In lieu of a student-authored article this week, this sermon originally given by Fr. Daniel Fanous has been transcribed for your ease and benefit.
Click here for the actual audio of the sermon.
In the Gospel of John chapter 1, we begin with this question: what do you seek? It’s important that we understand the meanings of the words.
“Again, the next day, John stood with two of his disciples. And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, “Behold the Lamb of God!”
This follows the theophany or revelation of God in His baptism.
“The two disciples heard him speak…”
The two disciples are the disciples of John the Baptist. They heard John the Baptist say about Jesus “Behold the Lamb of God”, and so these two disciples followed Jesus. You can imagine Jesus turning and seeing them following Him, looks at them, and says
“What do you seek?”
What is it you want? What is your desire? They said to Him,
“Rabbi” (which is to say, when translated, Teacher), “where are You staying?
The impression here is that they don’t even know what they want. Their response is “where are you staying?” His response is,
“Come and see.” They came and saw where He was staying and remained with Him that day (now it was about the tenth hour)
Immediately, you see this impression of the gospel is that people are beginning to follow without really knowing what is happening. Come and see. They came, they saw, they stayed. One of the two disciples had come and stayed and had seen the Lord. His name was Andrew. He goes and finds his brother Simon, who would later become Simon Peter and says to him “we have found Him.” First, what are you seeking? They’re not even really sure what they’re looking for. Then he comes back and says “we have found him.”
St. John Chrysostom says this word “we have found” is an expression of the soul which is longing for the presence of God, looking for His coming from above and is so ecstatic when it happens that he hurries to go and quickly tell others the good news. Andrew, when he began to follow Christ, began to follow Him because he heard “this is the Lamb of God”; there’s something special about this man Jesus. His own master John the Baptist looked at someone else and said “that man is the Lamb of God”, so he begins to follow without really understanding. He comes, he sees, he then has found Christ, and he runs quickly to grab his brother and says “we have found Him.” Peter then goes to Jesus, but he doesn’t say, “I found you, Jesus!”, rather it’s Jesus that says to him “you are Simon.” Jesus knows him. Jesus has been searching for him. It’s as if Jesus is saying to him “you think you have found Me, but I have found you, Simon.”
The next day, Jesus walks and again finds Phillip. He’s walking in the street and says to Phillip “follow Me” and Phillip immediately follows Him. Phillip then immediately goes and again, “finds” Nathaniel and says to him “we have found Him.” So Phillip is found by Christ, then goes and finds Nathaniel and says to him “we have found Him” and then he uses the same words that Christ used at the beginning when He turned around and looked at the two who were following Him who asked Him where He was staying. The words he says to Nathaniel are “come and see”, the exact same words. Nathaniel then goes to Jesus, but again Jesus already knows him. Nathaniel looks at him in shock and says “how do You know me?” Jesus then says to him, “before Phillip called you, you were under the fig tree and I saw you.”
You can imagine this scene. Nathaniel is sitting down and his brother comes and brings him this news and he runs to Christ. Great! Before he even opens his mouth, Christ says to him “I know you. Before any of this happened, I saw you. Before you even began to think about finding Me, I found you. I saw you.” You find in this gospel that from the beginning that the two who think they have found Christ have actually been found by Christ. It’s this constant process of us thinking that we are the ones finding Him when in reality, He is the one that has been searching for us, looking for us, and finding us even before we even begin to think of looking for Him. Unlike these disciples, not all of us wish to be found. Even if we’re in the church, not all of us wish to be found.
Recently, I was on a plane back from Romania and I was sitting next to a very lovely girl who was from the Orthodox Church in Romania. I said to her, “have you given much time or thought to spiritual issues?” She turned and looked at me and saw that I had been reading some spiritual book that had icons of some saints. She asked me, “what are you reading?” I said to her, “something about the fathers”, and she said “okay, I haven’t really given much attention to that.” I asked her why, and she said “I’ve never been able to find a good priest that can connect me to Christ,” and as she was saying these words she started to realize that I was a priest sitting next to her. I said “it’s okay, I’m not a good priest, you haven’t found one yet”, but then after, I began to speak to her. She said to me, “to be honest, I haven’t been looking for a good priest either.” She had no interest in being found. In her mind, the way she rationalized her heart being away from God, even though she thought she was a spiritual person was that she never found a good priest. Then, as God would have it, she was sitting next to a priest. As soon as that happened, she had an opportunity. She could have asked any question she wanted, and all her hindrances could have disappeared in that moment. She didn’t have a desire to be found. What about us who are sitting here now, do we want to be found by Him?
It seems that in this gospel, Christ is making it very clear to us: I’m searching for all of you. Even the ones who think you have found Me, I found you in the beginning. Even the ones who don’t know what you’re looking for, I’m looking for you. It reminds me of the ostrich egg that you’ll find in many churches. The reason why we hang it over the altar is because the way that this type of ostrich hatches its eggs is as soon as it delivers the egg, it won’t take its eyes off it. In early ancient custom, there was this idea that this type of ostrich would hatch its egg by staring at it. We keep it over the sanctuary as a reminder that God keeps His eyes on us until we hatch. Not in a “kids, be careful what you do because God is always watching you” like Santa kind of way. Rather, His eye is on us because it watches us until we hatch into new life, until we become like Him. In the liturgy we all sit facing the east, facing Him, seeking Him in some way and yet it’s Christ who is always watching and looking for us. His eyes never leave us. He says to us “I saw you. I see you. I found you.”