What are you looking for?

What are you looking for?  If you came here looking for God, you picked a good place.  And a good time: this liturgical season of Sundays after Epiphany is all about the revealing of God, exploring who Jesus is and how Jesus reveals to humanity the attributes of God. 

If you’re looking for clear proof of who Jesus is, well, that depends on who you’re willing to listen to.  What we have are testimonies from the Gospels—the four Gospels in our Bible (what are they named?  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) all tell the story of Jesus’s life and death and resurrection, but they each tell the story a little differently. 

During this year, we’ll be reading mostly from Matthew’s Gospel (we read from Bible passages assigned for each week of the year, determined by the Revised Common Lectionary, which is shared by Christians all over the world). Last week we read the story of Jesus’s baptism, as Matthew tells the story. 

In Matthew, Jesus’s story begins with a long list of ancestors traced from Abraham to King David all the way to Joseph, Jesus’s father.  John Fugelsang, who is not a theologian but a conscientious Christian who happens to be a comedian, writes,

“This [ancestry] was [recorded] to establish Jesus’s legal right to the throne of David in accordance with Jewish custom and legal tradition.  He’s set up as the fulfillment of prophecy: God’s anointed one—the Messiah.  Except, of course, if one believes that Jesus is the Son of God, then all that genealogy leads to Joseph not even being Jesus’s biological dad.  Which makes this the greatest story of an overachieving adopted kid, ever.”[1]

Then Matthew tells about Magi who visit Jesus as a young child, and his early life of moving around with his parents.  Then someone named John the Baptist—in Matthew’s Gospel, John the Baptist doesn’t have a backstory—anyway, he appears in the wilderness, proclaiming the kingdom of heaven has come near, and baptizing with water for repentance.  Jesus shows up to be baptized and there’s the scene of Jesus coming up from the water, the heavens open, the Spirit of God descends “like a dove alighting on him,” and the voice from heaven saying “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”[2] 

Today we’ve read from John’s Gospel, and the baptism scene with John the Baptist and Jesus has similarities but is quite different.  For one thing, John’s Gospel doesn’t tell us anything about Jesus’s origin, his parents or his birth or his ancestors or any of that.  John’s Gospel starts with the creation of the world: “In the beginning was the Word…” and a whole explanation of the significance of Jesus as the Word of God. 

Then there’s John the Baptist, baptizing and preaching in the wilderness, preparing the way for the Messiah.  But the events of the baptism story are less clear: John’s Gospel doesn’t say that John baptized Jesus; we’re supposed to just understand that somewhere in here, Jesus gets baptized. 

John, the Gospel-writer who is different from John the Baptist (yes, it gets a little confusing), mentions some of the same elements of the baptism story that Matthew tells, but it’s John the Baptist who sees the Spirit of God descending from heaven like a dove, not Jesus or anyone else.  And it’s John’s Gospel that makes a big deal about Jesus being the Lamb of God, but that’s because of what John the Baptist is teaching. 

In John’s Gospel, there’s a whole lot of conversation about Jesus before Jesus ever gets a speaking part.  And what are Jesus’s first words?  (What would be the red letters, if you’re reading a version of the Bible printed with red letters to highlight the words specifically attributed to Jesus?)  Would Jesus quote the Torah or the Prophets?  Would Jesus start with preaching, or some other introduction? 

Nope, we get Jesus in conversation with would-be disciples.  He asks, “What are you looking for?”  The disciples have been following John the Baptist, and because they already built a relationship of trust with John the Baptist, they can follow this Jesus who John was talking about.  And when Jesus invites them to “Come and see” where Jesus is staying and explore what he’s about and affirm that he’s a real dude, they come to trust Jesus too. 

It’s relationships of trust that make it possible to enter the journey of discipleship.  Is a person who they say they are?  And how do you know?  Is Jesus who he says he is?  And how do you know?  There is testimony and there is action—both things are necessary.  We tend to believe the person whose actions align with what they say—if they talk the talk, do they also walk the walk?  You can only find that out by paying attention. 

Tomorrow our country observes the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., who was both a preacher dedicated to Jesus Christ and also a civil rights leader speaking up for equality of Black people in the United States.  Martin Luther King Jr. was familiar with power and spoke with political leaders and organized with citizens, but he never forgot the source of power which comes from God and the power of God demonstrated in Jesus Christ.  In one of his sermons, King preached this about Jesus:

“Nineteen centuries have come and gone and today he stands as the most influential figure that ever entered human history. All of the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned put together have not affected the life of [humanity] on this earth as much as that one solitary one.”[3]

And why would it matter what Martin Luther King Jr. had to say about Jesus except that people paid attention and saw that his actions did align with what he preached and believed.  People watched and learned; they came and saw that Martin Luther King pointed to Jesus, the source of power in whom, as King preached, “we can make of this old world a new world.”[4]

How is God working in the world?  How is God working in you?  And what are YOU looking for?  Restoration of creation?  Hope?  Answers?  Material wealth?  Community?  Maybe you’re looking for more than one thing, and that’s fine.  There is probably no single, satisfactory answer, and if there even was an answer, it would not ultimately satisfy you. 

The only way to find what you’re looking for is to come and see: to take action and learn by doing.  And then what will you say about God?  How will your actions support the things you say? 

And then what will your life say to the people who come after you?  One of Martin Luther King Jr.’s fellow organizers was John Lewis, who worked with Dr. King and then went on to a long career in the United States House of Representatives.  Lewis, also a faithful Christian, could see the significance of his work as part of a larger story.  In his book, “Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America,” Lewis writes:

“Ours is not the struggle of one day, one week, or one year.  Ours is not the struggle of one judicial appointment or presidential term.  Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in each generation must do our part.”

“…Change often takes time. It rarely happens all at once.  In the movement, we didn’t know how history would play itself out.  When we were getting arrested and waiting in jail or standing in unmovable lines on the courthouse steps, we didn’t know what would happen, but we knew it had to happen.”[5]

What are you looking for?  Will you also come and see what Jesus is up to?  What will your actions say about what you believe?  How will your life speak of God’s glory? 

May God give us the courage to follow Jesus, and may God give us the grace to bear witness to God’s glory. 

Amen. 

Pastor Cheryl 

[1] John Fugelsang, Separation of Church and Hate, New York: Avid Reader Press, 2025, page 29.

[2] Matthew 3:17

[3] Found in Sundays and Seasons online, quoted from “The Drum Major Instinct” found in A Gift of Love [Boston: Beacon, 2012], 163ff. 

[4] Ibid.

[5] Quoted from Kyndall Rae Rothaus, Sojourners magazine, Living the Word column, January/February 2026, page 47.