Well, what do you know?

 January 2 2022

John 1:29-51

         Happy New Year to everyone! Can you believe that this is the year 2022? Did you know that this is the year that George Jetson will be born? This means that it won’t be too long until we will all be driving around in flying cars. Though this may be a wonderful hope, what we really are hoping is not for flying cars or any other new technology but rather, I believe, what we hope for is that this year will be different, I mean, isn’t this what we always wish for at the beginning of every new year? This is when we take one long look back and we see all that has happened and we take stock of our life, the good, the bad and the ugly and we vow to make some changes. Maybe its that we have gained a few too many pounds and we decide that all those Christmas cookies that have added to our waistline, this has got to stop. Or maybe this is the year to get those finances under control, to create a budget and stick to it, this year. You see, it could be any number of things that we realize that aren’t right with our life and now, right here at the beginning of a brand new year this is the time to alter the course of our life. So, in that same spirit, might I suggest a change you might want to make, and that is that this year that you think about getting to know Jesus a little better than you did last year this time. I mean this is the time when, you know, you might want to consider just how well do you know Jesus? I’m not talking about what you know the Bible says about Jesus, which is important, but rather I’m asking how well do you know Jesus, himself? And in a similar way, I might also ask, just how well does Jesus know you?This is a good time, at the beginning of a new year to ask ourselves questions like these.

         The reason I bring up this question as to just how well do you know Jesus is that knowing Jesus is a central theme of the gospel of John which we are going to dive into in the next several weeks. John’s gospel, if you haven’t had an opportunity to read it, is written very differently from the rest of the gospel accounts. There is a lot of thought which suggests that John’s gospel is the last gospel account. So, it may be that the difference of John’s version of things is that he has had a lot of time to meditate on the wonder and splendor on this one we call Jesus and this gives his account a unique perspective. We see this perspective immediately as we read the introduction of his account of things in the first verses from the first chapter. There John speaks of the world which may not mean anything to us but in John’s world, God’s people, the people of Israel, thought of themselves as being separate from the rest of the nations, the ones referred to in the other gospel accounts as being the Gentiles. The other gospel accounts record this division often writing about God’s people as the people who lived in Judaea, also known as the Jews and everyone else as being simply the Gentiles. John, though, does not record this division but rather he lumps everyone together in one collective humanity known simply as the world. Now, what defines the world is that it is a world of people who do not know Jesus nor God, the Father who sent him into the world. So, right here John begins with his theme of knowing Jesus, knowing God. No one, including the one’s who thought of themselves as being God’s people, could be said to have known God. 

         This idea that not even the people who thought themselves as being God’s people actually knew God, this is what was behind the strange phenomenon of John the Baptist and his bathing of people in the Jordan river. John being the son of a priest as recorded in Luke would have been a priest himself. Yet, in spite of being a priest he was not working within the Temple as one would imagine a priest would do but instead John is found out in the wild places, at the banks of the Jordan. Here John is performing the ceremonial bathing ritual required of those who were Gentiles who desired to be declared one of God’s people. Yet, John was not performing this ritual on Gentile people but he instead was performing this rite on his own people, the people of Israel. What they were declaring by doing so was that they considered themselves no different then the rest of the nations, that even though they considered themselves people of God they were not certain that they were people who knew God. If they had some personal knowledge of God then they would not be terrified at the thought of his coming suddenly into their midst as they now were. John the Baptist was crying forth the message that now was the time to make straight the way of the Lord meaning that God was coming and people had better be ready. But how could they be ready when they had this nagging feeling that they really did not know this God who was coming?

         It was into this situation at the Jordan that Jesus enters the picture. John, when introducing Jesus, describes him as being the one who came from the Father’s side, the one who intimately and throughly knows the Father, this Jesus is the one who has come into our world in order to make the Father known to us. What is interesting is that it is the Heavenly Father who makes Jesus known to John the Baptist. We hear the Baptizer exclaim when he saw Jesus that here was the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. When we hear this, we must ask ourselves just how does John know this about Jesus? The answer is that when John baptized Jesus in the Jordan river the heavens opened and a voice from heaven, the voice of the Father spoke, stating that this was his beloved with whom he was well pleased. What is heard in these words from heaven are echoes of a verse from the beginning of the forty-second chapter of Isaiah, where God tells Isaiah, “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights.” This is the one we are told that the Spirit of God will be placed upon exactly as what happened at the baptism of Jesus. So, John the Baptist, being a priest and familiar with the prophetic writings, would have known the various servant passages from the book of Isaiah, and he would have remembered that in the fifty-third chapter we read that this Servant would be oppressed and afflicted, that he would be like a lamb that is led to slaughter, like a sheep before its shearers would be silent. This Servant is the one who would be taken away by oppression and judgment, cut off from the land of the living for the transgressions of his people. This Servant would make his life an offering for guilt. Out of the anguish of his life, this Servant would see and be satisfied; through his knowledge this righteous one, the Servant, will make many to be accounted righteous for he will bear upon himself the iniquities of his people. This is what John the Baptist understood about Jesus when he heard the words from heaven. And John, the writer of this gospel account, perhaps wanted his readers to be aware of this connection as well because it is through the knowledge of this righteous one, the Servant, this is the means whereby many will be accounted righteous. 

         This theme of the importance of knowing Jesus continues as John states that before his encounter with Jesus he had no knowledge that it was Jesus who was the long awaited Servant prophesied by Isaiah. But it was through this encounter that John came to understand that the whole purpose for his bathing people in the Jordan was so that Jesus might be made known to Israel, the very people of God. So, it goes without saying that this knowing Jesus is what this gospel account is focused upon. Keeping that in mind, we too should want to know Jesus. We come to know Jesus through all of the clues that John provides for us through his story. The first of these clues is that Jesus is the Servant, the one who is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The second of these clues that John the Baptist gives us is that Jesus is the Son of God and the reason for this conclusion is that John saw Jesus be baptized with the Holy Spirit and because the Holy Spirit of God rested upon him then he would be the one who would pour out this same Spirit upon those willing to receive it. It is this anointing by God, the Father, that is the seal of God upon Jesus, stating that Jesus is the king in the line of David as we hear of in the second Psalm, where God tells David, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession.” So, in stating that Jesus is the Son of God, John the Baptist is telling us that Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promise to David that his house and his kingdom would forever be before God, that God would ensure that the throne of David will be established forever. Jesus then is not only Servant but he is God’s anointed king as well. In Hebrew, the word “anointed” is known as Messiah, so that when we say Jesus is the Messiah or Christ, from the Greek word for anointed, what is being said is that Jesus is God’s anointed king.

         John the Baptist then is the first one to know Jesus first as the Servant of God and then also as the Son of God, the anointed king of God. Yet he would not remain the only one for long because as he continued to address Jesus as the Lamb of God, John the Baptist’s words caught the attention of the disciples of the Baptizer. They too would have read of this mysterious Servant figure and they would have been amazed that John would now be proclaiming that this Jesus who had been baptized by John was the very one Isaiah had written about so long ago. Since they were ones who simply by being with John were admitting that did not know God, and as such they were those who were longing to know him, they of course began to tag along after Jesus. Jesus, of course, couldn’t help but notice that he had followers in the very literal sense of the word, so he turned to them and asked them just what it was that they were after. They replied by calling Jesus their Rabbi, their teacher and then asked Jesus just where it was that he was staying. By calling Jesus their Rabbi they were acknowledging that Jesus had knowledge of God that they longed to know and they wanted to come and sit at his feet and learn from him. Jesus, understanding this longing, invited these spiritually hungry souls to come and see. Now, this seems like a straight forward invitation but when you study the word John used that we understand as “see”, what you find is that this is a word which means to see with the mind, to spiritually perceive. You see, where the disciples were thinking that Jesus was inviting them to come and see an actual physical place, Jesus instead is inviting them on a journey to see that where he abides, where he dwells securely, is everywhere because of his relationship with his Heavenly Father who he is in a constant relationship with because of the anointing of the Holy Spirit. We are told that one of those who followed Jesus was Andrew, brother of Simon. Andrew had begun to know Jesus and we know this because he told Simon that the one they had found was none other than the long awaited Messiah. Here we have another title for who Jesus is, that he is not only the Servant, but he is the Son of God, he is Rabbi and now they know him as the Messiah. The title Messiah, as we already learned, means that they knew Jesus as God’s anointed but this term also meant something more to these followers because they also understood that when the Messiah came he would be the one who would usher in a new age where justice and righteousness prevailed. In their understanding there was two ages, one before the Messiah and the age after which the Messiah would come and establish his kingdom upon the earth. Andrew, in stating to his brother that the Messiah was here in this one he knew as Jesus, was testifying to his hope that, at last, this new age had finally arrived. This is why Simon would have been willing to drop everything to go and see for himself if Jesus was really the one he had been hoping for. As much as Simon wanted to know Jesus, we can only imagine how surprised he was to discover that Jesus, in some way, already knew him, because Jesus told Simon that he was going to be called Rock, in the Greek, Peter. Thus we learn that as we come to know about Jesus that this knowing is a two way street in that Jesus is going to know us as well. This is the very foundation of our personal relationship with Jesus. He makes himself known to us and we, in return become aware that Jesus already knows us because our Heavenly Father is the searcher of hearts. We find then that the God we long to know already knows us intimately.

         This intimate knowledge of who we are is further witnessed in the account of Nathaniel who is a friend of Phillip. Phillip took up Jesus on his invitation to follow him and then Phillip went and found his friend Nathaniel, and exclaimed that this Jesus of Nazareth was the one written about in the Law of Moses and the prophets. Nathaniel’s first question was could anything good come out of Nazareth, which seems a bit harsh. Phillip now extends the invitation of Jesus, that Nathaniel should come and see for himself. As Nathaniel approached Jesus we are told that Jesus said of him that in Nathaniel was a person of whom there was no deceit, no trickery, he was a what-you-see-is-what-you-get, kind of guy. Of course, Nathaniel is a little weirded out that this guy that he has never met is making judgments about him and he wants to know just how does Jesus know him. So, again, here is this theme of knowing and being known. Jesus tells Nathaniel that he knows him because Jesus saw Nathaniel sitting under a fig tree. What Jesus was admitting to was that he knew what was going on around him at a different level than just your average Joe. Just as our Heavenly Father knows when a bird falls to the ground so too Jesus knows this random guy who just happens to be sitting under a fig tree. Nathaniel in some way is able to put the clues together and he understands that the way Jesus knows is the same way that God knows; for Nathaniel this Jesus has to know God and be known by God. Nathaniel then confesses his belief to Jesus, that he believed that Jesus was indeed the Son of God, the King of Israel! Here again, the proclaiming of a title upon Jesus, the taking of the clues from scripture and discovering that these clues point to Jesus.

         Jesus loves the fact that simply because he told Nathaniel that he saw him under the fig tree, Nathaniel responded with a statement of faith. Jesus tells Nathaniel that because he believed in something as inconsequential as Jesus noticing him sitting under a fig tree then Nathaniel was going to see greater things. Here, Jesus is helping us connect our act of knowing with our being able to see, to perceive spiritually, greater things than we have ever perceived before. Knowing and faith are the means that enable those who follow Jesus to see and understand the true reality that is Jesus. What they would see, Jesus told them was that heaven would be opened to them and they would see angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. This is a direct allusion to the vision that was seen by Jacob in a story told to us in the twenty-eighth chapter of Genesis. Jacob was on his way to his uncle Laban to take a wife and on his journey he came to a place to stay the night. He took a stone for a place to lay his head and as he dreamed, he saw a ladder that reached from the earth to the heavens. Upon this ladder there were the angels of God ascending and descending and God stood above this ladder. Jacob heard God promise to bless him so that the whole earth might come to be blessed. When Jacob woke from this dream he exclaimed that where his head slept was none other than the house of God, the very gate of heaven. So, when Jesus tells us that they, his followers would see this same vision of angels ascending and descending and that its origin on earth would be him, the Son of Man, it isn’t hard to understand that he was telling them that they would come to know that he himself was the very gate of heaven and that he was indeed, the very house of God. So, here we have more clues that help us to know Jesus. John in his gospel will take these clues, that Jesus is the Servant, that he is the Son of God, the Messiah and that he is the Son of Man, the gate of heaven and the house of God and in his story help us his readers come to know Jesus in a greater and deeper way. The question is this, do you desire to know Jesus in a greater and deeper way this year? To those who desire to know Jesus, his invitation still stands, Come and See! Amen.