Come And See

Scripture

John 1:35–42 NRSV

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

Introduction

William Barclay comments that “we can neither understand Jesus nor help others to understand him, unless we take our hearts to him as well as our minds.” We will see today that, as we commented last week, that Jesus too, starts with the heart and not with information. There is a cultural reason for this.

Starting with John the Baptist we will see that he and the first two disciples encounter Jesus in a variety of experiences which will illustrate the various dimensions of our relationship with Jesus that will transform us into the person that he calls us to become.

This is because discipleship was understood differently in Jesus day versus how we understand it now. Hebraic thought sees things as whole and continuous. Unlike today where we segment everything. This occurs because our thought systems are primarily Greek. Greek thought separates, divides and sees things in parts where Hebraic thought sees things as whole and continuous.

We talk about faith being a journey, but we really do not live it that way. We say we don’t want to mix religion and politics, we behave one way at work and another way at church, we separate the so called secular from the sacred. We separate the intellectual from the spiritual.

The Jews didn’t see it that way, and they still don’t. We try to find answers for everything. Jews do not. Listen to what one Rabbi says: “The Semites of Bible times did not simply think truth—they experienced truth.… We [Jews] are practical. We are more interested in discovering what God wants man to do than in describing God’s essence…. As a teacher, I never try to solve questions because most questions are unsolvable.” We are taught there must be an answer for everything. Really part of faith is being comfortable with the mysterious and unanswerable.

Faith in the hebraic understanding is a journey of life, not just faith. Faith is a walk through all of life. It is where the emphasis should be on experiencing God’s truth not just studying it.

This journey most often called a walk, is all over the Old and New Testament alike. Disciple, which means follower is found 73 times in the gospels. This implies the Hebraic understanding of discipleship as a walk or journey.

Jesus is experienced in authentic discipleship. Jesus does not invite us to sit down and study. Come to worship. Read the Bible. The invitation is to come and experience him. To come and dwell and journey with him.

This is the culture that Andrew and the unnamed disciple (whom I will refer to as John) live in and are drawn too. There is no separation of sacred and secular it is all one. We need to understand this to unpack what is going on in these verses.

Exegesis

We need to back up a few verses to set what is going on here in context. We do not have a record of Jesus baptism in John. What we have is JohnB talking about baptizing Jesus. JohnB tells the religious authorities that he is not the Messiah, but the one sent ahead of the messiah to “Make straight the way of the Lord.”

The day after this JohnB sees Jesus walks by and:

John 1:29–34 NRSV

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”

John 1:29

Now, comes our Scripture for today.

The day after that Andrew and the unnamed disciple are with JohnB (It appears they were John B disciples at the time) and Jesus walks by. John B exclaims “Look, here is the lamb of God!” The other two decide to follow Jesus on this testimony of JohnB. They probably hear what JohnB had declared the day before. There is no hesitation, they follow.

Jesus realizes he is being followed, turns and asks them “what are you looking for?”—Now, I think we can all see there is more to this question than meets the eye. We know Jesus is the Messiah. So this question has deeper meaning to us. But not yet for the two.

Andrew gives an odd answer. He calls him Rabbi, a term of great respect, actually means a little more than teacher. Literally means great one. —So why does Andrew call him that? There is much more here than we see on the surface.—Andrew answers, with a question, “where are you staying?” Jesus give the great answer, and invitation actually. “Come and see.” This answer is loaded, we will see why in a few minutes.

So they came and saw and stayed all day with him.

Now at 4 in the afternoon, there is a reason for the time, Andrew goes to find his brother Simon. He tells Simon that “we have found the Messiah.” —How does he know this so soon?—And Simon comes with Andrew to Jesus.

Jesus looked at him, actually the word means studied. That is Jesus looked intently at him. Then changes his name to rock. What’s up with that? In the other gospels this name change comes much later.

In this story John the author of the gospel, is using historical events but not necessarily in chronological order to tell a theological story. John says this in

John 20:30–31 NRSV

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

Application

Application

Ok so what is this theology? What does this tell us about God, us, and our relationship with God.

First, lets remember the Hebraic culture of discipleship. It was a holistic understanding of life. No false separations. Walking with God is life. It is not just our religious life. It is our complete self our whole life, all we are. Our jobs/vocations, our families, our roles as parents, grandparents, brothers and sister, husbands and wives, our politics, ethics and morality is is all rolled up in our walk with God. Andrew, John, and Peter are not going to Jesus like they are going to a great sage to study under. They are going to follow Jesus and learn through experience a full immersion of their lives in the life of Jesus. Yes there will be information exchanged, but it will not be in a classroom, this will be in the everyday. Then on to test it out. like a theory. This is real. This is practical. This is faith lived out.

Jesus invitation to come and see is an invitation into his life. Andrew asking where he was staying was Andrew’s way of saying we want to dwell with you. We want to be with you always. We want to follow behind you with our whole selves not just our religious or spiritual self.

John’s theology can be summed up as:

“He wants us to become disciples whose growth in knowledge and devotion is inspired by these stories. John is claiming that discipleship has two essential elements: Disciples must know who Jesus is, and they must have a personal experience that completely reorients who they are.”

Andrew’s life changed at 4PM. It is at 4PM that he lived out the life of a disciple by inviting another to come and see. Namely his brother Simon. Notice that John tells us nothing about the background of Andrew and Simon. This is because the total focus is on how their contact and experience of Jesus changed them. Transformed them.

That is why the story of Simon’s name change to Peter is told here. Names meant something to the people in the Mediterranean culture. A name is a distinguishing label that sums up the essence or the character of a person. When someone experiences a name change it can be descriptive or prescriptive and demonstrates the authority of the one giving the new name.

In understanding that discipleship is a walk or a journey, what Jesus is doing here with this name change is prescriptive. In other words, this is what you are going to become by walking with me.

We are talking theology here. But do you see any doctrine? We are unpacking scripture, but we are not citing scripture to “do” theology. This theology is wrapped up in the experience of Andrew, Peter and the unnamed disciple in their meeting of Jesus Christ. Their first meeting with Jesus Christ mind you.

Jesus question, what are you looking for is the question of our discipleship. What are you looking for? Security? Money? Health? A spouse? Peace? A savior? This story gives us the process for discipleship: follow, come and see, stay or dwell. We may not get truth in flashy answers, but we may receive it in experience. if you are going to learn it, you have to live it.

We don’t leave Jesus in our homes after our devotion, Jesus goes to the store, our jobs, school. We do not leave him here on Sunday. We should invite Jesus to journey with us wherever we go, and we should be 100% willing to go where he goes. We dwell with Jesus and he dwells with us.

As one scholar wrote:

“This question touches on the basic need of [humans] that causes one to turn to God, and the answer of the disciples must be interpreted on the same theological level. Humans wish to stay (menein: “dwell, abide”) with God; humans are constantly seeking to escape temporality, change, and death, seeking to find something that is lasting.”

Here’s some good news, Jesus invites us to follow him, and to dwell with him.

One commentator wrote that this story of the two new (Andrew and John) disciples is incomplete until their witness brings other to Jesus. Our is too. We point them in the right direction by the Christ in our lives. We help to point out that Jesus is saying to them come and see, by inviting them to come and see.

Let’s see what pointing people to Christ in real life looks like.

Video

Serving the Lord starts at ground level and works its way up. It’s a process, it involves our whole lives and we have to dwell with Jesus for this to happen.