Rooted in Love: Living the Christian Life to the FullExemplo

 Come and See 

What first drew you into the Christian faith? 

St John’s story of the calling of the first disciples is crafted carefully. The beginning of his Gospel is narrated in terms of ‘days’ (‘the next day . . . the next day’). He is not being chronological – rather, he’s indicating the progression of Jesus’ ministry, and the way in which John the Baptist signposts him as the Messiah. The Baptist declares Jesus to be the Lamb of God (he’s already introduced that phrase in the previous section, in v. 29). This is Messiah language, channelling Isaiah’s prophecies, Abraham’s sacrificial lamb and apocalyptic promises. ‘Behold, the Lamb of God’ would immediately get the interest of those who were looking for the Coming One. John the Baptist’s disciples are intrigued. The question Jesus poses – for them and for us – is ‘What are you looking for?’ Intellectual curiosity is often a starting point in the quest for faith. Jesus invites them to come and see; they acclaim him as a rabbi; they join him where he is staying. We discover that one of these disciples of the Baptist is actually Andrew, who in turn invites his brother Simon Peter along. The intellectual quest can take us only so far. Jesus presumably began to answer their questions about what it might mean for him to be the Messiah, but they are still on the journey. It falls to Philip and Nathanael in the next section of the Gospel to make a slighter deeper response – though still at this stage pretty superficial (‘I saw you under the fig tree’). 

It’s going to take a lot more journeying, listening and watching Jesus before these men truly embrace discipleship. But that’s OK – Jesus takes us as we are, not in some idealized world of spiritual coherence. When we get to the place where we can say, with Andrew, ‘We have found the Messiah’ – that’s when the journey really starts to take off. John’s Gospel will take the disciples on that journey – moving from interest and intellectual curiosity to seven signs that point to Jesus as he really is – changing water into wine, healing, feeding the 5,000 and finally (and perhaps what makes his arrest and death inevitable) raising Lazarus from the dead. The disciples, for their part, will be provoked to faith, challenged to discipleship, and invited to a new relationship based on love. They don’t become the finished article in the Gospel narrative – Thomas doubts, Peter denies, and Judas betrays Jesus. In our lives, too, our following of Jesus is not straightforward. We’ll mess up and be unfaithful just like the first disciples. But the good news is that he holds on to us. God is faithful even when we are faith-less. He doesn’t let go. Lent reminds us that, when we fall short, confession, forgiveness and restoration can enable us to continue the journey.

Questions for Reflection

1. Reflect on where you are in your journey with Jesus. When you found yourself invited to ‘Come and see’, what happened next?

2. What would you like to happen next in your Christian journey?

3. What might you want to say to God, to your church friends, to your priest about the ‘what next’?