WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?

Readings: Psalm 40:1-11, Isaiah 49:1—7, John 1:29-42, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, January 16th 2011

A printable PDF can be found here

I came out of the bathroom, walked down the corridor, and arrived in the kitchen. There I stood, with a quizzical look on my face.
“What are you looking for?” asked Yvonne.
“You know” I said, “I haven’t got a clue. I’ll just have to retrace my steps and maybe it will come to me!”

Has that ever happened to you? You’re looking for something, but you forget what it is? So you have to back up a little to try and reignite your memory. Well, if it doesn’t happen to you, watch out, it probably will!

Last week our passage of Scripture gave us the question “What are you doing here?” This week the question Jesus asks is, “What do you seek? What are you looking for?”

The circumstances surrounding the question are these. Two of John the Baptist’s disciples (one of them being Andrew) have been observing everything that’s been going on. John had been saying some impressive things about Jesus.

“Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!” (v29)
“This is the One about whom I said, ’After me comes a man of higher rank.” (v30)
“This is the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit!” (v33)
“This is the Son of God” (v34)

They are obviously curious, because as Jesus walks by them, they start to follow after Him. They haven’t quite got the nerve to go up and ask Him “What’s all this stuff John’s saying about you?” They just seem to want to watch and see what happens.

In an almost comical moment, Jesus suddenly turns around, looks straight at them, and asks them, “What are you looking for?” It seems they don’t really have an answer. They just blurt out the first thing that came to mind, “Erm.. Rabbi ...ehm Teacher...we were just wondering, where in town are you staying?”

“Why don’t you come and see?” invites Jesus. And they go with Him and spend time talking with Him and as they open their lives to His teaching become convinced that He is the Messiah, the ‘Christ,’ John had been telling them to get ready for. So convicted is Andrew that he runs home to get his brother Simon and brings him along to meet Jesus.

By becoming disciples of John and then trailing after Jesus, it seems clear that the disciples were looking for something. At the same time, you get the impression they didn’t quite know what they were looking for. But, whatever it was, in Jesus, they had an idea they could find it.

When you start to dig deep into your own hopes and dreams and ambitions, it can be a confusing experience. Of course, because we’re here in church we could smugly smile and say, “Well, all I want to do is live the life God wants me to.” Yet, I have an impression that we would be fooling nobody but ourselves.

Fact is that we’re not always sure exactly what we’re looking for. We are here this morning because there is something in us that keeps telling us, “Well, whatever it is you’re after, somehow it’s tied up with the Gospel Message and the Will of God and the life of Christ.”

Sometimes we are driven more by curiosity than by certainty, more by coercion than by conviction, more by compulsion rather than by compassion. We are, even in our best moments, as much driven by wants, as we are by needs, and at times find the distinction between the two is blurred.

As people we need to be loved, but sometimes we do things simply for affirmation to make ourselves lovable. As people we need to have a sense of purpose, but sometimes we purposefully pursue things that are a hindrance rather than a help. As Christian people we realize there is a God shaped hole in our life, but so often fill that space with other things.

Now I say none of this in order that we should wring our hands and complain about what terrible people we are. I’m not taking us on any kind of guilt trip so that we hang our heads in shame with much weeping and gnashing of teeth. I am simply acknowledging that human nature is a mixed bag of conflicting ideals, emotions and conflicts.

Whilst in Christ we can know ourselves to be saved and forgiven and redeemed and all the other religious terminology that preachers like myself are so fond of confusing people with; we also know that we are, as Scripture says, still ‘working out our salvation’, are still, as Scripture says, people over whom Jesus prays, “Father, Forgive them , for they don’t know what they are doing”, people who, as Scripture teaches, are in a process of becoming... Paul writes “This one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phillipians 3:13)

I was at home the other day, rummaging through some papers. Again my good lady caught me in my confusion.
“What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know” I said, “ but I’ll tell you when I find it!”

Everybody’s journey of faith has some wrong turnings within it. We are people, so we make mistakes. Maybe we feel some days that we have made more wrong turnings than right ones, but occasionally we stumble upon something that seems to be the genuine article.

Could be it was a little like that for those first disciples? They couldn’t really define what it was that drew them towards Christ, but once He’d found them, they knew that He was what they were searching for. There is that tension in the story that whilst they were looking for Jesus, He was also looking for them.

Many times religion is pictured as peoples search for God. Yet the image that comes through the New Testament is that God , in Christ, is looking for us. It’s a two sided picture, like any relationship where love can grow has to be.

We are given parables like that of the woman looking for the lost coin and being so happy when she finds it. We are told to seek that we may find. We are also given parables like that of the Good Shepherd who leaves ninety nine behind in order to go in search of one lost sheep. Jesus is pictured as the one who comes to seek and save the lost.

We look for God.
God searches for us.
Yet still the question hangs hauntingly in the air;
“What are you looking for?”

When two people are looking for each other, we call it searching for a relationship. Many newspapers have a personal ad section, dating agencies flourish, people search in CyberSpace for that special someone to make their dreams come true.

Some theologians have described that need for a relationship as an indication of our thirst for God. They suggest that all search for intimacy, all longing of the heart, all striving after another is a reaching towards God. Taking it one step further they also suggest that no relationship is ever truly fulfilled until its center is found in Christ.

To put it another way, no relationship we ever have, will be all that it could be unless our relationship with God is secure. If we are to have great relationships with each other here on earth then our relationship with God must be one that is constantly deepening and growing. For God’s love is the ground of all true love, God’s life is what gives all life true meaning.

Jesus had a recipe for contentment. He recommends trust in God, being happy with what you have, in the knowledge that God can take care of things; the release of anxiety and the acceptance of peace, the looking to God for all things, in all things and through all things.

What are we looking for in life? And what is God looking for in us? We may not be able give neat tidy answers to these questions. But John’s two disciples made the right choice when they decided to become disciples of Jesus. They still had a lot to learn and a lot to find. Yet in Christ they found the way, the truth and the life.

When you’re searching for something but don’t quite know what is, retrace your steps. Let them lead you back to God who gave you life. For God knows exactly what we are looking for. Even when we’re not so sure!

Hear, as did those first disciples, the invitation of Jesus. “Come and see”. Through prayer and time spent with God’s Word, through worship and service we open up all that we are to God’s Holy Spirit. We may not find every answer we are looking for, but the promise to us is this; God will give us everything we really need to be God’s people.

Rev Adrian J Pratt