Epiphany II

Sermon for Camp Allen Chapel

Navasota, Texas

By the Reverend Martha Frances

Year A, Epiphany II

20 January 2008

 

Text:  John 1: 29-42

Others:  Isaiah 49: 1-7; Psalm 40: 1-12; I Corinthians 1: 1-9

 

In today's Gospel, we peek into 2 days in the life of John the Baptist & his disciples, the day after Jesus came to him for baptism.   John is sharing with his disciples, & he sees Jesus across the way.  A group of disciples has surrounded John as he preached & baptized out in the desert, & I see in John a remarkable man, a charismatic man who has gathered a following by telling them to straighten up their acts, repent, & return to God, & he's well on his way to developing a mega-church out there in the wilderness.   Pointing to Jesus, he calls him Lamb of God & encourages his disciples to pay attention to Jesus .  How many pastors would be secure enough to do that?

When John points to Jesus & calls him the Lamb of God,   the Jewish people would have remembered the lamb of Isaiah's servant songs as well as the Passover lamb, bringing to mind many Old Testament images.   Through well-chosen symbols, John points to Jesus as redeemer of the world's sin.  Notice the word "sin" in this passage is singular—one sin—the world's collective brokenness, not just individual human sins.   Jesus' redemption is of the world, & not even the whole world's sin is too much for Jesus to conquer.

John says next that he himself did not know Jesus until the Holy Spirit descended upon him & identified him.   Now we could argue all day about whether John & Jesus, cousins according to the evangelist, had grown up together, but I believe John's comment means that he didn't know that Jesus was the Lamb of God until the Spirit identified him & remained with him.   John's willingness to step aside & defer to Jesus might have been the powerful experience John had in recognizing the Holy Spirit in the form of that dove?   John had been out there in the Jordan River baptizing for quite a while, apparently, so can't you imagine his surprise when he baptized Jesus with water & then the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus like a dove? 

Twice John tells us that the Holy Spirit came & remained with Jesus, & that word is important:  remained.  One translation is that God "pitched a tent" among us.  God came to live with us, to remain with us, to be present with us in the long run.   John's responsibility in this process is to testify, to witness to, God's presence as Jesus, the Lamb of God.  So John tells us on the 1 ^st of these 2 days who Jesus is: the Lamb of God, the Son of God.

Then on the 2^nd day, John the Baptist does a really remarkable thing:   he repeats Jesus' identity to the 2 disciples with him: Jesus is the Lamb of God.  He implies that they should follow Jesus & they do.   Just like that; they don't stop to have a going-away dinner with John, telling him what a great teacher he's been;  they just follow Jesus.  John has prepared them to follow another.  John focuses not on his own ability as a leader but on pointing the disciples toward the one who comes after him & baptizes with the Holy Spirit.   After this, John the Baptist just disappears from the scene.  He has done his job, & the focus turns fully to Jesus.

Now we follow the 2 disciples as they encounter Jesus the first time.   Jesus turns, sees them following, & asks a question, a usual way the writer of the Fourth Gospel allows us to know what's going on in the story. "What are you looking for?"   Jesus wants to know what their expectations are, what they are searching for.  Their answer, "Rabbi," shows their expectations for Jesus are really limited.   Jesus certainly is a teacher, but the surprise of their lives is that he is so much more.  How much have they misunderstood Jesus as Lamb & even Son of God.  

They want to know, "Where are you staying?"   Do they really want to know where he's sleeping at night?  It's possible, especially if they have been traveling for awhile with John the Baptist, spreading a camel's hair robe in the wilderness right there beside the Jordan.  

However, "where are you staying" can be read at a deeper level, too.   The Greek word for stay shows the relationship of God, Jesus, & the Spirit with one another & with believers is permanent, not sporadic.   Jesus doesn't answer them directly but issues an invitation, "Come & see."  What an invitation: come & see!   Jesus answers by inviting, encouraging further inquiry, further exploration into the spiritual life, into relationship.

How do the disciples respond?   The Gospel writer describes their response with 3 action verbs:  they came, they saw, & they remained.  First, they came with Jesus.  They followed him.  The word used here doesn't just mean they followed like we might follow a crowd to find out what's going on.   This word for "followed" means they became his disciples.  They respond very simply to the invitation to "come & see" by following.

Many of you came to Jesus years ago, & this part of discipleship may seem old hat to you: been there, done that.   However, discipleship must be ever-renewed, & I suspect that for some of you, discipleship is a little rusty.  At this time in your life, your discipleship might need dusting off, oiling up, & exercising a little.   Perhaps that's why you're at Camp Allen this weekend.   How might Jesus be calling you to follow at this time in your life?  Will you be curious to see what new thing following Jesus might mean in your life today?   Could be pretty exciting!

In addition, they saw.  Can't you just imagine how wide-open & alert the disciples' eyes were as they followed Jesus that day?  I'll bet they not only saw where he was staying but also saw him teaching & perhaps healing, going about the tasks of making God visible to God's people.   They began to see Jesus perform the acts of mercy & love which we see described throughout the Gospels.  Which of Jesus' acts of love would you like to have seen that day?   Don't you imagine those 2 disciples had a lot to tell their friends?  Are your eyes open to the acts of mercy & love which go on in your life every day?   When kind things happen to you or to someone else near you, do you identify them as gifts of Christ working in the world even today?  Throughout the Gospels, Jesus cautions the disciples that "they who have eyes to see, let them see."  

Finally, the disciples remained.  The evangelist tells us they came & saw where he was staying &—listen to this—"they remained with him that day."  There's that word again—remain.   Now, the disciples remain; now, they're the ones pitching their tents with Jesus.  We are told one of these disciples was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.  We know Andrew became one of Jesus' closest disciples.   He stuck with Jesus throughout his earthly ministry, & legend has it he was martyred.  Andrew remained.  There's a permanence about the way these disciples turned from their allegiance to John the Baptist & became disciples of Jesus.   With chaos in some denominations today, it is very tempting for some folks to go find a new church or just stay home & watch the tele-evangelists on Sunday mornings.  Let me urge you to remain involved in the faith community of your choice. 

In this story of the call of disciples, let's observe Andrew, one of my favorite Biblical characters.   What was Andrew's first action as one of Jesus' disciples?  Today's gospel tells us he first found his brother Simon, saying to him, "We have found the Messiah."  Andrew began to behave as a disciple right away.  He introduced someone else to Jesus.   In fact, as it turns out, Andrew followed the model of his former teacher John the Baptist.  He introduced Simon to Jesus & then stepped back, letting his brother take the lead as the chief disciple in Jesus' band of followers.   But from the beginning, Andrew knew that he had found the Messiah, the Anointed One.

Remaining is something many folks in our society have a difficult time doing.  Sounds too much like a commitment, perhaps.   But there's someone in your acquaintance—perhaps a work colleague or a neighbor—yearning for a faith community right now.  Someone out there needs your invitation to "Come & see."  That's what it means for us to move from maintenance to mission:  we need a lot of Andrews saying to those around us, "Come & see what Christ is doing in this place."

So we really have a pretty good model here in this Gospel for becoming & developing as disciples, don't we?   First, God reveals Godself to us just as God did to John the Baptist.  God always makes the first move.  Sometimes, we have a go-between just as John was for the disciples who left him & followed Jesus.  But God is always there to receive us when we choose to respond to God's call.   What new call to discipleship is Christ calling you to at this time in your faith-life?  How does God want to renew you, to deepen your faith-walk at this time in your life?