The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples,36
and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”
37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.
38 Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?”
39 He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.[j] 40
One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.
41 He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ).
42 He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter). 43
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.”
44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.
45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”46
Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!”
48 Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”49
Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
50 Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.”
51 And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
Right after Jesus is introduced again as the Lamb of God, Jesus asks them a question, did you notice? What do you want? Jesus asks them. Not, WHO, but what…What do
you want, what are you looking for, that you would think to follow me? That is the question that needs to be asked to all of us, and in a real sense it is the question that we are all answering in one way or another.
What do you want? If you took an honesty pill where you can’t do anything but speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and someone said, “What do
you want…” What in the deep recesses of your heart is the answer…what does your life say you want?
Philosopher James KA Smith asks us to consider that perhaps our Christian lives, our Christian understanding is not primarily about taking in ideas and information,
but about the formation of our hearts and our desires…what if all of this isn’t about what we know…but about what we want…what we love. And here comes Jesus and sees these folks who want to follow Him, and He says, What do you want?
What are you seeking, what do you love? If you are seeking heaven…if you are seeking the Lamb of God, then here He is.
However, He will also show them what it is going to cost, and what it means, and what it really means to follow the Lamb wherever he goes. Have you ever thought about
the fact that to be a follower of Jesus costs nothing? It is God’s grace and mercy…And then at the same time, following Jesus costs us everything. Jesus tells us that to follow Him, we have to give up our very lives! So…what do you want?
In that day it was quite normal for a teacher to have folks that attached themselves to him and followed him around, listening to his perspective on life.
But Jesus takes the meaning of discipleship to a whole different level and understanding than any of the teachers of His day, a point that is commented on over and
over again in the Bible itself, that Jesus was just different than the other teachers and rabbis. And yet, how can we know so much about Jesus, have so much information, so much teaching and yet live little to no differently than those around us?
We have plenty of INFORMATION but our relationship with Jesus is also one of FORMATION …Forming us into a people given over to His praise in all things. It is a question
of want…of desire…of what we really love.
I am not sure the men knew what the answer was to Jesus’ question, What do you want, they did not answer the question, but instead asked one of their own, ‘where are
you staying’.
Jesus, in his kindness, with patience and love says come and see, and they went and stayed with Him.
The first one we get introduced to is Andrew, the brother of Peter. He immediately goes to get his brother, telling Peter “We have found the Messiah.” We have found
the Anointed One, we have found the Lamb of God, we have found the One who is the hope of Israel, the One that our people have spoken of and waited for all these years.
This passage is meaningful to me personally simply because this is how the Lord brought salvation to my family and my wife’s. A friend of mine used to call Dana and
me to a true follow of Jesus and immediately Dana went after her brothers and sister, and I, my two sisters. After some months, Dana’s siblings and mine were rejoicing with us in what it means to follow Jesus.
We don’t have a lot of information about Andrew, only that when he found the Messiah, the Son of God, he wanted his brother to come to Him too. What was Andrew’s method?
I mean speaking to anyone about Jesus can be frightening because you don’t know how they are going to respond, and that all the more when talking to family as many of you probably know.
So, how to break this to Peter…how to win him over. I know, a large ice-cream social with soft music playing in the background, everyone likes ice-cream. Or a cowboy
theme day where all those who follow Jesus dress up like cowboys and say, yee-hah! After all, Peter needed to know just how much fun Christianity can be!
Interestingly, for Andrew, no creative appeal, no doctored-up circumstance, this is serious and he just says, come see Jesus and listen to what He says. Not come and
have fun, or add Jesus to your life and things will get better for you…just Jesus, bold and as He is.
That is what the gospel is all about, this is what all the preaching must be about, that is what all history is about and that is the message we are to proclaim. Come
to Jesus…listen to Jesus…do what He says and follow Him wherever He goes, into whatever He brings to you…that’s it.
Prayer: Father give me a spirit ‘content to fill a little space’ if it glorifies your name. Help me to seek nothing that puffs me up or thinks to exalt myself above
others. May the mind of Christ be in me, that I would take the lowest rung and seek to draw attention only to Christ while wanting to serve my brothers and sisters. Birth, nurture and bring to maturity a godly humility in my mind, heart and life, through Jesus
Christ my Lord, Amen.
Hymn: O Sacred Head Now Wounded
