Come and See

Read‍

John 1:35-39 "The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, 'Look, the Lamb of God!' When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, 'What do you want?' They said, 'Rabbi' (which means 'Teacher'), 'where are you staying?' 'Come,' he replied, 'and you will see.' So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon."

Think

Most people who end up following Jesus do not get argued into it.

Ask around sometime. Ask the adults at your church how it actually happened for them. You will hear a lot of stories about somebody bringing them somewhere, and almost none about somebody winning a debate.

The very first invitation in the entire Gospel of John is five words long.

Two guys are standing with John the Baptist when Jesus walks by. John points and says, "Look, the Lamb of God." That is it. He does not deliver a message. He points at a person walking past.

So the two of them start following Jesus down the road, and Jesus turns around and asks them a question. "What do you want?"

They are clearly caught off guard, because their answer is not a good one. "Rabbi, where are you staying?" They are two grown men trailing a stranger, and when he turns around all they can think to ask is where he is sleeping tonight.

This is worth noticing if you have ever been afraid of not knowing what to say. These two started with a bad question and it worked out.

And Jesus does not correct the question. He does not explain his mission or ask about their theology. He says, "Come, and you will see."

Come and see. Not come and understand. Not come once you have your life sorted out or your questions answered. Come and see, which is the lowest-pressure invitation a person can give another person.

Think about what that sentence does not require. It does not require you to have answers. It does not require you to predict what will happen. It does not require the other person to agree with anything before they walk in the door.

Come and see just means, there is something here, and I would rather you looked at it yourself than take my word for it.

That is available to you. You can say a version of that to somebody this week without knowing a single verse by heart.

Then look at the last line of the passage, because it is the kind of detail that only shows up when somebody was actually there. "It was about four in the afternoon."

Why is that in the Bible? Most scholars think one of those two men was John himself, writing this down as an old man decades later. He is describing the most important afternoon of his life, and he still remembers what time it was.

That is what an invitation can turn into. Somebody pointed, two men walked down a road, and sixty years later one of them can tell you the hour.

And here is the part that should take some weight off. John the Baptist did not follow them down the road. He did not manage the conversation or handle the follow-up. He pointed and let them go.

His entire contribution was aiming somebody's attention at Jesus and then getting out of the way.

You are not the answer to anybody's questions and you were never supposed to be. Jesus is. Your job is a lot closer to pointing than you have been making it.

So who is one person you could simply say come and see to, without needing to explain anything first?

Apply

Practice the three words – John was an old man when he wrote about the day somebody pointed him toward Jesus, and he still remembered that it was about four in the afternoon. Someone walking into One Night next Wednesday, September 30 at 7:00 p.m. will remember that night for the rest of their life, and it will have started with a friend saying come and see. If you have not asked anybody yet, ask today. Keep it short and normal, not a speech, and say it out loud once so it stops feeling strange in your mouth.

Pray

God, I have made this so much bigger and scarier than it is. I keep thinking I need answers when all I need to do is point at you. Give me the words, and give me the guts to say them plainly to one person. In Jesus' name. Amen.