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"See, Hear, Find, Speak"
Pr. David Hewitt - January 19 & 20, 2008
A little story: A husband and wife decided to go to the mall to shop. They went there together in the car. They walked into the mall together. As they started to walk through the inside of the mall, and walking amongst a big crowd, the husband took his wife by the hand. She asked, “You don’t want to lose me?” He replied, “I don’t want to have to look for you.”
We often don’t want to expend a lot of energy to look for something – and yet we never seem to have found what we were looking for. It’s a puzzle. Notice I used the word, “found.” It’s a word that is used a lot in our Gospel for today. When John the Baptist revealed to Andrew that Jesus was the Messiah, Andrew, it says, “found” his brother Peter and said, “We have ‘found’ the Messiah.” It reminds me of those bumper stickers that used to say, “I’ve found Jesus. Have you?” and the inevitable comeback line: “Found Jesus? I didn’t know He was lost!!”
Anyway, we aren’t just told that Andrew found Peter to tell him they had found the Messiah, but pretty soon Jesus, we read, “found” Philip, and said to him, “Follow Me,” and then Philip goes and, it says, “found” his friend Nathaniel and said to him that they have ‘found’ the Messiah, Jesus, of the little backwards town of Nazareth. Nathaniel’s reaction to this news is interesting. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” In other words, “Are you sure you’re looking in the right place?” (See John 1:29-51)
At least they are looking for a Messiah – looking for spiritual answers to the spiritual problems that all of humanity faces! I have to tell you that I think part of the problem the Church is facing today is that vast numbers of people nowadays are not looking to organized religion for the answers they seek. One of the most popular songs of the last 25 years was a song sung by Bono and the band U2 called, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”:
I have climbed highest mountains, I have run through the fields
Only to be with you….Only to be with you.
I have run, I have crawled, I have scaled these city walls
These city walls…only to be with you.
And I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.
And I still haven’t found what I’m looking for….
What Bono describes is a yearning without a specific context, in which the people of the world run hither and yon, over fields and cities, in a scattered and haphazard way, thinking that the next great purchase, the next great relationship, the next great movie, the next great political agenda will give them fulfillment…looking, desperately, to this or that or many other “worldly” things, to take care of what really is an “other-worldly” desire.
As many run around today, perhaps Andrew and Philip ran around Israel back then, going after this preacher and that, this would-be Messiah and that. That’s why they were hovering around John the Baptist, when suddenly John turned their attention to a new man, Jesus, and said of Him, “Look! Here is the Lamb of God!” Here’s who you’re looking for!!
Who or what to Look for…to listen for…looking and listening are the things we do when we try to “find,” isn’t it – when we try to discern what is the truth? Keep that in mind, because I want to challenge you today to seek to be better at the Christian gift of discernment – the ability to find the truth – as we pray for God to develop that gift in us – and I want to challenge us today to understand how discernment fits into the overall deepening of our discipleship in Jesus Christ…how we can follow Him better and take what we have found…and make it a great “find” for others.
You know, when Nathaniel basically blows off Philip’s claims about Jesus by saying, “Bah! Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip has a quick comeback: “Come and see,” he says. Come and see this Jesus for yourself. It’s what Jesus said to Andrew when Andrew first came to call: “Come and see.” Come and see if I am the Messiah or not.
But notice something here. If you were to “come” to look at and listen to Jesus talk, you may not come away being impressed. Many people weren’t, you know! Many who were doubtful of anyone’s claims to be the Messiah – anyone who looked instead to the leadership of the Pharisees or the scribes or the Sadducees or the Romans…or who were Pharisees or scribes or Sadducees themselves…these kinds of people were FAR less likely to be impressed with what Jesus was doing and saying. Why? –Because they came to “look.” They did NOT come to “see.” What Jesus wants is for us to look at Him and what He and His Scriptures say and see with our hearts, so that we may believe. To use “second sight,” so to speak…and, also, not to turn a “deaf ear,” as the saying goes.
Jesus knew this was a problem with us sinners: we don’t look or listen properly. We look to our prejudices first. Eight times Jesus is quoted as saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear”…eight times – more than any other saying of His, by far—as He continually begs for us to make a passageway in our ears so that His words can go right down to our hearts. “Faith comes from what is heard,” says Paul, “and what is heard comes through the Word of God.” (Romans 10:17)
A great testimony to the power of that Word, truly heard, to bring about and sustain real faith is found in the story of the conversion and execution of Tokichi Ichii-a man who was hanged for murder in Tokyo in 1918. He had been sent to prison more than twenty times and was known as being cruel as a tiger. Whenever he did anything wrong, he stubbornly refused to say he was sorry for what he had done. Just before being sentenced to death, Tokichi was sent a New Testament by two missionaries, Miss West and Miss McDonald. After a visit from Miss West, he began to read the story of Jesus' execution. His attention was riveted by the sentence, "And Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."' This sentence transformed his life: “I stopped,” he wrote. “I was stabbed to the heart, as if by a 5-inch nail. What did this verse reveal to me? Shall I call it the love of the heart of Christ? Shall I call it His compassion? I do not know what to call it. I only know that with an unspeakably grateful heart, I believed.” Because Ichii’s heart was open, finally, to seeing the text and hearing what it means, he discerned the truth and found what he was looking for – even though Ichii may not have known that he was looking for it!
You see, the words and actions of the two Christians, Miss West and Miss McDonald, opened the doors for Christ to enter in. I can well imagine what some people may have told the two missionaries as they contemplated meeting with the condemned criminal. “Now, you two focus on someone who is more likely to hear what you have to say.” “He’s a hardened criminal; he’s about to die. You’re wasting your time.” But instead the 2 ladies basically told Ishii to “come and see”: “Come, read this Bible, and see your Savior.” Ishii was blind; now he saw. He was lost; now he was found. And he does one more thing before he dies – he speaks. He speaks to others about what he has found.
Now, the funny thing is, Ishii claims not to have spoken. He wrote, before He died, “I only know that with an unspeakably grateful heart, I believed.” Sure his heart was grateful, but it was NOT “unspeakably” grateful. He spoke of what he had found. We, too, IF we have what we CLAIM to have – a heart full of faith and gratitude – should also be inspired, as Ishii was, to speak to others about what we have seen…what we have heard…what we have found. It is why I entitled my sermon today, “See, hear, find, speak.”
You know it reminds me of the time when the Pharisees were getting on Jesus for healing a blind man on the Sabbath, violating Sabbath rules. The Pharisees were rough on the formerly blind fellow because he defended Jesus; they drove him out of the temple. When Jesus heard about this, He came back to the blind man and said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” the blind man answered, “And who is He…that I may believe in Him?” Jesus answered, “You have seen Him and He is the One speaking to you right now!” And the man said, “Lord, I believe in You” and He bowed and worshipped Jesus. Then Jesus turned to the Pharisees and said – now get this – “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” And the Pharisees answered, “Surely we are not blind.” And Jesus responded, “If you admitted that you were blind, you would not sin, but because you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” (John 9:35-41)
We must admit we are blind and deaf, so that we may see and hear better. We must admit we are blind, so that we can use God’s second sight, planted within us, to see beyond the surface of situations and beyond our old prejudices…so that we can see – so that we can discern – far beyond the old ways that we have worshipped, and the old ways we have prayed, and and the old ways that we have acted out our faith in the world. Why? So that we can reach out to many more people than we have done so far in our lives, speaking to them about what we have seen, and heard, and found – the Way to Live! The Salvation of this world and the next!
You know, I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that, just before Jesus is going to die, his first disciples – Andrew and Philip – have a part in showing Jesus that now was the end of his earthly ministry. Up to that point in His ministry, Jesus was only converting His fellow Jews, but He often hinted that He had come to save the whole world – Gentiles, too—people like you and me – people the Jews often called, “Greeks.” We know that Jesus was busy training His disciples to reach out to more and more people. He often chastised them for keeping some people – the blind, women and children – away from Him. Now here Jesus is in Jerusalem. He knows the end is soon. But how will He see and hear and find the proper time? (Notice the words I’m using! Jesus is the king of discernment!)
Well, let me quote to you from John, chapter 12: “Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip…and said to him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’ Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit….Now My soul is troubled…[but] it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.’” (John 12:20-27) Now, please hear this: Jesus now knew that all was falling into place. If His disciples, Andrew and Philip, were now willing to reach out to Greeks (Gentiles like you and me) then He knew that now was the time to die for our sins and rise again and give to His disciples the Holy Spirit; then THEY would, in turn, “bear much fruit,” as He said…that now they would preach and teach and convert the world – including outsiders like you and me!
Are we ready to continue what Andrew and Philip did? Are we ready to see deeply and hear rightly and speak to the outsiders among us about what we have found? If so, let us be patient but persistent in doing so…for we reach out to a world that “still hasn’t found what it’s looking for”…that doesn’t, sometimes, even know that it’s looking. Let’s get the world to look, to see, and to find eternity…knowing that the desire FOR that eternity is something that God has placed deep…deep in everyone’s heart. Amen!
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