Tag: come and see

Come and See: Take Him At His Word

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After the two days he left for Galilee.  (Now Jesus himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honor in his own country.) When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him. They had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, for they also had been there.

Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.

 “Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”

The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”

 “Go,” Jesus replied, “your son will live.”

The man took Jesus at his word and departed. While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, “Yesterday, at one in the afternoon, the fever left him.”

Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he and his whole household believed.

This was the second sign Jesus performed after coming from Judea to Galilee.
John 4: 43-54

Faith is to believe what you do not see;
the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
Hebrews 11:1

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.

Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.

May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.

Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum.

Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.
~Christina Rossetti “Up-Hill”

This life of ours can be an arduous and often troubled journey.

We might feel like we are never able to reach a point of rest in our uphill climb through obstacles and hazards. It can be so dark we’re not sure we can see the road, much less where we’re headed.

When a royal official makes the 20 hour journey uphill to find Jesus to ask him to heal and save his son, he surely was at a point of desperate need. He is so convinced by the stories of Jesus’ power to heal, he would go wherever needed to make that happen for his dying son.

Yet he discovers Jesus’ power is not just in His hands, but in His words.

Our faith is not just based on what we see with our eyes,
but in our trust and belief in Jesus, who is the Word.

When we are faced with that up-hill journey through troubled times, we will not be left stranded, lost and waiting by the roadside. Many have gone on before us, and those faithful are ready and waiting to help walk alongside us and give us encouragement to keep going.

There is a place waiting for wayfarers like us.

Jesus speaks the healing of the son
and the royal official takes Him at His Word.

No longer is that official merely politically powerful; he descends back down the road to his home spreading the word to all around him about the far greater power of Jesus.

There is salvation through the Word to those who believe. We all are weary travelers welcomed with open arms as the uphill road points us to the best home of all.

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

Lyrics by Lori McKenna:

When the road under your feet is dark and feels wrong
And you find yourself lost and all your confidence gone
And the stars over your head through the clouds won’t be revealed
I’ll walk with you, even if it’s uphill

When the weight of your troubles send your knees into the dirt
And all your loyal distractions only magnify the hurt
When lonesome doesn’t quite define how so alone you feel
I’ll walk with you, even if it’s uphill

Hard times and landslides are part of life I know
Like they say, none of us get out alive
Whatever ocean you’re swimming across
However valley low
Whatever mountains you climb
I’ll walk with you, even if it’s uphill

Blessed are the times filled with sun, surrounded by your friends
Those days when all the new roads wait right where the old roads end
And should you wake up to Everest right outside your windowsill
I’ll walk with you even if it’s uphill

Hard times and landslides are part of life God knows
We all got some mountains to climb
Whatever ocean you’re swimming across
However valley low
I’m right here, I’ve been right here all this time
And I’ll walk with you, even if it’s uphill
I’ll walk with you, even if it’s uphill

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Come and See: Ripe for Harvest

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Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”

“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true.  I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.

They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
John 4: 31-42

The grower of trees, the gardener, the man born to farming,
whose hands reach into the ground and sprout,
to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death
yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down
in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.
His thought passes along the row ends like a mole.
What miraculous seed has he swallowed
that the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth
like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water
descending in the dark?
~Wendell Berry “The Man Born to Farming” from Farming: A Handbook

My dad had a standard sign-off whenever I called my parents long-distance once a week from college.

He always said, “you know what you’re there for…”

At first I puzzled over that phrase. I knew I was in school to study and get a degree, but what was going to happen after that was still an unknown. Yet the weekly reminder was a good one. He was telling me that I was a seed sown in rich soil, and what I learned would help me grow and thrive as long as I remembered to put my roots down and drink deeply from that well of knowledge.

So it was with the Samaritan woman at the well – Jesus waited for her in the heat of the day for a reason. She was a seed sown, meant to bring others to share in the harvest of the good news she had heard.

So we too are here for a purpose. We truly need one another, to become interwoven and linked, both visibly and invisibly.

I am woven around you and you around me; together we grow and thrive when tended and — just as intended.

But more than anything, we need our Gardener.
We are sown, nurtured, grown under His care.
He knows what we are here for, and now, so do we.

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year. Once a week, I invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together. Past posts can be found by searching “Come and See” on this blog.

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Come and See: Could This Be?

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Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,  “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”  They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
John 4:27-30

The woman is isolated and shunned by her community, which is why she comes to the well at noon and not in the cool of the morning or evening with the other women. She sees nothing but problems and barriers at first: the divisions of race and religion, the practical problem of the deep well, of having no buckets — and then the living presence of Jesus changes everything.

We see him through the icon, with one hand on his heart, the other on the water, himself the living connection between the two. Gazing at the icon, we see that the living water is already at the brim of the well. Has his presence drawn it up from the depths, or is it in fact flowing from him into the well, and not the other way round? Certainly, everything is reversed for the woman, and she who had to walk away from her village to find an outer source of refreshment will soon herself be a centre of renewal and be spreading good news in community.
~Malcolm Guite “Poet’s Corner” from Church Times

Icon painted by John Coleman for the Retreat Association

Some ask the world
and are diminished
in the receiving
of it. You gave me
only this small pool
that the more I drink
from, the more overflows
me with sourceless light.
~ R. S. Thomas “Gift” from Experimenting with an Amen 

..my heart leaps in wonder.
Cold, fresh, deep, I feel the word water
spelled in my left palm…
opening the doors of the world…
~Denise Levertov from “The Well”

I approach the well with shame, in the heat of the day,
not wanting to speak or be spoken to…

Yet this man, waiting there,
asks for water
asks for my help
asks, despite of who I am
and what I have done.

Then he offers to me
what I could not give him:
knowing my life and my shame
he opens the door to the rest of my life,
having no more thirst.

Could this be?

My heart leaping in wonder,
now I must tell everyone I know…

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

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Come and See: Something More of the Depths

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Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 

And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”  The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 

The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 

Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
John 4: 1-26

Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs
Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
Deeper down in the well than where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
Me myself in the summer heaven godlike
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths—and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.
~Robert Frost “For Once Then Something”

Recently, we tried having a new well dug on our farm after our well water became discolored and undrinkable after a week of very heavy rains.

It is a very deep decades-old well with a protective casing that was failing. The well diggers tried to hit water in the same aquifer only a few yards from the original well – yet, despite drilling even deeper, the hole remained dry. Our effort at fresh water was futile. Instead, with no other affordable options, we did what we could to repair the original well, hoping to give it new life, along with a robust filtration system so we would have fresh water.

We are a worshiping people who peer into a well hole, expecting it to deliver what we need, when we need it. We end up worshiping our own distorted reflection, rather than what is needed to sustain life.
We are lost, only looking deep into the depths of the ground, rather than seeking the depths of spirit and truth.

When we admit our own blindness and need for rescue, we are promised living water to quench our never-ending thirst.

Instead of “for once then something,” we are given
“forever, now, salvation.”

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

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Come and See: A Door Opened to the Light

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For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
John 3:16-21

The issue is now clear.
It is between light and darkness
and everyone must choose his side.
G.K. Chesterton (on his deathbed)

The world hides God from us,
or we hide ourselves from God,
or for reasons of his own
God hides himself from us,
but however you account for it,
he is often more conspicuous by his absence than by his presence,
and his absence is much of what we labor under
and are heavy laden by.
Just as sacramental theology speaks
of a doctrine of the Real Presence,
maybe it should speak also of a doctrine of the Real Absence
because absence can be sacramental, too,
a door left open, a chamber of the heart kept ready and waiting.
~Frederick Buechner from Telling the Truth

…my faith has weathered in a holy way;
it’s larger, gentler, especially as I have learned
to bear the needs of others,
to pour myself out at least a little bit like God does for me.
In that offering, I’ve learned a lot
about God’s quiet, ever-present nourishment.
A larger, patient acceptance has come to me.
I haven’t found every answer,
I still ‘want’ so much more of God than I have,
and yet, I also have learned to live
with the holy hunger that is the groaning
of God’s Spirit within me as I wait
for the full coming of the Kingdom.⁣
~Sarah Clarkson reflecting on Buechner’s quote above

Lord Jesus, You are my righteousness, I am your sin.
You took on you what was mine; yet set on me what was yours.
You became what you were not,
that I might become what I was not.
~Martin Luther

…faith is keeping Christ before our eyes —
Christ incarnate, Christ in his ministry,
Christ giving his life on the cross for us —
beholding in Christ the very heart of God poured out in love.
John points to Jesus and says
this is what God is like;
this is God’s heart for us.
~Pastor Nathan Chambers paraphrasing John Calvin

Choosing to step through the opened door into the light is not like choosing sides on teams in grade school, numbering off one-two-one-two until everyone knows which side they stand on – the weak and the strong thrown together by random chance.

It is not like an explosive election year where choosing sides means aligning with a political candidate with whom I vehemently disagree so as to avoid supporting the even worse opponent.

This is not like a Lincoln-Douglas debate tournament where I might represent one viewpoint for the first round, and then be asked to represent the opposite viewpoint in the second half.

This is a choice of where I would rather be: in the light of God’s love and presence, or hiding from Him in the shadows.

And it isn’t only my choice,
but it is being chosen,
just as I am,
my weakness and sin and darkness
taken on by Christ’s enormous love
so that I might become
what I was not before.

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

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Come and See: Asking Unanswerable Questions

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Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” 

Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”  

Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’  The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?”  

Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,  that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
John 3: 1-15

When I lay these questions before God I get no answer.
But a rather special sort of “No answer.”

It is not the locked door.
It is more like a silent,
certainly not uncompassionate, gaze.

As though he shook his head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, “Peace, child; you don’t understand.”

Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable?
Quite easily, I should think.
All nonsense questions are unanswerable.

How many hours are there in a mile?
Is yellow square or round?

Probably half the questions we ask –
half our great theological and metaphysical problems –
are like that.
~C.S. Lewis from  A Grief Observed

I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. 
You are yourself the answer.
Before your face questions die away.
~C.S. Lewis from Till We Have Faces

At present we are on the outside of the world,
the wrong side of the door.
We discern the freshness and purity of morning,
but they do not make us fresh and pure.
We cannot mingle with the splendors we see.
But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling
with the rumor that it will not always be so.
Someday, God willing, we shall get in.
~C.S. Lewis from The Weight of Glory

And now brothers, 
I will ask you a terrible question, 
and God knows I ask it also of myself. 
Is the truth beyond all truths, 
beyond the stars, just this: 
that to live without him is the real death, 
that to die with him the only life?
~Frederich Buechner from The Magnificent Defeat

And that is just the point…
how the world, moist and beautiful,
calls to each of us to make a new and serious response.
That’s the big question,
the one the world throws at you every morning.
“Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?”
~Mary Oliver from Long Life

Some days, it is impossible to be a silent observer of the world. 
I ask so many unanswerable questions.

When the wind and rain pulls down nearly every leaf,
the ground is carpeted with the dying evidence of last spring’s rebirth, there can be no complacency in witnessing life in progress.

It blusters, rips, drenches, encompasses, buries.
Nothing remains as it was. And neither do we.

And yet here I am, alive.
Awed.
Born to be a witness to all this.
Called to comment.
Dying to hear a response.

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

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Come and See: Overturned and Scattered

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When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.
John 2:13-25

Come to your Temple here with liberation
And overturn these tables of exchange
Restore in me my lost imagination
Begin in me for good, the pure change.

Come as you came, an infant with your mother,
That innocence may cleanse and claim this ground
Come as you came, a boy who sought his father
With questions asked and certain answers found.

Come as you came this day, a man in anger
Unleash the lash that drives a pathway through
Face down for me the fear the shame the danger
Teach me again to whom my love is due.

Break down in me the barricades of death
And tear the veil in two with your last breath.
~Malcolm Guite “Cleansing of the Temple”

I come home from the soaring
in which I lost myself.
I was song, and the refrain which is God
is still roaring in my ears.

Now I am still
and plain:
no more words.
~Rainer Marie Rilke from The Book of Hours I

Some days, words simply don’t come to me,
feeling lost and empty.

I am stilled and plain until I feel a breath
that scatters and overturns me.

God is in the depth of these dark hours.

He is here, a remaining seed,
waiting, knowing and sowing me,
helping me blossom again.

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

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An Advent Threshold: What Are You Seeking? Come and See What is Possible…

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The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” 

The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.
 Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, 
“What are you seeking?” 
And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?”  

He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.

One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.  He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, 
“You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).

 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”  Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

Philip said to him, “Come and see.”  

Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!”  Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”  Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”  Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.”  And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
John 1:35-51

I never knew what was going on.

He would say, “Let’s go,” and we
would follow. “Follow” was his word.

And we would. Fools we were to let that
take us all that way. Why we did to this day

I don’t know. Look how it ended. Look
what it became. But what did we have

to stay for? Nothing. There wasn’t much
work. Nothing much to do. There were no

stories left. Bread. Fish. So we ended up
with more bread and fish. But we did find

stories and stories. Well, what else is there?
I never did much along the way. Look it up…

I will say, though, that it was his words. Words!

Imagine. Words had never done what his did.
I’d listen, and I wasn’t much of a listener. Then

later I would try to make sense of them. I couldn’t.
But I could feel them. And maybe that was it, how

they got inside you and made you wonder and wrinkle.
They got in my brain’s garden and made it seem like

the roots were above ground and all the flowers and
vegetables, all the nourishing, were now below…

See? See how hard it is to
explain this stuff? You just started seeing everything with a

new mind. You began to be drawn to a whole new world,
and it was a world.

You might say, okay, whatever, and yet those words
did become flesh, my flesh. And my flesh, my body, held

the kingdom of God, and if it’s a place that’s a place
for children, then most of what I know really doesn’t matter.

Labor doesn’t, and money, and reason, and, well, you
go make a list. He’d get me so confused. And then we’d

head off worrying about how we would eat and where
we’d sleep. Our feet were filthy. My God, we were always

filthy. We stank. And then he’d go and point at birds or
stalks of grain, even stop and have us kneel before a flower,

and then he’d smile. That haunts me still. That smile.
And then he died. He brought out hate, not love. He had

a terrifying sense of justice. Nothing he said or did
was impossible. Maybe that was it. It was all possible.
~Jack Ridl from “Bartholomew: Disciple”

What are you seeking? What are you looking for in your life?

Jesus asks the new disciples because He needs to know whether they are expecting a wise rabbi/teacher, or a prophesied Messiah come to change the world, or a mighty king who will liberate them from political oppression.

No matter what our expectation is, Jesus asks that we come to see what he is doing, following him to witness what will happen as he speaks, allowing his words to become our new flesh and skin.

He takes us to the threshold of heaven and throws the gate wide open. Nothing he says or does is impossible.

He shows us what is possible simply by asking us what we hope for.

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year or so. Each week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

My 2025 Advent theme:
On the threshold between day and night

On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 
It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—
with no distinction between day and night. 
When evening comes, there will be light.
Zechariah 14:6-7

So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.
~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk

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An Advent Threshold: Come and See the Lamb

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The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said,
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 
This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.’ 

 I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.” 

And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 

And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”
John 1: 29-34

When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
~William Blake from “The Tyger”

Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee:
He is callèd by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild:
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are callèd by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee
~William Blake “Little Lamb”

Agnus Dei from The Collection from Museo Del Prado

He is the Lion and the Lamb.
Despite his high claims, he is never pompous;
you never see him standing on his own dignity.
Despite being absolutely approachable to the weakest and broken,
he is completely fearless before the corrupt and powerful.
He has tenderness without weakness.
Strength without harshness.
Humility without the slightest lack of confidence.
Unhesitating authority with a complete lack of self-absorption. Holiness and unending convictions
without any shortage of approachability.
Power without insensitivity.
~Tim Keller from Encounters with Jesus: Unexpected Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions

John the Baptist is the only one who actually calls Jesus a Lamb to His Face. It seems a curious label to put on the Messiah expected to bring the Kingdom of God to His people with great power, might, and fanfare.
A lamb?
A defenseless helpless lamb?
How could God send a mere lamb?

The label is particularly apt for this Messiah. This mere lamb is marked for slaughter, destined for sacrifice. The Jewish people well understood the age-old directive to find a “year old male lamb without defect”, the perfect lamb, as only that blood would demarcate their Passover rescue in Egypt. 

There would be no mistaking what “Lamb of God” implied to the Jews who knew their Passover history.

But John is even more revolutionary than simply calling Jesus a Lamb of God. He is not talking about a sacrifice meant only for his own people. He is talking about a sacrifice on behalf of the world…
for the Jews, for the Gentiles, for the enemies of the Jews, for the millions of people as yet unborn. His words cannot be clearer, ringing through to the unsettled times and people of today.

The perfect lamb is sacrificed, his blood spilling over the hands of the slaughterers, and washing them clean.

No mere lamb forgives the holder of the knife. 
Only would the Lamb of God.

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year or so. Each week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

My 2025 Advent theme:
On the threshold between day and night

On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 
It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—
with no distinction between day and night. 
When evening comes, there will be light.
Zechariah 14:6-7

So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.
~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk

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Come and See: Make Straight the Way

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And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”  He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” 

And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?”
He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?”
And he answered, “No.” 
 So they said to him, “Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” 
 He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”

(Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.) They asked him, “Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” 

John answered them, “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
John 1:19-28

We grow accustomed to the Dark —
When Light is put away —
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Good bye —

A Moment — We Uncertain step
For newness of the night —
Then — fit our Vision to the Dark —
And meet the Road — erect —

And so of larger — Darknesses —
Those Evenings of the Brain —
When not a Moon disclose a sign —
Or Star — come out — within —

The Bravest — grope a little —
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead —
But as they learn to see —

Either the Darkness alters —
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight —
And Life steps almost straight.
~Emily Dickinson

I admit that I’ve been stumbling about in the dark,
bearing the bruises and scrapes of
random collisions with objects hidden in the night.

My eyes must slowly adjust to such bare illumination,
as the Lamp sometimes is carried away.
I must feel my way along the road of life.

I know there are fellow darkness travelers
who also have lost their way and their Light,
giving what they can and sometimes more.

And so, blinded as we each are,
we run forehead-first into the Tree
which has always been there and always will be.

Because of who we are and Who loves us,
we, now free and forgiven,
follow a darkened road guaranteed straight, all the way Home.

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year. Each week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

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