'And the two disciples heard Him speak, and they followed Jesus. 38.
Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What
seek ye? They said unto Him, Rabbi, (which is to say, being
interpreted, Master,) where dwellest Thou? 39. He saith unto them, Come
and see. They came and saw where He dwelt, and abode with Him that day:
for it was about the tenth hour.'—JOHN i. 37-39.
In these verses we see the head waters of a great river, for we have
before us nothing less than the beginnings of the Christian Church. So
simply were the first disciples made. The great society of believers
was born like its Master, unostentatiously and in a corner.
Jesus has come back from His conflict in the wilderness after His
baptism, and has presented Himself before John the Baptist for his
final attestation. It was a great historical moment when the last of
the Prophets stood face to face with the Fulfilment of all prophecy. In
his words, 'Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the
world!' Jewish prophecy sang its swan-song, uttered its last rejoicing,
'Eureka! I have found Him!' and died as it spoke.
We do not sufficiently estimate the magnificent self-suppression and
unselfishness of the Baptist, in that he, with his own lips, here
repeats his testimony in order to point his disciples away from
himself, and to attach them to Jesus. If he could have been touched by
envy he would not so gladly have recognised it as his lot to decrease
while Jesus increased. Bare magnanimity that in a teacher! The two who
hear John's words are Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, and an anonymous
man. The latter is probably the Evangelist. For it is remarkable that
we never find the names of James and John in this Gospel (though from
the other Gospels we know how closely they were associated with our
Lord), and that we only find them referred to as 'the sons of Zebedee,'
once near the close of the book. That fact points, I think, in the
direction of John's authorship of this Gospel.
These two, then, follow behind Jesus, fancying themselves unobserved,
not desiring to speak to Him, and probably with some notion of tracking
Him to His home, in order that they may seek an interview at a later
period. But He who notices the first beginnings of return to Him, and
always comes to meet men, and is better to them than their wishes, will
not let them steal behind Him uncheered, nor leave them to struggle
with diffidence and delay. So He turns to them, and the events ensue
which I have read in the verses that follow as my text.
We have, I think, three things especially to notice here. First, the
Master's question to the whole world, 'What seek ye?' Second, the
Master's invitation to the whole world, 'Come and see!' Lastly, the
personal communion which brings men's hearts to Him, 'They came and saw
where He dwelt, and abode with Him that day.'
I. So, then, first look at this question of Christ to the whole world,
'What seek ye?'
As it stands, on its surface, and in its primary application, it is the
most natural of questions. Our Lord hears footsteps behind Him, and, as
any one would do, turns about, with the question which any one would
ask, 'What is it that you want?' That question would derive all its
meaning from the look with which it was accompanied, and the tone in
which it was spoken. It might mean either annoyance and rude repulsion
of a request, even before it was presented, or it might mean a glad
wish to draw out the petition, and more than half a pledge to bestow
it. All depends on the smile with which it was asked and the intonation
of voice which carried it to their ears. And if we had been there we
should have felt, as these two evidently felt, that though in form a
question, it was in reality a promise, and that it drew out their shy
wishes, made them conscious to themselves of what they desired, and
gave them confidence that their desire would be granted. Clearly it had
sunk very deep into the Evangelist's mind; and now, at the end of his
life, when his course is nearly run, the never-to-be-forgotten voice
sounds still in his memory, and he sees again, in sunny clearness, all
the scene that had transpired on that day by the fords of the Jordan.
The first words and the last words of those whom we have learned to
love are cut deep on our hearts.
It was not an accident that the first words which the Master spoke in
His Messianic office were this profoundly significant question, 'What
seek ye?' He asks it of us all, He asks it of us to-day. Well for them
who can answer, 'Rabbi! where dwellest _Thou_?' 'It is Thou whom we
seek!' So, venturing to take the words in that somewhat wider
application, let me just suggest to you two or three directions in
which they seem to point.
First, the question suggests to us this: the need of having a clear
consciousness of what is our object in life. The most of men have never
answered that question. They live from hand to mouth, driven by
circumstances, guided by accidents, impelled by unreflecting passions
and desires, knowing what they want for the moment, but never having
tried to shape the course of their lives into a consistent whole, so as
to stand up before God in Christ when He puts the question to them,
'What seek ye?' and to answer the question.
These incoherent, instinctive, unreflective lives that so many of you
are living are a shame to your manhood, to say nothing more. God has
made us for something else than that we should thus be the sport of
circumstances. It is a disgrace to any of us that our lives should be
like some little fishing-boat, with an unskilful or feeble hand at the
tiller, yawing from one point of the compass to another, and not
keeping a straight and direct course. I pray you, dear brethren, to
front this question: 'After all, and at bottom, what is it I am living
for? Can I formulate the aims and purposes of my life in any
intelligible statement of which I should not be ashamed?' Some of you
are not ashamed to do what you would be very much ashamed to say, and
you practically answer the question, 'What are you seeking?' by
pursuits that you durst not call by their own ugly names.
There may be many of us who are living for our lusts, for our passions,
for our ambitions, for avarice, who are living in all uncleanness and
godlessness. I do not know. There are plenty of shabby, low aims in all
of us which do not bear being dragged out into the light of day. I
beseech you to try and get hold of the ugly things and bring them up to
the surface, however much they may seek to hide in the congenial
obscurity and twist their slimy coils round something in the dark. If
you dare not put your life's object into words, bethink yourselves
whether it ought to be your life's object at all.
Ah, brethren! if we would ask ourselves this question, and answer it
with any thoroughness, we should not make so many mistakes as to the
places where we look for the things for which we are seeking. If we
knew what we were really seeking, we should know where to go to look
for it. Let me tell you what you are seeking, whether you know it or
not. You are seeking for rest for your heart, a home for your spirits;
you are seeking for perfect truth for your understandings, perfect
beauty for your affections, perfect goodness for your conscience. You
are seeking for all these three, gathered into one white beam of light,
and you are seeking for it all in a Person. Many of you do not know
this, and so you go hunting in all manner of impossible places for that
which you can only find in one. To the question, 'What seek ye?' the
deepest of all answers, the only real answer, is, 'My soul thirsteth
for God, for the living God.' If you know that, you know where to look
for what you need! 'Do men gather grapes of thorns?' If these are
really the things that you are seeking after, in all your mistaken
search—oh! how mistaken is the search! Do men look for pearls in
cockle-shells, or for gold in coal-pits; and why should you look for
rest of heart, mind, conscience, spirit, anywhere and in anything short
of God? 'What seek ye?'—the only answer is, 'We seek _Thee_!'
And then, still further, let me remind you how these words are not only
a question, but are really a veiled and implied promise. The question,
'What do you want of Me?' may either strike an intending suppliant like
a blow, and drive him away with his prayer sticking in his throat
unspoken, or it may sound like a merciful invitation, 'What is thy
petition, and what is thy request, and it shall be granted unto thee?'
We know which of the two it was here. Christ asks all such questions as
this (and there are many of them in the New Testament), not for His
information, but for our strengthening. He asks people, not because He
does not know before they answer, but that, on the one hand, their own
minds may be clear as to their wishes, and so they may wish the more
earnestly because of the clearness; and that, on the other hand, their
desires being expressed, they may be the more able to receive the gift
which He is willing to bestow. So He here turns to these men, whose
purpose He knew well enough, and says to them, 'What seek ye?' Herein
He is doing the very same thing on a lower level, and in an outer
sphere, as is done when He appoints that we shall pray for the
blessings which He is yearning to bestow, but which He makes
conditional on our supplications, only because by these supplications
our hearts are opened to a capacity for receiving them.
We have, then, in the words before us, thus understood, our Lord's
gracious promise to give what is desired on the simple condition that
the suppliant is conscious of his own wants, and turns to Him for the
supply of them. 'What seek ye?' It is a blank cheque that He puts into
their hands to fill up. It is the key of His treasure-house which He
offers to us all, with the assured confidence that if we open it we
shall find all that we need.
Who is He that thus stands up before a whole world of seeking, restless
spirits, and fronts them with the question which is a pledge, conscious
of His capacity to give to each of them what each of them requires? Who
is this that professes to be able to give all these men and women and
children bread here in the wilderness? There is only one answer—the
Christ of God.
And He has done what He promises. No man or woman ever went to Him, and
answered this question, and presented their petition for any real good,
and was refused. No man can ask from Christ what Christ cannot bestow.
No man can ask from Christ what Christ will not bestow. In the loftiest
region, the region of inward and spiritual gifts, which are the best
gifts, we can get everything that we want, and our only limit is, not
His boundless omnipotence and willingness, but our own poor, narrow,
and shrivelled desires. 'Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall
find.'
Christ stands before us, if I may so say, like some of those fountains
erected at some great national festival, out of which pour for all the
multitude every variety of draught which they desire, and each man that
goes with his empty cup gets it filled, and gets it filled with that
which he wishes. 'What seek ye?' Wisdom? You students, you thinkers,
you young men that are fighting with intellectual difficulties and
perplexities, 'What seek ye?' Truth? He gives us that. You others,
'What seek ye?' Love, peace, victory, self-control, hope, anodyne for
sorrow? Whatever you desire, you will find in Jesus Christ. The first
words with which He broke the silence when He spake to men as the
Messias, were at once a searching question, probing their aims and
purposes, and a gracious promise pledging Him to a task not beyond His
power, however far beyond that of all others, even the task of giving
to each man his heart's desire. 'What seek ye?' 'Seek, and ye shall
find.'
II. Then, still further, notice how, in a similar fashion, we may
regard here the second words which our Lord speaks as being His
merciful invitation to the world. 'Come and see.'
The disciples' answer was simple and timid. They did not venture to
say, 'May we talk to you?' 'Will you take us to be your disciples?' All
they can muster courage to ask now is, 'Where dwellest Thou?' At
another time, perhaps, we will go to this Rabbi and speak with Him. His
answer is, 'Come, come now; come, and by intercourse with Me learn to
know Me.' His temporary home was probably nothing more than some
selected place on the river's bank, for 'He had not where to lay His
head'; but such as it was, He welcomes them to it. 'Come and see!'
Take a plain, simple truth out of that. Christ is always glad when
people resort to Him. When He was here in the world, no hour was
inconvenient or inopportune; no moment was too much occupied; no
physical wants of hunger, or thirst, or slumber were ever permitted to
come between Him and seeking hearts. He was never impatient. He was
never wearied of speaking, though He was often wearied in speaking. He
never denied Himself to any one or said, 'I have something else to do
than to attend to you.' And just as in literal fact, whilst He was here
upon earth, nothing was ever permitted to hinder His drawing near to
any man who wanted to draw near to Him, so nothing now hinders it; and
He is glad when any of us resort to Him and ask Him to let us speak to
Him and be with Him. His weariness or occupation never shut men out
from Him then. His glory does not shut them out now.
Then there is another thought here. This invitation of the Master is
also a very distinct call to a firsthand knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Andrew and John had heard from the Baptist about Him, and now what He
bids them to do is to come and hear Himself. That is what He calls you,
dear brethren, to do. Do not listen to us, let the Master Himself speak
to you. Many who reject Christianity reject it through not having
listened to Jesus Himself teaching them, but only to theologians and
other human representations of the truth. Go and ask Christ to speak to
you with His own lips of truth, and take Him as the Expositor of His
own system. Do not be contented with traditional talk and second-hand
information. Go to Christ, and hear what He Himself has to say to you.
Then, still further, in this 'Come and see' there is a distinct call to
the personal act of faith. Both of these words, '_come_' and '_see_,'
are used in the New Testament as standing emblems of faith. Coming to
Christ is trusting Him; trusting Him is seeing Him, looking unto Him.
'Come unto Me, and I will give you rest,' 'Look unto Me, and be ye
saved, all ye ends of the earth.' There are two metaphors, both of them
pointing to one thing, and that one thing is the invitation from the
dear lips of the loving Lord to every man, woman, and child in this
congregation. 'Come and see!' 'Put your trust in Me, draw near to Me by
desire and penitence, draw near to Me in the fixed thought of your
mind, in the devotion of your will, in the trust of your whole being.
Come to Me, and see Me by faith; and then—and then—your hearts will
have found what they seek, and your weary quest will be over, and, like
the dove, you will fold your wings and nestle at the foot of the Cross,
and rest for evermore. Come! "Come and see!"'
III. So, lastly, we have in these words a parable of the blessed
experience which binds men's hearts to Jesus for ever. 'They came and
saw where He dwelt, and abode with Him that day, for it was about the
tenth hour.'
'Dwelt' and 'abode' are the same words in the original. It is one of
John's favourite words, and in its deepest meaning expresses the close,
still communion which the soul may have with Jesus Christ, which
communion, on that never-to-be-forgotten day, when he and Andrew sat
with Him in the quiet, confidential fellowship that disclosed Christ's
glory 'full of grace and truth' to their hearts, made them His for
ever.
If the reckoning of time here is made according to the Hebrew fashion,
the 'tenth hour' will be ten o'clock in the morning. So, one long day
of talk! If it be according to the Roman legal fashion, the hour will
be four o'clock in the afternoon, which would only give time for a
brief conversation before the night fell. But, in any case, sacred
reserve is observed as to what passed in that interview. A lesson for a
great deal of blatant talk, in this present day, about conversion and
the details thereof!
'Not easily forgiven
Are those, who setting wide the doors, that bar
The secret bridal chambers of the heart.
Let in the day.'
John had nothing to say to the world about what the Master said to him
and his brother in that long day of communion.
One plain conclusion from this last part of our narrative is that the
impression of Christ's own personality is the strongest force to make
disciples. The character of Jesus Christ is, after all, the central and
standing evidence and the mightiest credential of Christianity. It
bears upon its face the proof of its own truthfulness. If such a
character was not lived, how did it ever come to be described, and
described by such people? And if it was lived, how did it come to be
so? The historical veracity of the character of Jesus Christ is
guaranteed by its very uniqueness. And the divine origin of Jesus
Christ is forced upon us as the only adequate explanation of His
historical character. 'Truly this man was the Son of God.'
I believe that to lift Him up is the work of all Christian preachers
and teachers; as far as they can to hide themselves behind Jesus
Christ, or at the most to let themselves appear, just as the old
painters used to let their own likenesses appear in their great
altar-pieces—a little kneeling figure there, away in a dark corner of
the background. Present Christ, and He will vindicate His own
character; He will vindicate His own nature; He will vindicate His own
gospel. 'They came and saw where He dwelt, and abode with Him,' and the
end of it was that they abode with Him for evermore. And so it will
always be.
Once more, personal experience of the grace and sweetness of this
Saviour binds men to Him as nothing else will:
'He must be loved ere that to you
He will seem worthy of your love.'
The deepest and sweetest and most precious part of His character and of
His gifts can only be known on condition of possessing Him and them,
and they can be possessed only on condition of holding fellowship with
Him. I do not say to any man: 'Try trust in order to be sure that Jesus
Christ is worthy to be trusted,' for by its very nature faith cannot be
an experiment or provisional. I do not say that my experience is
evidence to you, but at the same time I do say that it is worth any
man's while to reflect upon this, that none who ever trusted in Him
have been put to shame. No man has looked to Jesus and has said: 'Ah! I
have found Him out! His help is vain, His promises empty.' Many men
have fallen away from Him, I know, but not because they have proved Him
untruthful, but because they have become unfaithful.
And so, dear brethren, I come to you with the old message, 'Oh! taste,'
and thus you will 'see that the Lord is good.' There must be the faith
first, and then there will be the experience, which will make anything
seem to you more credible than that He whom you have loved and trusted,
and who has answered your love and your trust, should be anything else
than the Son of God, the Saviour of mankind. Come to Him and you will
see. The impregnable argument will be put into your mouth—'Whether this
man be a sinner or no, I know not. One thing I know, that whereas I was
blind, now I see.' Look to Him, listen to Him, and when He asks you,
'What seek ye?' answer, 'Rabbi, where dwellest Thou? It is Thou whom I
seek.' He will welcome you to close blessed intercourse with Him, which
will knit you to Him with cords that cannot be broken, and with His
loving voice making music in memory and heart, you will be able
triumphantly to confess—'Now we believe, not because of any man's
saying, for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed
the Christ, the Saviour of the world.'