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“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” A seemingly simple statement, but with so much packed into it for us today. Do we, individually, as this local church, and as the Church Universal, seek to see Jesus? What does it mean that we would want to see Jesus?
The reality is that too many Christians say that they want to see Jesus, say that they want to know Jesus’ will, yet don’t take any steps to make this happen. In order to see Jesus, in a day and age when he is not in front of us in the flesh, we need to be in the Word. Especially the gospels which show who Jesus is as well as what he said when he walked this earth. Let me just bluntly ask, how many of us are intentionally reading the gospels every day? It doesn’t need to be a long piece, but at least a verse from the gospels for devotions? I am not saying that the rest of the Bible does not hold significance, because it certainly does, but we need to be in the word in other parts of scripture and the Gospels daily. Get yourself one of the pocket bibles and carry it with you - one that has the Gospels, Psalms, and Proverbs. Use it to seek out Jesus so you can come to know who Jesus is, both in the past and the present.
In order to see Jesus, we also need to be in daily prayer. Notice I said “also” not “or”. In order to seek out and see Jesus, we need to be in the Word and in daily prayer. Prayer helps open up our eyes to see how Jesus is moving in the present, here and now, in our lives and the lives of others.
A few months ago we handed out Wesley Covenant prayer cards. What would it look like if every morning, as soon as you get up, the first words to pass your lips were: “I am no longer my own, but yours. Put me to what you will….” How could that help you see things differently throughout your day? And what if you take time, either after that prayer, or some time during the course of your day - maybe over lunch, maybe before bed - to read a passage of scripture from Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John and another piece of scripture? How could that help you see Christ more clearly?
The real question is what priority we are going to place on seeking Jesus throughout the day? Right now I am reading a book about prayer that makes a starling point - there will never be time to pray, we have to make time. The same goes for seeking out Jesus, we need to make time to seek out the Lord, daily, in our lives. For some of us that means a structure - setting aside the same time every day to be in prayer and the Word. For others it may mean putting it on our calendar or setting a reminder on our phone. Whatever you need to do to make time to seek out Christ a priority, I urge you to do so.
The request to Philip from men to see Jesus was found at what could be described as a chaotic time. This passage of scripture is found right after Jesus enters Jerusalem for the passover - the event that we traditionally celebrate on Palm Sunday. Then Philip told Andrew and the two of them went to find Jesus. They went to go tell Jesus that men wanted to see him, but instead they heard the prophesy, straight from their Lord’s lips, about his death and resurrection. They didn’t get what they went for, but they surely saw Jesus that day in a whole new light.
Sometimes when we seek out the Lord, we aren’t going to get what we expect, because we can’t see what we aren’t looking for. Have you ever lost something, lets say your keys or a book, and you swear up and down that you know where it is, only to find it in an unexpected and different spot hours or days later? Why didn’t you look there in the first place? Because you were so sure it was in another. So it is sometimes with our relationship with Christ as well. We go to Christ seeking something so certain, that we miss the blessing that Jesus wants to bestow upon us - one that we didn’t even think to ask for and one we many not recognize because we do not yet have eyes to see it.
Another reason that we sometimes don’t see Jesus is because we’ve become spiritually lazy. We expect someone else to seek out Jesus for us. Or we think that if we come to church on Sunday that will be enough seeking for the week. How many of you have a husband or wife? Child? Best friend? What would life be like if you spoke to that person you love dearly only once a week? Your relationship would suffer. Jesus wants to be in relationship with us, yet we must make it a priority.
Even when we make our time with Christ a priority, sometimes it is entrenched the poor and unbiblical theology that say “the world is a mess, we will just wait for Jesus to come back and take us home”. No! Jesus calls us to live our lives in a manner of active and expectant waiting until Jesus’ return. We are to be the light shining forth Christ’s message - a light that we can only shine forth if we are both connected to the source - Jesus - and out in the world, not hiding ourselves away in waiting.
Sometimes we don’t see Jesus because we’ve misread or misunderstood today’s passage from the gospel of Matthew. We read the words ask, search, and knock and we believe that as long as we ask Jesus for something once that we have to receive it, because that is what the Bible says. But in original Greek, this passage is in the present tense. Ask and keep asking, search and keep searching, knock and keep knocking. In the words of Pastor Mike Slaughter, “Expectation needs to be constant and ongoing - a daily, intentional, whole-life priority of seeking the presence of Christ today, of actively listening for Christ’s voice in the present”.
Matthew is telling us to seek out the best things - the Jesus-hearted things. But when we seek out Jesus, our lives will be turned upside down. We may not get what we want, but we will get the best that God offers. We may not find the answer we came seeking, but we may just meet the one who is the author of all life. We may not find the Jesus we expect, but we will come face to face with our risen savior. And that is worth all of the time we have in this world.
Slaughter writes, “We’ve made Jesus wimpy rather than revolutionary; tolerant rather than loving; good rather than God”. Where do we find Jesus today? The places he was in the Gospels. The unexpected places. The places that we try to avoid because they are unholy. Perhaps we aren’t seeing Jesus today because we aren’t looking in the right places. We have to seek and actively listen for the voice of Christ in our lives in order to respond to the promptings of Jesus.
Church, there are far too many people who identify as Christians today who aren’t seeking after Jesus. Who only want to see them on their own terms. People who are sleeping in their faith. Its time to wake up. Its time to stop wallowing. Its time to seek out Jesus with all that we have and all that we are. Its time to affirm our dependance upon God. It is time. Are you seeking and seeing? Amen.
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