon this morning, standing with John on the street and hearing him say, “Look, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”

There are several places we can be this morning, when it comes to this passage. We might be among those who are simply here this morning. We came because it is a good place to be. Our friends are here. We have always gone to church. We like church, but there is not much more to it than that. We are bystanders in a way, just there on the street, or by the river or where ever it was when John looked up and pointed Jesus out that day.

We are here. We have heard John’s testimony. John is telling us that right here, is Jesus is the messiah, God’s anointed, the one who was God and was with God, and the Word of God and with the Creator when the earth’s foundations were laid, here is the one who came to take away the sins of the world.

Here we are, just minding our own business, going about our lives and suddenly we see Jesus, someone points him out to us. Someone tries to explain who he is. Perhaps, what they have to say to us makes sense, perhaps it does not. We find ourselves wondering to ourselves, “What does it mean that Jesus is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world? What is this person talking about?” Or perhaps, they speak words about Jesus and suddenly the whole thing makes sense.

Either way, we find ourselves looking up and seeing this Jesus for the first time. He is right there passing by, what do we do? Are we like these two disciples who have heard the witness of John and figure that this Jesus is someone worth checking out? Do we see this man, this teacher, this messiah and want to tag along to see what he is all about? Perhaps we don’t even know why we are going to check him out, but something about him, something about what is said about him, something attracts us and we find that we are interested, that we want to see what this man is all about. We want to know what it means for him to be the messiah. We don’t completely understand the idea of him taking away the sins of the world, but sounds pretty interesting.

So some of us are choosing to go check this Jesus fellow out for the first time this morning, but there are others of us who have already been checking him out. We have already decided he is worth checking out. And as we have checked him out. We have listened to what people have to say about him, followed him around for a while. Spent some time getting to know him, trying to understand what he is all about, coming to an understanding of who he is, and what is at the center, the core of all that he is. As we have come and seen, we find that we like what we see. We want to be more than mere observers, we want to be a part of what he is all about. We want to follow him, learn from him, and learn to be more like him. We have seen who he is, we have seen what he is all about, and we want more, we want be disciples.
But being a disciple is not like being an observer. It more than simply coming and seeing. Choosing to be a disciple is the choice which moves us from watching and observing, to doing. Choosing to be a disciple is the choice which moves us from coming and seeing, to going and doing. From watching the actions of others as they go about the work of the kingdom, to being people who are participating in the work of the kingdom. It is the choice to embrace the one we have been observing, to follow his example and to seek to live as he lived, to speak as he spoke, to love as he loved, to learn from his teachings, from his life and from who he is and seek to be a person who is like him, to be moved by the one who moves him, to have at the center of our beings the same God of love, mercy, justice and forgiveness who is at the center of who Jesus is. And then have that change, that choice move us forward to go and do the his work in this world.

You see there is more to following Jesus than just showing up and listening. There is more to following Jesus than coming and seeing. Once we have seen once we know who Jesus is we must then choose to stay, and not only to stay but to do as Andrew did and be moved to action by what we have seen, moved to action by who we have seen, to participate in the work and the ministry which God is doing here on this earth and do our best to share with those around us who it is in whom we have come to believe. To invite those whom we love and those whom we encounter in our day-to-day lives to come and see what we have seen, to come meet the one we have chosen to follow, to come to know what we have come to know.

This passage is a circle. It begins with John saying, “Look!” Which causes these two to go and see who it was John was calling for them to behold. They went and saw and who they saw and it changed them. Who they saw caused them to choose to follow, to choose to be disciples and in turned caused Andrew to then go and invite his brother to come and see and Simon heeds his brother’s invitation and chooses to come and see for himself who this Jesus, messiah is, bringing us full circle so to speak.
As people who here this morning we are somewhere on this circle; we may be at the top of the circle, with someone calling to behold the Messiah, with Jesus asking us to us to come and see, we may be somewhere along the circle observing, “seeing” what there is to see, judging for ourselves what we think of this Jesus, messiah person, we may be among those who have chosen to follow Jesus, to be his disciples and as such there is nowhere else to go, but be changed by what we have seen, infuse our lives with who Jesus is, and what Jesus is all about and then like John and Andrew invite those around us to come and see, to come and learn, to come so that they may know what we know, so that they may know who we know and also be changed by who he is.