When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?”

Andrew and John were looking for answers to the questions of life and its meaning.

They thought they had already found them, after all, God had led them to John the Baptist and they probably thought they would spend the coming years learning from strange old John, the eater of wild honey and locusts. But now John had sent them off to follow Jesus and it would involve a dramatically unexpected change in their life plans.

Most of us have had the experience of a job change, sometimes it has been a change we have sought, often and unfortunately these days many of us have experienced changes that were thrust upon us against our will. In either case, when we make those changes we often encounter a culture shock as we learn the style and stability of our new company or co-workers or supervisors. Andrew and John were about to experience that kind of change.

The Baptist was angry and uncomfortable, chasing people away with his blunt crudeness, Jesus was gentle and sociable, attracting people with his wit and wisdom; John screamed curses at public officials and called the religious leaders a bunch of snakes, Jesus held children and played with them and spoke of forgiveness and doodled in the dirt while others condemned the sins of the flesh.

So for these two disciples there was a clear change in the tone and direction of their lives.

And before they begin to follow, Jesus he wants to know what it is that they are looking for.

And they stammer and the stutter and the best answer they can give is “Where are you staying?” and he tells them, and us, the secret to all of the questions of life, the ones we ask and the ones that we are afraid to ask: “Come and see”.

One of my favorite Jimmy Buffett songs tells of someone who was much like John and Andrew, a young man who was impressive and aggressive as he went to Paris, seeking answers to the questions that bothered him so.

His journey took him to wartime England and it cost him a wife and a son and an eye.

And because he is a Jimmy Buffett character, he ends up in the Islands and after 86 years of living he is able to say “some of it’s magic and some of it’s tragic and I had a good life all the way.”

He learned, as Andrew and John would, that the answers to life’s questions only come with the living of life.

We can sit and study all we want but we will never learn what we need and want to know until we follow Christ, until we give ourselves over to him as disciples, until we accept his invitation to come and see what he has for us day after day, year after year. Andrew and John, like most of us, were searching for certainty in their souls and they thought they had found it in the extremist religion of John the Baptist, yet the Baptist knew his role in the world, he knew that he was here to point beyond himself. He played the role that we, as the Church, are meant to play for each other and for the world out there, to point beyond ourselves.

In the OT lesson we find God telling Isaiah that it is too light a thing, too trivial a thing, to simply restore Israel to the glories of what it had been, instead God will use Israel as light for the nations.

This is a change, a dramatic change in God’s evolving, redeeming work, now God’s peace, his shalom, will be proclaimed and experienced beyond all of the artificial boundaries of nation and race and gender and religious structures.

God’s vision was wider and the horizons of God’s love were broader than Isaiah or his nation Israel had ever imagined.

And that remains true for us and for our nation.

On this weekend, when we as a nation are asked to stop and to recall and to honor the most significant American Christian, certainly of the 20th Century and perhaps in our entire history, we can hear the same notes of realistic optimism that Isaiah presents in the words of Dr. King’s vision of the unlimited scope of what God’s people are meant to be: “I refuse to accept the idea that the ‘is-ness’ of man’s present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the ‘ought-ness’ that forever confronts him.”

That’s what Isaiah was talking about.

I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

That’s what John the Baptist was talking about as he preached and pointed beyond himself, proclaiming the coming one who would raise all the valleys and lower all the mountains, eliminating all the barriers between people and moving us from the is-ness to the ought-ness, from what we are to what God has called us to be.

When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?”

Whatever it is that you and I are looking for, Jesus wants to know.

And whatever it is that you and I are looking for we will find it as we follow him, into all of the relationships that we have that are changing, into all of the joys and sorrows that change brings to us.

Whatever our is-ness might be at this moment, Christ calls us to come and see the ought-ness that he wants to lead us to. I know that there are times when I can lean toward the optimistic side of the pendulum’s swing, I know that I can push myself and us to step forward in unrealistic faith, but it is not because I am unaware of the tragedies and sorrows of life or oblivious to the pain and stresses that so many of you are living with, I am only too aware, painfully aware. No, I push myself and I push you forward because I know that God is calling us to live by faith, I know that in the darkest and coldest of nights there is a light that shines and can never be overcome or extinguished, and I know that today is the day to live by faith, today is the only day that I can do anything about.

In the wonderful current movie, The Great Debaters, Miss Samantha Booke, with an “e”, a young black woman in the America of the 1930’s is refuting her debate opponent’s premise that the day will come when “whites and coloreds will go to schools together, but that day is not yet here.”

Miss Booke, with an “e”, says: “My opponent says today is not the day for whites and coloreds to go to the same college. To share the same campus. To walk into the same classroom. Well, would you kindly tell me when that day is gonna come? Is it going to come tomorrow? Is it going to come next week? In a hundred years? Never? No, the time for justice, the time for freedom, and the time for equality is always, is always right now!”

Well, the time for living by faith is always, is always right now.

In fact justice and freedom and equality will come when we live by faith, right now.

Today.

“What are you looking for?”

“Come and see.”

Right now.

Today.

And if Today is a bad day for you, it is all the more important that you come and see, right now, today.

I was never able, as many Christians have been, to put a specific time and place on where or when I was first and irrevocably claimed by God, I never had a single, shining moment of a mountaintop conversion experience.

But I can tell you of a valley day of great darkness.

It was a Tuesday morning in November of 1998 and I have never before or since, felt as physically, emotionally, intellectually or spiritually empty as I did that morning. I believed, as I drank my morning coffee, that absolutely everything in my life – my relationships, my ability to communicate, my faith and my health – had all been drained and stripped and I had nothing left to give to anyone, nothing left to say and that I had failed everyone who had ever believed in me and everything that I had ever believed in.

I was having a magnificent pity party.

Until I opened an email.

And I read a reminder of things that I had said so many times, a reminder that in all of the changes and chances of life the only thing we can control is our own attitude and the only day we have to work with is today.

So if you are searching today for meaning, or if you are guiding a friend today, I offer this essay today as a creed for today, a call to come and see where Christ is staying in your life today, a call to step out in faith right now:

"Today, when I awoke, I suddenly realized that this is the best day of my life, ever!

There were times when I wondered if I would make it to today; but I did! And because I did I'm going to celebrate!

Today, I'm going to celebrate what an unbelievable life I have had so far: the accomplishments, the many blessings, and, yes, even the hardships because they have served to make me stronger.

I will go through this day with my head held high, and a happy heart. I will marvel at God's seemingly simple gifts: the morning dew, the sun, the clouds, the trees, the flowers, the birds. Today, none of these miraculous creations will escape my notice.

Today, I will share my excitement for life with other people. I'll make someone smile. I'll go out of my way to perform an unexpected act of kindness for someone I don't even know. Today, I'll give a sincere compliment to someone who seems down. I'll tell a child how special he is, and I'll tell someone I love just how deeply I care for her and how much she means to me.

Today is the day I quit worrying about what I don't have and start being grateful for all the wonderful things God has already given me. I'll remember that to worry is just a waste of time because my faith in God and his Divine Plan ensures everything will be just fine.

And tonight, before I go to bed, I'll go outside and raise my eyes to the heavens. I will stand in awe at the beauty of the stars and the moon, and I will praise God for these magnificent treasures.

As the day ends and I lay my head down on my pillow, I will thank the Almighty for the best day of my life. And I will sleep the sleep of a contented child, excited with expectation because I know tomorrow is going to be the best day of my life, ever! I know that we all say that we want to live like that, someday.

I know that we all say that we want to live by faith, someday.

But, if I may borrow from Samantha Booke, with an “e”, would you kindly tell me when that day is gonna come? Is it going to come tomorrow? Is it going to come next week? In a hundred years? Never? No, the time for following Christ, the time for living by faith is always, is always right now!

When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” “Come and see”