Come and see

Here's my sermon from last Sunday for the Chinese congregations at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

Seeing is believing, they say. When Thomas was told that Jesus had risen from the dead, he famously said unless I see … I will not believe.

In today’s Gospel reading (John 1.29-42) we hear Jesus saying to those who would become his first disciples, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw … and … remained with him that day. Then they said what they saw, telling Simon Peter, Andrew’s brother, ‘We have found the Messiah.’

The two disciples initially speak to Jesus because John the Baptist has told them to look at Jesus. John does so because of what he has seen: ‘John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.’’

At the beginning of his story, the writer of John’s Gospel is telling us to come and see Jesus for ourselves. That is his purpose in writing. What is it that we see when we come and see?

James Allan Francis gives us one understanding when he writes in ‘One Solitary Life’: ‘Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village, where He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty, and then for three years He was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put his foot inside a big city. He never travelled two hundred miles from the place where He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself. He had nothing to do with this world except the naked power of His divine manhood. While still a young man, the tide of public opinion turned against Him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth while He was dying—and that was his coat. When he was dead He was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone and today He is the centrepiece of the human race and the leader of the column of progress. I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that ever were built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that One Solitary Life.

Allan Francis is saying that when we look at Jesus we see an amazing story of incredible influence deriving from one obscure life; a story so amazing that it must be of God, a life so amazing that it must be of God.

But if the story and its influence are amazing, the person that we see is equally so. St Paul describes the character of Jesus in Philippians 2: ‘Christ Jesus … / though he was in the form of God, / did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, / but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, / being born in human likeness. / And being found in human form, / he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — / even death on a cross.’

In Christ’s actions and character we see the most exceptional love expressed in self-sacrifice. Jesus was, as Lord Hailsham once said, ‘irresistibly attractive.’ That is why Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote: ‘I believe there is no one lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic and more perfect than Jesus. I say to myself, with jealous love, that not only is there no one else like him but there never could be anyone like him.’ It is why Bernard Levin poses the question: ‘Is not the nature of Christ, in the words of the New Testament, enough to pierce to the soul anyone with a soul to be pierced? … he still looms over the world, his message still clear, his pity still infinite, his consolation still effective, his words still full of glory, wisdom and love.’ Jesus was ‘Love all lovely, Love Divine,’ as Christina Rossetti noted.

If we say what we see when we come and see Jesus, then we are likely to say with the writer of John’s Gospel: ‘the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth … From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace … No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.’

When we come and see Jesus, we also see God himself. As the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews says: ‘God has spoken to us by a Son … He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being.’

The next day one of the disciples to whom Jesus said, ‘Come and see,’ repeated those same words to a friend. We read in John 1. 43 – 52 that: ‘Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”’

Philip was giving testimony by saying what he had seen and by encouraging Nathanael to come and see for himself. That is what we are called to do ourselves, once we have seen Jesus ourselves. We don’t need to have theological training. We don’t need to be able to answer every question that others have about the meaning of life or the existence of God. We simply say, ‘Come and see Jesus,’ trusting that when people genuinely see Jesus for who he is, like us, they will fall in love with him and wish to follow him too.

By inviting others to ‘Come and see Jesus,’ we are giving our testimony that he is the most important person in our life and in the lives of all people. We are saying, ‘I could invite you to see all sorts of things and all sorts of people, but I want you to see Jesus because he is the one that is most important to me.

Testimony is what is given by a witness in a trial. A witness makes his or her statement as part of a trial in which the truth is at stake and where the question, ‘What is the truth?’ is what is being argued. The missiologist Lesslie Newbigin argued that this is what is ‘at the heart of the biblical vision of the human situation that the believer is a witness who gives his testimony in a trial.’

Where is the trial? It is all around us, it is life itself? In all situations we encounter, there is challenge to our faith and there is a need for us to testify in words and actions to our belief in Christ. Whenever people act as though human beings are entirely self-reliant, there is a challenge to our faith. Whenever people argue that suffering and disasters mean that there cannot be a good God, we are on the witness stand. Whenever people claim that scientific advances or psychological insights can explain away belief in God, we are in the courtroom. Whenever a response of love is called for, our witness is at stake.

But we are not alone in being witnesses. We are one with millions of others who have testified to the reality and presence of Jesus Christ in their lives. No courtroom on earth could cope with the number of witnesses to Christ who could be called by the defence. That is why the writer of Hebrews says, “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”

This is what Andrew began by saying to Peter, ‘We have found the Messiah.’ Later, when Jesus asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ Peter gave the answer, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ He had come to see Jesus at the invitation of his brother. By coming to see for himself, he had realised that Jesus was the Son of God and could therefore tell others to come and see and then say what they saw.

We are part of the witness that has been built on that same rock. So let us be encouraged today by the incredible numbers of others testifying to Christ and let us be challenged to add our own testimony in words and actions to those of our brothers and sisters in Christ because every day in every situation we face, we and our faith are ‘on trial.’

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Tell Out My Soul The Greatness Of The Lord.