The Sound of Silence

 John 1:29-42

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!  This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.”

Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.”

The next day John was there again with two of his disciples.  When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”

 When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus.  Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”

They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”

“Come,” he replied, “and you will see.”

So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon.

Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus.  The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ).  And he brought him to Jesus.

Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which, when translated, is Peter.

They say that being able to sit in silence alongside someone is the sign of a healthy friendship. Not doing something. Not needing to fill every tiny little gap, but just….being alongside one another.

Other than with the lovely Mrs Hodder of course, I experienced this most recently with my friend Kirsty.

Kirsty and I trained at theological college together and, until Covid restrictions put an end to any socialising, we were the best to study buddies. We now live at opposite ends of the country and I miss her, we miss her dearly.

It started with us both realising how much work we had to do to finish our respective dissertations, and how little time left we had to do it in.

Kirsty, being much smarter than I, was studying for her Masters despite being younger and a full year behind me on the training path. I was slugging away with my degree, but we both had a common need to get some work done.

We decided that the halls and libraries of a theological college were actually a particularly unhelpful working environment, so most mornings when we didn’t have lectures, we set up camp in the next door college’s café.

It was newly built and filled with bright lights and contemporary pieces of art.

It was noisy and always busy.

But somehow it worked. We would sit at a large wooden table with two large stacks of books between us. Kirsty’s books were all about the links between comedy and faith. Mine were all about death and dying. Now I look back, I suspect those two polar opposite subjects would have made for an interesting sight for any passers by.

But apart from eating far too many bacon rolls and drinking far too much coffee, we sat together most days just working.

Quietly working alongside one another. Getting done what we had to.

It was lovely and comforting. And also unspectacular and normal.

It never felt forced or awkward. It just was normal life.

 

Sometimes I worry that we can overhype the relationship between us and Jesus.

Let me rephrase that. Sometimes I worry that we can focus too much on the ‘Wow’ and not enough on the normal, day to day stuff.

Take today’s Gospel reading, for example.

John the Baptist testifies to the crowd that Jesus is the ‘Lamb of God’ who has come to take away the sins of the world.

Pretty big stuff.

But nothing happens.

Then, the next day, John says that same thing again, pretty much. It says:

The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”

When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus.

Upon the testimony of their leader, two of John’s followers decide to swap sides. They leave John and start following Jesus.

Except Jesus wasn’t doing anything. Not yet, anyway. He had no followers at this point. He had no companions. He just was Himself. Going about His everyday business. And now He has two followers to put up with.

Jesus notices He now has followers and His response to them is glorious.

So desperate are we to get people to come to church, we would do and say pretty much anything to get people to follow Jesus with us.

But what does Jesus say?

Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”

What do you want? What do you want?

It’s great, isn’t it. No ‘thank you for following me, you are a very valued follower’ or ‘here’s a copy of our newsletter, details of our social media accounts and 65 other pieces of paper that you’re probably not interested in.

Just….What do you want?

‘Erm…..we’d like to see where you’re staying’, says Andrew.

I think….in the awkwardness of the moment, seeing where Jesus was staying reads much more like...

‘We’ve heard you’re pretty amazing and we’d like just to spend some time with you’.

Jesus, now with two followers in tow, has people just hanging out with Him.

And He has done nothing yet.

There have been no healings. No miracles. No calmed seas or demon possessed herds of swine.

Just Jesus, as He is.

We, just like the two slightly awkward disciples today, are invited to follow Jesus.

This, in my experience at least, means walking with Jesus. Or rather, allowing Jesus to walk with us.

I can confidently say to you all that I know Jesus has walked with me every single day since my early teens (and most definitely before that too but I just wasn’t paying attention.

That’s a lot of days.

About 7 and a half thousand….give or take.

And in almost all of those days nothing spectacular has happened.

I haven’t witnessed miraculous healings on most of those days.

I haven’t seen stormy seas calmed in an instant on most of those days.

I haven’t been so very desperate and at the end of my own abilities that I was needing to cry out ‘Lord, save me’ on most of those days.

But that does not mean that Jesus hasn’t been with me, every single day.

He is there in the moments of rest and relaxation, like when they ask ‘We’d like to see where you’re staying.’

He’s there when the work is long and hard, and you need to stop for a drink by a well under the shade of a tree.

Jesus is there with us, sitting silently across the large wooden table. Him getting on with His stuff and me mine. Drinking too many cups of coffee and ordering too many bacon rolls.

Well….probably not bacon in Jesus’s case, being a good Jew and all. He’ll probably have the fish finger sandwiches.

The point I’m trying to make, and that I hope you can take away with you, is that following Christ is a lifelong adventure. There will be many, many exciting days ahead, filled with lots of things you can’t even imagine at the moment.

But, just as there was for the very first disciples, there will also be many moments of calm and peace, of silence and companionship as you work together silently at the tasks of the day.

God with us….Emmanuel, means God with us each and every day, no matter how exciting that day might be. I pray that each of us will know the presence of Jesus in our lives, irrespective of how exciting that day might become. 

Amen.