AtomThe Life Question: “What are You Looking For?” John 1:29-34
“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.’ And the came and saw...” John 1:38-39
We thought we knew what we were getting into. We would meet with an admissions counselor and take a tour of the college campus…see some buildings and classrooms, perhaps a real live lived in dorm room if we could catch a student between classes. We would see the cafeteria, and maybe sample some food…and begin the process of seeking out a college for Bryce. After all it is junior year and the application process starts in earnest in a few short months. The fact that we were visiting St. Olaf College – a rival school to dear old Concordia– was uncomfortable, you understand, but I figured it was just a first visit, so…
The surprise, however, was when before the tour had started they sat us down at tables in a big hall with other students and their parents and asked a very big question, “What are you looking for?” Before you decide on a school, before you even tour this school, what are you looking for? What sort of an education? Technical and specific or broad based? A conservatory music education focused entirely on music, or a music education set within the context of a broader education that includes other subjects. What sort of relationships do you want with your professors? With other students? With the community? Large and varied or smaller and more intimate? What sort of learning experiences on campus and off campus? And what might faith have to do with your education? And service? And God’s calling? What are you looking for? It was a surprisingly direct question…probing in its honesty.
“What are you looking for?” is the question that begins the Sundays in Lent journey we’re calling, “Questions of faith.” It is a question that comes from the first chapter of John’s gospel this morning – the first of many questions asked by Jesus in this gospel – asked of those with whom he first lived and moved, but also asked of those of us who listen in today. “What are you looking for?” I have to believe that the question may have taken Andrew and his friend aback just as the question took us aback in our college search on Monday. “What are you looking for?”
They knew they were looking for something…Andrew and his friend…and today they had again left their boats and their brothers and their friends down by the shores of Galilee to find it. There was a restlessness in them that kept them searching for it, whatever it was. Not that life wasn’t good. It was. They had good jobs and good families and a good community in Capernaum. Fishing was hard work, but it was a respected work and it paid the bills and fed their families. They weren’t married yet, but one day soon they would be. Their parents had already begun the process of picking out a mate for them. There would be a wedding and, somewhere down the road, children, and a respected place here in Galilee. But they had this nagging feeling, Andrew and his friend, that there had to be something more to life, some greater purpose than just rising in the morning to go to work and then coming home again in the evening to go to bed. Something greater than sorting fish and mending nets, something greater even than having children and raising them also become productive members of the next generation. There had to be some reason for life – some grander scheme. There had to be some way of sorting out how the world around them could be so beautiful in one moment and so dangerous and chaotic in another other. There had to some reason.
And what did God have to do with it? If there was a God and they surely hoped that there was, then what was that God like? What about those they loved who became sick? And the ones they had grown up with who had died tragically and too soon? And suffering and hunger and death? What did God have to do with it?
Andrew had lots of questions that nobody seemed to be able to answer and the more he asked the more confused he became. But then they heard of John. John at least had some answers. They called him the Baptizer and he was rough around the edges but he had a gift. John could see into the heart of a man and know his secret darkness. John could speak with the authority of God and convince you to get your affairs in order with God and neighbor.
So, they had come, Andrew and the other, from their boats to that place where John was baptizing – to that place where the river flowed out of the Sea of Galilee and off into the parched areas of Judea that so needed its life-giving water. Perhaps John could once again bring life to their parched souls.
As they anxiously rounded the bend, they heard John even before they saw him – heard his rough voice calling those gathered to repentance and faithfulness. But as they approached, anxious to fill the longing in their hearts, John turned and pointed to another who was passing by, a man dressed in a simple woven tunic, but carrying himself with an ease and power that drew them even as John pointed them to him. “Behold,” he said, “the lamb of God, the one who has come into the world…”
The Lamb of God? They were not sure what they were hearing, but they turned to follow him, and had hardly walked twenty paces when he turned on them, and looked at them with eyes deep and clear and probing: “What are you looking for?” It was a question that stopped them in their tracks.
“What are you looking for?” It can be asked in so many ways: “What are you looking for?” “What are you looking for?” (this is the tone I most often use when my teenage son gets up from the supper table and immediately goes to the refrigerator to look.)
“What are you looking for?” It might have been the natural question for Jesus to ask of all who pressed in upon him. They came from all directions and for all reasons. As his reputation spread, there were throngs following with various diseases, looking for healing. “What are you looking for?”
There were religious leaders who questioned his faithfulness to the teachings of the scriptures. They came looking for a fight! “What are you looking for?”
As his miracles increased, there were those who hung around just for the show/looking for entertainment. There were seekers like the rich young ruler who tried to second guess his teachings, looking for a way into heaven. As his fame circulated, and his famine-quenching powers became the talk of the town, there were lots of people with need and wants who followed in his wake, looking for loaves and fishes. “What are you looking for?”
Of course the question was addressed to Andrew and his friend, but it is not hard to imagine that in the purpose of John’s gospel and God’s word it is question also addressed to those of us who gather this morning. “What are you looking for?
What gets you up on a cold February morning when you could have slept in? What brings you here when you could be home watching highlights of Olympic success in Vancouver, or sitting in your ice-fishing house on Lake Melissa? “What are you looking for?”
Like Andrew and the others are you looking for something more – some deeper meaning and purpose to your living? Something beyond keeping a job and raising a family? Are you looking for some insight into the whys and wherefores of life in this world – how the God who created the beauty of a Minnesota summer sunset can allow the ugliness of a Caribbean island earthquake? And sickness and suffering and hunger? What is God like? Does God notice? Does God care? Does God love? “What are you looking for?”
The question Jesus asks Andrew and his friend is the same question he asks us who gather in his presence this morning. And our answer may be any or all of the above.
My hope and my prayer is that our answer to Jesus question will be that of these two, also deep and heartfelt and honest – “Rabbi…where are you staying?” In other words, “We’re looking for you. We want to know more. We want to know you more. Because we hope – we believe – that you have what we need. That you are the one that can fill what St. Augustine called the “god-shaped” hole in our lives – a hole that even good jobs and good families and good community cannot fill. We’re looking for you, Jesus, Lamb of God.”
And Jesus, eyes smiling and welcoming, says to us as he did to them, “Come and see.” Come and see – you who seek peace for your weary souls. “Know the peace I give; not as the world gives do I give you; but the peace that comes from knowing you are never lost or forsaken. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”
“Come and see.” Come and see, you who have hearts broken by what you have seen and by the losses you have experienced. “Come unto me you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.”
“Come and see.” Come and see you who are mired in the sticky mud of guilt and shame, and know that the promise given the woman discovered in her sin is the promise also given you: “neither do I condemn you. Your sins are forgiven.”
“Come and see.” Come and see, you who are stuck in complacency, finding life dull and boring. Know that I have come that you might have life and that you might have it abundantly. Come and see.
“What are you looking for?” Jesus asks, “Whatever it is, you will find it in me.” Come and see. Let’s pray…
Lord may we abide with you. May we be faithful in looking and listening and living in you and in your presence. May we see and believe and live. Amen.
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