Lectionary Readings: Second Sunday after the Epiphany
Have you ever read a book, or watched a movie, and started identifying with one of the characters in the story? You know, you’re twelve years old, and you’re reading about the exploits of the cowboys in the wild, wild west, and you think to yourself, “I’m just like this character. I’m totally The Lone Ranger.” Or Zorro, or Davy Crockett, or Wyatt Earp. Whoever it was for you, the point is that you got to a place where you were identifying with a character in the story, and suddenly their story became more important for you than the story of the other characters. Their story felt like it became your story.
Today’s Gospel story has a few characters. We have John the Baptist, we have Jesus, we have two disciples of John the Baptist, and then at the tail end, we bring in Peter.
What’s interesting about John’s Gospel is that he doesn’t describe the baptism of Jesus. He just seems to assume all of his readers and listeners already know the story, and he is giving more detail to the event from his own perspective. Just before this passage, John has been called to testify to the priests and the Levites about who he is, and why he is baptizing people. John responds that he is not a prophet, he is not Elijah, and he is not the Messiah, but that he is the “voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’” And so they ask him why on earth he would be baptizing if he is none of these things: not a prophet, not Elijah, not the Messiah. And John tells them, “I baptize with water, but there is another one coming after me; I’m not worthy to untie the strap of his sandal.” And then we come to today’s passage, where John is standing there with his own disciples, and as Jesus passes by, he says to those disciples, “This is the Lamb of God who takes away all the sin of the world.” And then John testifies as a witness to the miraculous events of the Baptism of Jesus that we heard about last week. And then the next day, he is again standing with two of his disciples, and again he sees Jesus passing by, and again he says, “This is the Lamb of God!”
The two disciples heard John say this, and started following Jesus.
Apparently, though, they were following behind him from a distance, because when Jesus noticed that they were following him, he turned around, and said, “Hey! Guys. Why are you following me?”
This is the moment in John’s gospel where John is expecting people to identify with a character in the story. Do you identify with John the Baptist himself, pointing to the Lamb of God, because you consider yourself an evangelist – someone who wants others to see the glory of God? Or, do you identify with the two disciples who are seeking something, and following Jesus from a distance, because you too remember what it felt like to seek for the deep and meaningful questions of life? Who is it that you identify with?
I have to add here: if you are identifying as the Lamb of God – as the Messiah – in this story, we probably need to talk later.
Let’s get back to the disciples, because I imagine that the majority of us would identify with these disciples, who heard John the Baptist say, “This is the Lamb of God,” and decided to follow Jesus. I imagine their minds were processing all of this, and thinking, “John said he wasn’t a prophet, he wasn’t Elijah, he wasn’t the Messiah, and now he’s saying that this one, this guy passing by, is the Lamb of God! We should follow that one.”
But this is why Jesus’ question is so important. He asks them, “Why are you following me?” Or, “What are you looking for?”
And what do the disciples do? Rather than answer the question that Jesus just asked them, they ask another question: “Teacher, where are you staying?” I’m sure that most of you – like I did at first – are probably thinking: “What does that have to do with anything?”
It turns out that to ask someone where they lived was equivalent to asking them, “Can I be your disciple?” In the book of Ecclesiasticus – or Sirach as it is sometimes called – we hear an admonition: “If you see a man of understanding, rise early to visit him; let your foot wear out his doorstep.” And in Proverbs, we hear that “Happy is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors.” And so, to ask where they lived meant that they intended to wear out his doorstep, hoping to hear what Jesus had to teach them. They intended to sit at his feet and become his disciples.
The duty of a disciple was to hang on every word the teacher said. To listen intently, so as to live in the manner that the teacher says to live, and to emulate the way that the teacher lives. It was an attempt by those “waiting beside the doors” to do their best to become just like the teacher. To become little versions of the teacher, so that their lives too could reflect what the teacher taught.
This question of Jesus is one of the most important questions that we can ask ourselves. The version the deacon read today says, “What are you looking for?” I reworded it early to say, “Why are you following me?” and the gist of it is “What is it, exactly, that you hope to achieve by going where I’m going? By doing what I do?”
You might have heard this before, but the very name “Christian,” comes from the Greek word “Christianos,” which means, “little Christ.” Think of that for a moment: to be a follower of Christ, to be a disciple of Christ, to be someone who calls themselves a Christian, means that we are to be “little Christs.” Our lives are to copy the actions of Christ to all people – to the best of our ability – so that people might see even just a little bit of Jesus in us.
Teresa of Avila, a nun and mystic who lived in 16th century Spain, wrote this small poem:
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world.Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
Is this the level of involvement we were expecting when we said we wanted to follow Jesus? Were we expecting to have to be compassionate? To do good? To have mercy? To seek justice? To bless the world? Were we expecting any of this when we said we wanted to be “little Christs?”
Hopefully our eyes were just as wide open as the disciples, when they said to Jesus, “Where do you live?” Because there is, right now, all across this big world of ours, a dire need for compassion. A great need for people to respect the dignity of all people. A mountain of opportunity where we can bless the world with the love and compassion that Christ has shared with us – as long as our eyes are open, and we see the world with the same compassion as Christ sees it. As long as our eyes are open and are willing to see what needs to be done.
When Jesus asks, “Why are you following me?” Do we have a ready answer? Do we know what we are looking for? Do we know what we were hoping to find when we signed on the dotted line?
That question is the most important question that we can ask ourselves. Because the answer to that question is what opens for us the invitation to see the face of God on a daily basis.
But Jesus’ response to those disciples is just as important to our own life. After hearing the disciples ask where he is staying, he then says, “Come and see.”
In one sense, this is that invitation to do as the Sirach and Proverbs suggested: to wear out the doorstep of Jesus so that they could learn from him – to become his disciples.
Those two disciples that followed him and stayed with him that day. And even just in that short time, they came to see Jesus not just as a person of wisdom and understanding, but they saw him, as John the Baptist had said, as “The Lamb of God.”
One of them went and found his brother Peter and told him that they had found the Messiah. And his brother Peter came too. It was in the act of sitting at Jesus’ feet, even just for a day, that these men saw the truth, and found what they had been looking for. Their hearts burned within them at the revelation of the Scripture to a future bright with possibility and the furthering of God’s kingdom.
That is the beauty of Jesus’ invitation to “come and see.” Even if we do not have a ready answer to why we want to follow; or if we have forgotten our original reasoning; or even if we never really knew why we started gracing the doors of a church: the invitation to “come and see” is the invitation to step into the loving arms of God each and every time we hear the words.
Imagine a world where everyone becomes the hands of Christ, the feet of Christ. Where everyone becomes the eyes of compassion that sees the world as Christ sees the world. Imagine the beauty of a world where everyone acted upon Jesus’ invitation to “Come and See.”
No people betraying each other, and hating each other. No hearts growing cold and losing their love for their fellow human. No hunger. No greed. No vengeance. No lies. No bigotry. No war or rumors of war.
Imagine a world where everyone persevered in resisting evil. Where everyone proclaimed by word and example the Good News of God in Christ. Where everyone sought to serve Christ in all persons, loving their neighbor as themselves. Imagine a world where everyone strove for justice and peace among all people, and respected the dignity of every human being.
What a beautiful world that would be. What a beautiful world that could be.
That is the hope and that is the expectation and that is the beauty of a world that looks at Jesus, just like those two disciples did, and says, “Where are you staying?”
And then accepts the invitation to “Come and see.”
[This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on January 18, 2026.]