Sermon Sunday January 20, 2008

Second Sunday after Epiphany
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
In today’s Gospel lesson Andrew says to his brother Simon that they have found the Messiah. He makes it sound as if he had been out looking all over the place and after much hard work they found the Messiah. But when you take an honest look at the picture that this passage unfolds before us you can see that Andrew saying that he has found the Messiah does not really capture the whole sense of what exactly is going on here.
The passage begins with John the Baptist and two of his disciples, one of whom was Andrew. They see Jesus coming toward them and John proclaims Jesus to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and the One who baptizes with the Holy Spirit, and the Son of God. Apparently this doesn’t have much of an immediate effect on the two disciples of John since they don’t really show much of a reaction but simply stay with John, so it appears that at least right then, there is not a whole lot of looking for Jesus going on there.
But then the next day they see Jesus again and John once again proclaims Jesus to be the Lamb of God. And for some reason, maybe it’s something about the way John expresses himself, but for some reason this time they follow Jesus. And Jesus turns around and asks them what they were looking for. It seems that they are not really sure how to respond to that so they respond to Jesus’ question by asking Him where He was staying. And He simply tells them to come and see. And that is what they did.
But right from the beginning we can see that the Messiah was not something that they would have found on their own. They need John the Baptist to point to Jesus twice before they seem to take any interest in Him and then even after they start walking toward Jesus and Jesus turns and asks Andrew what he is looking, Andrew seems like he is not very prepared to answer the question. He doesn’t really seem to know what he is looking for. He doesn’t really know how to answer the question. But Jesus says to him come and see.
And after all of that, when he sees his brother, Andrew still tries to take credit for at least part of what had just happened. He sees his brother Simon and tells him that he and the other two disciples have found the Messiah. Now, in defense of Andrew, the Greek word used here that ‘found’ is translated from has been defined as referring to learning the location of something either by intentional searching or by unexpected discovery, kind of like how Columbus discovered America while he was out on a fishing expedition. So it’s possible Andrew could have been referring to unexpectedly discovering Jesus.
I remember when I was in college, I had a classmate who would wear a t-shirt that said in bold letters “I found Jesus.” And then right below that in smaller print in parentheses it said something like “He was hiding behind the couch the whole time.” And no matter how you react to that, whether you are offended by that or you find it humorous, there is truth to what that t-shirt said. Not that Jesus plays hide and seek with us and we have to go find Him, but that we try to convince ourselves that on our own we can find Jesus or that we have.
But the truth is we are just like Andrew in today’s lesson. If it had not been for God speaking through John the Baptist pointing Andrew to Jesus and then Jesus Himself telling Andrew to come and see, or whatever other means Jesus used to call Andrew to Jesus then Andrew would have never found Jesus on His own.
And neither would we. If Jesus did not call us to faith then we would never find Him on our own. We are surrounded by means that the devil will use to try to divert our attention away from the One Who has given His life for us. We are all religious in one way or another, even the most ardent of atheists. We all want to believe in something bigger than ourselves. But if we are left to our own devices then what we end up filling that void with will be something or someone that falls far short of the almighty God.
Left purely to our own free-will, we would fill that void with astrology or horoscopes. Or perhaps we would fill it with our careers. Or maybe money would become that thing bigger than ourselves that we all look for. Or maybe science would become our god. If it weren’t for the Holy Spirit calling us to faith through God’s Word and sacrament and each other then we would just end up buying into any one or more of the many false gods that sin, death, and the devil try to tempt us with.
Even within Christianity people are seduced by the myth that we can find Christ Jesus on our own. It has become increasingly popular for self-professed Christians to reject any sort of organized worship. It’s a “me-and-God” approach to faith and it deludes us into thinking that we can be children of God on our own terms. It deludes us into thinking that we can find God wherever we want and for that matter that we can define God however we want. We would all like to have a god of our own creating.
But our Lord refuses to be found anywhere other than in that which points directly to His risen Son. It is only in the One who shed His blood, died and was raised for you that our Lord will be found. It is only in your Savior Christ Jesus who reveals Himself to you in the Word proclaimed and in the sacraments and through fellowship with the community of saints that your Lord will be found.
You can look all you want in all the nooks and crannies that your free-will might lead you to in order to try to find God somewhere other than in Christ Jesus, but these will inevitably fall short. But, just as He comes to you in baptism through no efforts of your own our Lord will continue to come to you; calling you, forgiving you, redeeming you and claiming you as a child of God and a saint.
You are a saint not because of any pious efforts on your part to find God, you are a saint only because God has found you and claimed you as a child of God. You are a saint because Christ Jesus comes to you in Word and sacrament and fellowship and says to you ‘Come and see.’ Indeed in today’s 2nd lesson when Paul refers to those who are ‘called to be saints’ he is referring to ‘those who in every place call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.’
And indeed you are among those who call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, but that is only the case because He has called you first. He has called you to faith and He strengthens, nurtures, and sustains you in your faith and He promises that He will strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And so you are free to hear the cries of your neighbor who may be looking for God in all the nooks and crannies where they will not find Him. You are free to go to them, share your faith with them, invite them to church. You have been called to your friend, neighbor, co-workers, etc. to be a light to them., so that salvation will reach the ends of the earth.
And you don’t need to worry about saying the exact right thing or saying it in the right way or looking properly pious. Just simply share the love of Christ with them and through that the risen Lord Jesus will speak through the Holy Spirit to say to those whom He has called you to ‘Come and see.’
Amen