2nd Sunday After Epiphany
John 1:43-51
Do YOU See GOD?
If ever you have
wondered about whether you are precious in God’s sight, today’s readings should
set that fear to rest.
Of course, you are
precious! God loved you from the moment God made you, and God can’t take His
eyes off you. Did you hear that? “I can’t take my eyes off you.” That’s what
God says about His children.
The psalmist knew
this. Today’s Psalm – Psalm 139 – is full of the wonder of being known by
God. God, who put the stars into the
heavens, also put YOU together, cell by cell, in your mother’s womb, and that’s
why God knows you. God knows you because God MADE you and you are His.
Now, when you think
about it, God made EVERYBODY – EVERY BODY there is or ever was or ever will be.
God’s love is not particular. It just IS. God’s love flows toward every creature. God sees everything He has made, including each
one of us.
You know how some objects
are more precious than others because of who made them? A painting by “Picasso”
is worth millions. One of the violins made by Antonio Stradivarius sold for
$1.8 million at an auction.
Well, what could be
more precious than someone made by GOD – that’s you! And that’s everyone alive
– your neighbor, your relative, even the person you most dislike. God sees us
all. God made us all. God knows us all. God loves us all.
The question is
not: Does God see me? The question is: Do I see God?
I remember sitting
in my desk at school as a young girl and looking across the room at a boy I
liked. I could look at that boy all day long, but if ever that boy looked back
without turning away – if we would make eye contact – that’s when a spark would
fly. There was electricity in the eye contact. – especially
if the boy liked ME, too!
This is how it is with
God. God is ALWAYS watching us, but what God really wants is to make eye
contact. God wants us to see HIM, too.
In
fact, not only does God see us and know us and love us, the other readings for
this morning, show us that God calls us by name and waits for us to respond!
And when we DO, things start to happen!
In the Old
Testament reading, God was calling Samuel, and Samuel heard, but didn’t
recognize God’s voice. He thought it was Eli, the high priest and judge of
Finally, Eli, who
knew God’s voice, realized that it was God speaking to Samuel and so he told
Samuel, “If He calls you again, say, ‘Speak,
Lord, for your servant is listening.’ ” And that’s just what Samuel
did. Once Samuel responded to God, a
relationship began between God and Samuel that enabled God to use Samuel in a
powerful way.
You can see the
same principal at work in today’s gospel reading.
In the verses
BEFORE today’s reading, we hear how John the Baptist was standing with two of
his disciples when he saw Jesus and exclaimed, "Look, here is the Lamb of God!" So those two followed Jesus
and responded to Jesus’ invitation to “come and see” where he was staying.
One of them, Andrew, went and told his brother, “We have found the Messiah -- come and see.”
Here’s where we
pick up in today’s gospel reading. Jesus finds Phillip and says, “Follow
me." Then Phillip finds Nathanael and tells HIM,
“We have found the Messiah promised in
the Scriptures. "Come and see."
When Jesus meets Nathanael and tells him, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you," Nathanael replies, "Rabbi,
you are the Son of God! You are the King of
Jesus saw Nathanael, and then Nathanael saw
Jesus – not just as a man, but really saw him for who he was – the Messiah –
and Nathanael responded! He followed Jesus and became
one of the twelve apostles.
So … to reiterate …
God sees us and knows us and loves us and calls us by name – usually working
through others who already know Him to get our attention. God waits for our response and, when we DO
respond, things start to happen.
But, seeing and
hearing, responding and believing isn’t just a one-time thing. It’s the beginning of an ongoing
relationship.
The Old Testament
reading said, “As Samuel grew up, the
LORD was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all
After Nathanael declared his faith in Jesus, Jesus told him that
was just the beginning. "Do you
believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?” he said, “You will see greater things than these.”
In Paul’s letter to
the Corinthians, he is writing to believers – people who had, at some point,
come to faith in Jesus Christ as their savior – people who had seen and
believed but who had fallen away from living in an ongoing relationship with
Jesus.
“Do you not know that your bodies are members of
Christ?” he asks them, and that, “Anyone
united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Do you not know that your body
is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that
you are not your own? For you were bought with a price.”
This is Paul’s way
of saying that, not only does God SEE us, once we have responded to God’s love
through faith in Jesus Christ, we become intimately united with God in body,
mind and spirit and we carry God’s Spirit around with us – wherever we go,
whatever we do.
When we do things
that God wouldn’t do – when we live in ways that are inconsistent with the
ethics of God’s Kingdom, it is as if we are denying our relationship with God
in Christ. God’s light still shines
around us; God still see us, but we turn our eyes and try to hide from his
presence and we cut ourselves off from his grace and glory.
Usually, we do this
in an attempt to gratify some need or yearning in our hearts, only to find that
nothing and no one but God can really satisfy.
On the other hand,
when we do acknowledge God’s call – when we live in the awareness of our
relationship with our loving God – we can count on God using us to reach out to
others in just the way that suits us.
Because remember
where this all began: God made you and God knows you. That means that God knows exactly what your
gifts are and exactly how you are best suited to serve God’s purposes.
God is calling you
by name. Are you listening? Are you answering? Don’t be afraid. Remember, the God who is
calling you loves you and delights in giving you the joy and peace that only comes
from finding yourself in Him.
Amen.