Come and See!

“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 spent the day with him. It was about the tenth hour.” John 1:35-39

What an interesting question – where are you staying? These two disciples were followers of John the Baptist. They were already tuned in to the fact that winds of time were changing. John was teaching radical things – pulling up prophecies and saying things like, “I am the voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’” John 1:23 He was calling people to repentance and preparation for the coming of the Messiah – much like the ram’s horn calling people to the Day of Atonement. So when Jesus walked by and John said, “Look, the Lamb of God,” these disciples walked away from John and followed after Jesus. They didn’t say, “Are you sure?” or question John at all… they just began to follow Jesus. But how curious their first question of this new rabbi – where are you staying?

Jesus doesn’t respond like most of us would today, “Why do you want to know?” or “None of your business!” But rather, he extends a simple invitation. “Come and you will see.” And that is exactly what they did. We are not told where Jesus took them or what they saw. But we see the beginning of the relationship between Jesus and his disciples and how he taught them.

Andrew got the first lesson right away. “The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.” John 1:41 Just as Jesus had invited Andrew to come and see, Andrew extended the invitation to his brother to come and see as well. And thus begins the relationship between Simon (who we know as Peter) and Jesus.

What if Andrew had looked up when John said, “Look, the Lamb of God,” and said, “That’s nice,” and then continued whatever he was doing and never gave it another thought? What if Andrew said, “If he’s the Messiah, I’m not good enough to hang out with him, so I’ll just mind my business here and watch him from a distance”? Or what if Andrew said, “I don’t want to take the risk that’s involved in following such a radical leader”?

“The next day, Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.” … Philip found Nathanael and told him, ‘We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” John 1:43; 45 It looks like Philip got the first lesson as well – “Come, follow me.”

In those first encounters, Jesus didn’t say, “Here’s my agenda. Here’s what I teach. If you think you can stick to my rules, you can come with me.” He simply said, “Come, follow me.” And Andrew and Philip both immediately invited someone else to come as well. They didn’t wait until they had followed the teacher a while and learned everything he had to teach before inviting someone else to come. They immediately told others and invited them to come and hear for themselves what the teacher had to say.

We don’t hear much about Andrew or Philip throughout the Gospels. They are mentioned a couple of places but they are some of the ‘quiet’ disciples. Somehow, I think that while the others were standing up preaching and healing lame beggars, they were going around taking people by the hand and saying, “Come and see! Come listen to the teacher!”

The idea of ‘evangelism’ used to scare me because I thought it meant I needed to memorize a sequence of verses and go knock on the door of a perfect stranger and recite the litany and then ask them to make a decision for or against Christ. But I think Andrew and Philip showed us another way. We are to go to those whom we know – friends and acquaintances – and invite them to come and see. What are we inviting them to? To see for themselves if the Scriptures are true, if this is indeed the Messiah – if Jesus is the Christ. When I get into studying God’s Word, I get excited about what I find. I need only to find someone to share that with and maybe they will get excited as well and discover the Messiah along with me. I cannot witness to what I do not know, but I cannot keep quiet when I have found the Messiah! Come and see!