COME AND SEE

BISHOP G

Dear Friends:

I have a friend named Andrew who teaches writing and is also a writer. A few years ago, he introduced me to a diary prefilled with questions, intended to help me tell the story of who and how I became the person that I am. It’s called The Story of My Life: If a Story Is in You, It Has to Come Out. This diary asks me to write about things like what I did with my first paycheck, and why was this important to me; when was the first time I intentionally lied? Here’s my favorite: in what moment of your life have you felt the most loved?

During the Easter Season, or the Great Fifty Days, we read a lot of scripture from the Gospel according to John, and in John 1:38, Jesus asks an excellent question: “What are you looking for?”

John the Baptist guides his own disciples to Jesus, saying, “Look, here is the Lamb of God.” The disciples follow Jesus and when he sees them coming, he asks them what they’re looking for. But they don’t answer him. Instead, they ask him, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” He answers, “Come and see.” The gospel writer tells us the disciples remained with Jesus that day, and then he tells us this odd little detail, “It was about four in the afternoon.”

Scholars speculate that four in the afternoon would be significant if that day were the sabbath. If it were the sabbath, late in the day, and about to get dark, then the disciples would have to remain with Jesus that night because they couldn’t travel after sundown. They would stay with him Friday night and all day Saturday until dark, when the sabbath ended. In other words, they’d be forced to stick around with Jesus. I wonder what that was like. Did they talk all night? Did they ever tell Jesus what they were looking for?

In the fourth gospel, certain words take on great significance, creating a special language for spiritual experience, almost like a code. To see Jesus is code for believing in Jesus as the Son of God and Savior of the world. To stay with him, remain or abide with him is code for entering a relationship with him. Disciples are said to remain in Jesus and he remains in them. We say that we are in Christ and Christ is in us.