John 1:43-51 - "Come and See" Evangelism - January 17, 2021

Benjamin Franklin is famous for many things. He was one of the founding fathers of the United States. He invented the lightning rod and bifocals. He was the first U.S. ambassador to France. He founded the Pennsylvania Gazzette and the University of Pennsylvania. He’s on the $100 bill. But did you know that Ben Franklin created a revolutionary evangelism program? Yep. When he was a colonel in the Pennsylvania Militia during the French and Indian War, one of his chaplains complained that his services were not well attended. Franklin advised him to arrange for the soldiers’ weekly rum ration to be distributed from the chapel after the end of the service. The chaplain followed his advice and from then on the services were packed. [1] If our goal here at Risen Savior is to simply pack the place, then we might want to think about trying Ben Franklin’s evangelism program. But if our goal is to gather the Lord’s disciples, as he commanded (Matthew 28:19), we should use our Lord’s program – called “Come and See” Evangelism.

The biggest benefit of this program is that it is clearly, undeniably Biblical. In our text, Jesus finds Philip and Philip finds his friend Nathanael and says come and see! In fact, the day before, John the Baptist saw Jesus and pointed two of his disciples to follow him, including Andrew, who immediately found his brother Peter and said we have found the Messiah! (John 1:35-42) Within two days of its implementation, this “come and see” program grew the NT church from zero to five – a 500% increase! But there’s a problem with the “come and see” Evangelism Program. You know what the problem is? There’s just not that much to come and see here at Risen Savior. What do we have? A guy in a black gown standing behind something called a pulpit. A bowlful of tap water. Some bread and wine. That’s not much to see. You know what attracts people as well as I do. If we had big miracles going on here: people being healed of their diseases, demons being cast out, people babbling in tongues, now that would be worth the price of admission If we had marriage building, child raising, and stock investing classes, retirement and substance addiction seminars – then we’d have something worth seeing! Or if we had an impressive praise band and professionally produced videos and lighting – then we’d really have something for people to see. But, we don’t have any of those things. In fact, what we have here are things that are downright embarrassing to those on the cutting edge of religion and to our technologically advanced society. We don’t have a Theology of Glory that promises earthly comfort and prosperity in exchange for your commitment to Jesus; we have a Theology of the Cross; we preach Christ and him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2) and that all who follow him will need to pick up and carry their own crosses (Matthew 16:24). And that’s the real problem. Because most people don’t want to follow a path of humility and shame but a path of glory and prosperity they aren’t attracted to a Savior who lives and dies in humility and suffering.

But that begs the question: was it any different when Jesus walked on this earth? Philip invites Nathanael to come and see Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Does it get any more ordinary than that? Philip didn’t invite him to come and see Jesus, the Son of God or the miraculous son of the virgin Mary. Philip asks Nathanael to come and see the painfully ordinary Jesus, the carpenter’s son. Actually, it was worse than that. Jesus wasn’t just ordinary, he was below average. He was from Nazareth. Even Nathanael knew that nothing good could come from there. Anyone worth seeing wouldn’t come from Nazareth, but somewhere exciting, like Jerusalem. Those first disciples were faced with the same problem we are: God cloaked in flesh and blood is no more attractive, no more worth seeing than God cloaked in water, words, bread or wine. The Jesus they invited people to come and see was no more inviting, no more attractive, no more powerful, no more entertaining than the Jesus who dwells among us in Baptism, Absolution and Communion. Whether He wraps himself in flesh and blood or in bread and wine and water and words, God can easily be despised as ordinary, as nothing worth rolling out of bed to come and see.

And so you know what the temptation is, right? The temptation is to dress up the ordinary Jesus. To transform Jesus into what the world – and, honestly, part of each of us – wants him to be: glorious and powerful, granting health and wealth and happiness and social status to those who follow him. It can be so tempting to dismiss a Jesus who comes to us in objective means of grace for a Jesus who subjectively touches our emotions and makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It can be so tempting to exchange a Jesus who brings the forgiveness of sins, deliverance from death and the devil, and eternal salvation in favor of a Jesus who brings a boost to your self-esteem, peace to your marriage or success to your career. And this is exactly what the devil wants us to do. The devil, even when Jesus walked on this earth, led people to demand that Jesus prove himself with visible and extraordinary signs and miracles (Luke 4:23). But Jesus didn’t do it then and he won’t do it now.

Which means that we are to invite people to come and see the same ordinary Jesus that the first disciples did. But do you know what’s good about ordinary? Ordinary is approachable. Ordinary is personal. Have you ever heard someone who met a celebrity and commented: “I can’t believe how ordinary, how down to earth he or she was.” Did you notice how Jesus went out of his way to find Philip? Philip wasn’t left to find his way to Jesus – no, Jesus went out of his way to round up his sheep. And did you notice how intimately Jesus knew Nathanael? “Before Philip called you, while you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Jews of the day often found the shade and solitude offered by fig trees as a good place for devotion and prayer. Jesus gives a flash of his divinity by telling Nathanael that even before Philip found him, Jesus saw him and knew him through his prayers and devotions.

And isn’t this type of personal touch exactly what so many people today are really longing for today? In this age of zoom meetings and virtual learning, of big tech companies that know everything and nothing about you – the fact that Jesus knows his sheep, knows them by name (John 10:27), is something worth seeing. In a strange time when nearly all human contact is prohibited by health departments, Jesus still sends his flesh and blood pastors to preach his word, he gathers real human people together to worship and pray together, and he comes among us in words we can hear, water we can touch bread and wine we can taste. This kind of Jesus, a very approachable, personal Jesus, is exactly what the people of the 21st century need to come and see.

Furthermore, this Jesus, according to Scripture, knows us better than we know ourselves (Psalm 139:16). Modern life is incredibly complicated. People get themselves into jams and caught up in messy situations without every understanding how they got there. We have a Jesus who knows the most intimate details of your life; a Jesus to whom your life is not just a jumbled mess; a Jesus who knows how to lead his sheep out of the most complicated, confusing situations. Of course, that’s because he knows that the messes, the jams, the impossible situations people find themselves in are always related to sin. Whatever challenges, issues, conflicts people are facing today, sin is the source (Genesis 3:14-19). Sadly, too many think that they can only come and see Jesus once they have their lives straightened out. The truth is that we have a Jesus who invites sinners, real, dirty, despicable sinners, to come and see him. He invites a naïve nobody like Nathanael (John 1:45). He invites self-righteous Pharisees like Nicodemus (John 3), immoral people like the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4), tax collectors and prostitutes and fishermen – people who were despised and scorned by the society of their day.

He invites guilty and downtrodden and depressed people like that to see what great things he has done for them. Jesus tells Nathanael you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that!” Then he added, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” This is an obvious allusion to Jacob’s dream in Genesis 28 when he saw angels ascending and descending on a stairway to heaven (Genesis 28:10-17). The point Jesus is making is that Nathanael would see a place where there is no barrier between heaven and earth, between a holy God and sinful people. Where is this place? It’s wherever Jesus is. Because wherever Jesus is, the barrier of sin has been removed and sinners are reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:19). That place is right here where Jesus carries out this work of reconciliation week after week through baptism, absolution and communion.

People need to know – people you know need to know – that this place exists. Because the natural human setting is to believe that heaven is shut to sinners. Sure, they may believe that you can reach God if you have enough love, faith and good works. They may believe that you can approach him if you are clean enough, religious enough, or faithful enough. But most people – and people you know – don’t know of a place on earth where heaven is wide open to sinners. They don’t know of the place Jesus guarantees to be with his people (Matthew 18:20). They don’t know of a place where sin is fully and freely forgiven week after week (John 20:23). They don’t know of a place where Jesus invites the weary and burdened to come to him for rest (Matthew 11:28).

But before you start thinking about who you’re going to invite to come and see this Jesus, make sure that you come and see him first. Did you notice that? No one invites others to come and see Jesus until they’ve seen him themselves first. If you leave here today with nothing else – I pray you leave with this: that you see Jesus clearly first.

He’s NOT a Jesus who is desperate to have his church filled. Nowhere in the NT do you find a hint, a suggestion of the fear that haunts the church today (that, sadly, comes from the highest levels of our own synod): that if we don’t get more members the church will die. Give me a break. If the gates of hell can’t overcome the church (Matthew 16:18), declining membership can’t. Furthermore, Jesus commanded the church to feed his sheep (John 21:17), not count them. We don’t invite others to come and see for our sake, for the sake of the church, or for Jesus’ sake, but for their sake. We invite them to come to see the powerful Good Shepherd who knows his sheep before they know him (John 10:1-18), not a Jesus who stands here wringing his hands, hoping and pleading that someone, anyone would pay attention to him. A whiny, needy, pleading Jesus – now that’s a Jesus who’s not worth going and seeing.

The Jesus you should see today is not a needy God, but a God for the needy. He promises to not only meet our needs but to exceed them. Jesus told Nathanael that he would see greater things than that. What were those things? He would see Jesus bring heaven to earth in his preaching and teaching, his healing and his miracles. He would see Jesus tear down the barrier of sin that stood between us and God by his death on the cross. He would see Jesus crush death and the devil by his resurrection. He would see Jesus ascend into heaven where he lives and reigns forever. He would see this good news transform the hearts and lives of thousands of sinners. And this is the same Jesus that you get to see here week after week.

We don’t need rum to attract people to church – because we have something so much better: we have Jesus, we have a Savior, and we have the means of grace through which he promises to be with us, forgiving and saving us. And when you see Jesus’ presence clearly in water and the Word, in bread and wine, then you realize that evangelism isn’t complicated at all. It’s as simple today as it was for Philip 2000 years ago – come and see! No offense to Benjamin Franklin, but that’s our evangelism plan. Amen.

[1] https://www.massar.org/2019/02/17/rum-and-religion-benjamin-franklins-contributions-to-behavioral-psychology/