Spirituality Column #791

January 11, 2022

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

‘What Do You Seek?’

By Bob Walters

“What do you seek?” – John 1:38, Jesus’s first words to his disciples in John’s Gospel.

Upon identifying Jesus, John the Baptist’s disciples John and Andrew immediately left him to follow Jesus.

Note that John and Andrew were not invited by Jesus, nor prodded by John.  No instructions were voiced. John’s simple statement, “Look, The Lamb of God!” (1:36) was all it took.  They knew Jesus was the prophesied Holy One of God, and off they went.

It’s a familiar Sunday school passage, and Jesus’s greeting to them, “What do you seek?” has launched a thousand Sunday sermons on purpose and meeting Jesus.

We look toward Jesus … and what do we seek?  Or maybe, whom do we think He is? Afterall, that is Jesus’s No. 1, most important question He asks others throughout His earthly ministry, “Who Do You Say I Am?”

The correct answer of course is that He is the Son of God, the Messiah, the Christ, the creative Word of God, the Logos, the Lamb of God, the perfect sacrifice, the salvation of mankind, the personification of God’s love for Creation.  Jesus, when it comes to God’s relationship with humanity, is the whole ball game.

Yes, God loves us, and yes, the Spirit abides with and comforts us.  But Jesus is Who came for us to sort out this mess we have made of our sinful, fallen lives.

But Jesus doesn’t start with “Who” they think He is; Jesus knows they were following Israel’s teaching, Laws, and truth about the promised Messiah.  Just like people today, whether one believes in Jesus or not, most folks have at least a vague idea of whom Jesus is.  John and Andrew, on the other hand, would have carried the intense excitement of their entire culture and faith to meet this “being of God.”

Jesus’ opener is, “What do you want?”  That’s a far more important place to start.

Think of how many sermons you’ve heard in your life – if you happen to be in the regular habit of listening to sermons, that is – telling you that you should be “looking for Jesus.”  That’s all well and good, but finding Jesus is nothing like knowing what you’re supposed to do with Him when you find Him. 

Hence, “What do you want?”

The sad modern truth of humanity is that we want Jesus to be what we want Him to be.  You don’t need another Barna survey suggesting folks have become less interested in going to church; they have.  And that’s because society and culture overall have become generally atheistic in a way it doesn’t even recognize of itself.

What today’s culture pursues is the personal attainment of a utopia-paradise-“heaven” of our own definition, not a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.   We have come to believe “talking about” God somehow is a stand-in for real obedience to God.  What our culture does is worship its own idols of self, greed, power, politics, wealth, fame … and think all that personal desire adds up to the Kingdom of God. 

Doesn’t that sound crazy?  Equating human, sin-generated nonsense with “the Kingdom of God”?  Chasing the “Kingdom of Me,” not following the example of Christ?

Jesus is right to ask what we want.  The sinful “me” wants my version of heaven.  The Godly servant wants to glorify God ... that’s how you start a walk with Jesus.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) had to learn to want Jesus.  It’s not always easy.