1.
Please
pray with me. May the words of my mouth
and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock
and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word this morning we
observe Lutheran Women’s Missionary League Sunday is taken from John 1:35-51
and is entitled, “Come and See!” Dear
brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
Have
you ever been surprised? Surprises can be pleasant. After a romantic stroll in
the park, a man gets down on his knee, pulls out a beautiful ring, and asks his
high school sweetheart, “Would you marry me?” A young wife shares big news with
her unsuspecting husband: “Guess what? We are having a baby!” Surprises can also
be unpleasant. Unexpected rain pours down on your much anticipated wedding day.
An optimistic job seeker receives a letter of rejection after a seemingly great
job interview. News of the sudden death of a loved one crushes us.
3.
All
surprises are, by definition, unexpected. But not all surprises are received in
the same way. People can have different reactions to the same surprise. The
results of the latest presidential election are in. Some celebrate. Others
lament. Think of movie or restaurant reviews on the Internet. One woman’s
favorite film or café is another woman’s worst entertainment or dining venue. Maybe
you’ve heard someone describe to you an artist’s new style or her latest song
by saying, “People either like it or hate it.” Same surprise. Different
responses.
4.
This
is exactly what we encounter when Philip and Nathaniel respectively see and
hear of Jesus for the first time. Through His only Son, God revealed His
greatest surprise for a world in darkness: Jesus Christ, the Light of the
World, has come from above to dispel the darkness. But, we have two entirely
different reactions to this news.
5.
After
calling Andrew and his brother, Simon Peter, Jesus found Philip and called him
to be His disciple too. “Follow me!”
After spending time with Jesus, Philip learned the basics about this man from
Galilee and shared the good news about Him with Nathanael. We sense excitement
in Philip’s words: “We have found him of
whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son
of Joseph!” Philip speaks as if he had found a treasure and he must tell
everyone about it. He receives the news with a joyful heart. Philip sees Jesus
through the eyes of the Holy Spirit, the eyes of faith. He has literally seen
the Light!
6.
What
about Nathanael? Through the mouth of Philip, Nathanael hears of Jesus for the
first time. But his reaction is entirely different from Philip’s. We see no
excitement upon Nathanael’s hearing of the good news, but a sense of suspicion
about the Galilean Jesus: “Can anything
good come out of Nazareth?” Nathanael’s is not a joyful attitude. Unlike Philip, Nathanael sees Jesus through
the eyes of the flesh, somewhere between disbelief and unbelief. He’s literally
in the dark! The Light has yet to overcome it.
7.
The
question remains: Can anything good come out of Nazareth in Galilee? The odds
seem to be against Galilee. The northern province of Galilee is a land too
close to unclean Gentiles and too far from holy Jerusalem in the southern
province of Judea. No self-respecting Judean Israelite would look for the Son
of God, the King of Israel, in such an unexpected place as Galilee of the
Gentiles. Unlike their counterparts in Judea, Galilean Jews speak with strange
accents and are known for a less than clean record on following prescribed
Jewish laws. Why look for God’s power and wisdom in Galilee? It makes no sense!
Can God truly work out His salvation from an unlikely place such as Nazareth in
Galilee, and among such unlikely folks as Galileans?
8.
God
surprises us. We often look for power and wisdom in the wrong place. But it’s
in Jesus of Nazareth, the unassuming man from Galilee, that we are called to
see the power and the wisdom of God at work in our lives. We’re called to fix
our eyes not on ourselves, but on Jesus. Not on our holiness, but on Jesus’
holiness. We’re reminded that we’re not the light. Jesus is the Light of the
World.
9.
To
the surprised and perplexed, to those in disbelief or doubt and seeking answers,
Jesus appears and invites them to fellowship with Him: “Come and you will see.” Andrew had been a disciple of John the
Baptist, but then is suddenly sent by the Baptist on a different path. He must
now follow Jesus. After all, John the Baptist wasn’t the light, but came to
bear witness to the Light. But Andrew likely had questions about this sudden
change of allegiance to Jesus from Galilee, and sought answers. So Jesus asked
him, “What are you seeking?” And
Andrew, along with another one of John’s former disciples, responded: “Rabbi…where are you staying?” Then, we
hear Jesus’ wonderful invitation to these seekers: “Come and you will see!”
10.
Later,
Jesus extends the same invitation to Nathanael. But this time, Jesus speaks His
words of invitation through Philip, whom He had just called to follow Him.
Nathanael’s infamous words, “Can anything
good come out Nazareth?” are met with Philip’s call to meet Jesus: “Come and see!” Any questions and doubts
Nathanael may have had about the man from Galilee eventually come to an end
when Jesus appears to him and, to Nathanael’s surprise, tells him exactly where
he was before Philip called him, (“I saw
you under the fig tree”). Suddenly, the light came on for Nathanael! The
light of Christ overcame the darkness of Nathanael’s heart. Nathanael’s
infamous words are now replaced by his confession of faith: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the
King of Israel!” Good things do come out Nazareth in Galilee.
11.
Not
only does God work out His salvation, but reveals the Light of the world, from
a most unexpected place. Out of Galilee. In addition to this surprising state
of affairs, God also chooses to bring the light of His Son to the most unlikely
folks—to Galileans themselves—and through them invites others to partake of the
fullness of life in His kingdom. Andrew, Simon Peter, and Philip are from
Bethsaida in Galilee. Nathanael is from Cana in Galilee. And the list goes on. A
Galilean Savior with His Galilean disciples. How shocking! How surprising! A
people too close to the Gentiles. A people with too strange an accent. A people
cut with a different cultural cloth than their southern counterparts. But it’s
out of lowly Galilee that the risen Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the
sin of the world, sends out His Galilean disciples to bring the world God so
loved into the Light.
12.
Who
are the Galileans of our day? Who are the people in our neighborhoods who look
and speak differently from us, whose cultural ways confound us? Who are those strange
folks from different tribes, languages, and nations in our midst? Who do we
think, due to our close-minded sinful ways, are the neighbors least likely to
receive God’s gracious invitation into the life-giving kingdom of His Son? You
see, we too can be like Nathanael, doubtful about what God can do with
neighbors in marginal areas like Galilee, cautiously optimistic about strangers
coming into and serving in our churches, guarded about inviting modern-day
Galileans to be disciples of Jesus with us for the sake of the world. When we
think in these ways, we are in the dark. We only see with the eyes of the
flesh, and we close our hearts to the surprisingly gracious ways in which God
reveals His great love for new neighbors near and far through His Son.
13.
But
God is merciful, and He surprises us again and again, inviting us to see with
the eyes of the Holy Spirit what mighty deeds He can do in the most unlikely places.
He calls us once again to see the Light, wherever He shines, even in Galilee
and among Galileans! Jesus gently sends us a Philip who invites us on His
behalf to “come and see” that the Lord can do great things in and out of lowly
Galilee. Through Philip, we are called anew to “come and see” that the love of
God in Christ Jesus knows no ethnic, racial, linguistic, tribal, or geographic
boundaries.
14.
What
is the church but a beautiful fellowship of Galileans? A marginal people called
out of darkness into the light of the Son. A people once dead raised to new
life through faith in God’s Son. God reminds us that the church is a bunch of
strangers in a foreign land. We’re in the world, but not of the world. To the
world, we’re complete strangers, speaking with a strange accent and walking to
a strange beat. We speak the ancient language of Holy Scripture. We initiate
people into the church by sprinkling them with water at our fonts. We eat the
body and drink the blood of God’s Son at our altars. Our pastors forgive us our
sins. We even love our enemies. And we sing to the tune of strange-sounding
hymns and songs to worship our Galilean Lord and God. How odd! How surprising!
We, too, are strange Galileans.
15.
On
this LWML Sunday, we rejoice in Jesus’ calling to come and see once again what
He has graciously done in our lives, His great deeds of salvation on behalf of
Galileans like us. Today, we also receive with great thanksgiving Jesus’
surprising invitation to come and see what He can do and is doing even among
strange Galilean neighbors in our midst to extend His kingdom throughout the
world.
16.
Hey
Philip! Can anything good really come out of Nazareth in Galilee? Yes,
Nathanael. Jesus, God’s greatest gift to us, has come out of lowly Galilee for
us and for our salvation. Good things do come out of Galilee! Hey Philip! Can God work out His salvation in
lowly places and among strangers today? Yes, Nathanael. “Come and see!” Amen.
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