Jesus said 'Come and see'

The story is told of a new bank manager who met with his predecessor and said, "I would like to know what have been the keys to your success." The older gentleman looked at him and replied, "Young man, I can sum it up in two words: Good decisions." To that the young man responded, "I thank you immensely for that advice, sir, but how does one come to know which are the good decisions?" "One word, young man," replied the older man. "Experience." "That's all well and good," said the younger, "but how does one get experience?" "Two words," said the elder. "Bad decisions."

Success means different things to different people – those who support a sports team may measure success in relative terms – what is success for a non league football team may be a disaster for a top club.

But whatever people regard as success it is something that we like to celebrate. It is a natural human emotion. People like to celebrate success – they point to people who can make a difference, whether that difference is perceived or real. We look at all kinds of people and point them out as someone special, and in the gospel reading today (John 1:29-42), this is what is happening.

John the Baptist has been preaching in the wilderness, preparing people for the arrival of the Messiah, and now he has come and John points others to him. John sees in Jesus success – God has entered the world and the salvation he had spent so long preaching out was coming.

In the reading we are told that John pointed two of his own followers to Jesus, and they followed Jesus to see what he was like. When Jesus asked them what they were looking for they were almost speechless – ‘Rabbi’ they replied, meaning ‘teacher’ – they knew they’d found someone who was different, but didn’t quite know how to tell him what they were actually looking for.

Sometimes when you meet someone special you’re stuck for words – I have two stories about this – the first involves my nephew who I took to watch Cardiff playing rugby when he was quite young – he went on the pitch at the end and was getting some autographs. I told him to turn around as there was a player right behind him.

Now William was very small and the player was a man called Derwyn Jones who, for those who don’t know, is 6ft 10 ! Will turned around and looked at a pair of kneecaps and his head went back as he slowly looked up with his mouth widening as he did so – when he eventually got to see the face, I think he’d forgotten what he was looking for anyway ! He was speechless !

And then there’s my daughter Jessica. Selflessly I took her to watch a Glamorgan Cricket match when she was about 7. She hated cricket but I knew she could be kept occupied if I gave her an autograph book so I did and I told her to ask for the autographs of anyone dressed in all white clothes.

This was going well until I spotted Viv Richards, the great West Indian batsman and one of the most famous cricketers ever to play forGlamorgan who happened not to be playing that day. I pointed him out as he was sitting just a couple of rows behind us dressed in a dark tracksuit, and that dark tracksuit is very relevant as Jessica loudly replied to me in front of Viv Richards and the rest of the members seated around us – ‘You told me to only go for the white ones !’

I knew what she meant but it was a rather embarrassing moment of explanation for me !

Sometimes when we see someone famous we don’t know what to say, or we say something completely inappropriate, and that’s what happened to these followers of John who didn’t know what to say.  

And Jesus knew that and he said ‘Come and See’. And those words are tremendously important for the Church today – they are words that should be echoed by every follower of Jesus, as we try and point people to him.

And much of the reading today is about vision and about looking and watching, and about inviting others to look as well. When I was younger I was taught, as I suspect many of you were that it was rude to point, but in our lives we are called to point, to point at Jesus and point people to him. Sadly perhaps the thought that it’s rude to point has been taken a little bit too far, and many of us fail to do this.

Going back to the gospel reading, one of the people that had followed Jesus that day was Andrew, and when he had looked and seen Jesus in action, he knew that there was something special and he knew that he needed to tell others – he went to his brother, Simon Peter, and he told him – Simon Peter would of course go on to be called the Rock upon which the Church would be built.

Not too much was known about Andrew, but what a role he played as he pointed his brother to Jesus. Many of us are not called to great roles of leadership. Most of us will never be called to be famous, and stand out, but all of us are called to point people to Jesus…

And one of the ways we do that is simply by our attendance in Church. By coming here this morning we are making a statement toneighbours, friends, family and to people who pass us as we walk in to Church, and they will look at us and they will look for signs of Jesus in us.

It is an alarming fact that Jesus will often be judged by people who form their opinions from looking at us ! And so we must think of how we reflect him in our lives.

As we look around this morning or hear various news stories about the Church, and about clergy and so on, our perception is important. What do you see and hear ? Do you see a Church that doesn’t have too many young families, do you see a church in decline. Perhaps you see a church desperately needing to reach new people and bring them here, perhaps a Church with not enough people inside, and not enough money being given.

If we do then that is quite possibly the view of God that we are giving to people who don’t know him. In fact what we should be seeing and proclaiming is people around us whose lives have been made better because they know the love of Jesus, people who have gathered to praise God because of the miracle of grace and his love, people who are being changed by the power of the Holy Spirit, and people in whom we can see the face of Christ. In short our thoughts can be positive because we worship a God who changes lives for the better, who takes darkness and offers light, who speaks peace into conflict, hope into despair, love where there is hate.

Very often we don’t point people in any direction at all regarding faith, but sometimes when we do we point them in the direction of the Church, when actually we should be pointing them to Jesus, because it is in him and through him that we can really discover peace. And if our churches are not pointing people to Jesus and helping people to engage more closely with him as a family, then we are missing a huge part of the gospel.

And as we look around at other people, what are we seeing in them ? Maybe it’s people who seem all sorted in their lives, who look like they don’t need anything from God, or maybe it’s people who seem to have no hope, and we are not prepared to get involved because the task seems too big.., or just maybe if we look hard enough we will see Christ in them.

Mother Theresa used to make a point of looking into the eyes of people and she did this to enable her to see the image of Christ within them, whoever they were. They may have been broken, ill, suffering, or they may have been horrible, but she was prepared to look at them and see the image of Christ within them, and that was what enabled her to love and care for them.

And so today we have a message about looking and seeing, and about calling others to look and see. May God give each one of us the courage, the wisdom and the confidence to live as a disciple of Christ, and may he give us the words to witness to the light and love of Christ, and may others see in us, and hear from us, a message about God’s love for all.

Perhaps when talking to people sometimes about our church or our faith we can try those words of Jesus, ‘Come and see’ and when they do, hopefully they will see in us and in the church as a whole a loving Saviour who loves them passionately as he loves us, and will change their lives forever. AMEN