Isaiah 49.1-7; 1 Corinthians 1.1-9; John 1.29-42

It has been said that there were two words used a great deal by Jesus in the Gospels. One is “Come” and the other is “Go”, and that it’s no use coming unless you go, and it’s no use going unless you come.

Come and see; go and tell. Those too are calls to us. John the Baptist’s task and message was as a witness to Jesus. We see him at the beginning of this Gospel, pointing towards Jesus, and testifying that he is the Son of God. John, through his going and telling, causes others to come and see. We know that John built up a considerable body of disciples. And it was John’s teaching that led the two disciples in this morning’s passage to become disciples of Jesus.

Come and see the Lamb of God; Go and tell. John himself had done that - we read this morning “And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”

It’s infectious. The two disciples also followed John’s advice to behold the Lamb of God. This led them to Jesus who then invited them to Come and See where he was staying. Their trip to his residence obviously turned into more than that, and they remained with him for the rest of the day.

William Temple in his Readings in St John’s Gospel, first published in 1939, says this: “These were the first in the long roll of followers. And they follow, as do most of us, because of what they have heard another say. We are Christians because we have been taught; and those who taught us were taught themselves; so the line runs back to Christ and those about him.”

It’s his way of saying the same thing - at the time of Jesus people went and saw - and, of course, in the phrase “Come and see” the seeing is of a type that is broader than seeing merely with one’s eyes - and then passed on what they had seen, and that has been happening for generations and generations.

Without those two calls to come and see and to go and tell, the good news of the Gospel would struggle to be spread.

I wonder who first told you about Jesus. For many of us it was a combination of people - parents, church, school - but for others the first time they heard the Gospel will have been from a friend or even a professional evangelist. Who it was who told us of Jesus is perhaps less important than that they did. Who will look back over their lives and cite us as those who taught them about Jesus? It’s something worth thinking about.

William Temple called Andrew “the first Christian missionary”. And he points out that, although we know less about Andrew than about his brother Simon Peter, without that first act of Andrew’s, Peter’s great and powerful ministry would never have happened.

God chooses some of us to work in the public sphere as Peter did; others have no less important roles to play but ones which may be more hidden. Andrew’s role in Peter’s conversion was a more hidden role, but the important thing is that he took his chance to sow a seed, to share what he had discovered.

We British Church of England Christians often find it very hard to share with others our faith. Certainly, if I told you all that you must leave church this morning and go and knock on all the doors in the village and tell the people inside the houses about the good news of Jesus, I suspect most of you would recoil with horror.

But there is more than one way to share God’s good news. The important thing is that we continue to do so, for, if we don’t, how will others know?

Evangelism is something that people seem to struggle with. We become embarrassed about talking about our faith. Many people see faith as something purely personal and not for sharing, and, yet that is not a way of being a Christian that Jesus would ever have recognised. His task for the disciples after he had risen and just as he was to leave again and ascend into heaven was to go and make disciples of all people. That is a call for each one of us, not just for the first Twelve, or eleven as it was at that point.

Many people lack confidence in their own faith, and so struggle to share it with others.
There are three important things to say here - first, that with even a small amount of faith, God can move mountains. Jesus’s saying was probably a form of hyperbole, but the point is that God does not despise those of little faith but can do great things with people who have even a mustard-seed sized faith, if they are willing to be used by him.

To use our lack of faith as an excuse for not sharing it is in one way a failure to trust God to take what we offer and use it.

Related to that is the way in which people compare themselves with others. They see someone who outwardly appears to be more holy than them or more confident in their faith and assume that they couldn’t possibly do anything because they are not as good as the other person. What a load of rubbish!

God has given each one of us gifts to be used by him. We can all share God’s good news - we just have different ways of doing it. Think about Moses and Aaron - Moses shrank from speaking in public, so God gave him Aaron to do that part, while he carried out a great ministry as leader of the people of God.

And the third thing to say is that, of course, if we give time and energy to our faith, then our confidence can grow. It seems hard for people in this day and age to make time for their faith, but the bottom line is that it is only a question of priorities. If we are serious about wanting our faith to grow, then that becomes a priority, for our faith will only deepen, if we take time to pray and read Scripture, to study God’s word and have fellowship one with another.

Paul gave thanks that the Corinthians had been enriched and strengthened and given spiritual gifts. For Paul, it was not someone’s race or status that was important, but whether they were growing in faith.

Being holy requires following a call to be different, to put God first in everything. Being holy means relying on God’s resources, not human ones. It means trusting in God and not the temporary things of this world. It means working for God’s values and living them out in our lives.

As with many things, the more we practise, the better we become. The more we open up and start talking about our faith in God, the easier it will become. If that is something that you find really hard, why not start by talking with other Christians about faith before you talk to people who don’t share belief in Christ.

We don’t keep quiet about other things that are important to us. We talk about our spouse or parents or interests or friends as a daily part of conversation, but are much more reticent about our faith. We might ask someone to come to a concert or a play with us, but rarely would we consider asking someone to come to church with us.

Sharing our faith is not about drawing attention to ourselves or to our behaviour. It is about drawing attention to Jesus. It is about saying to people Come and See. It’s about pointing others to the light of Christ.

Once we have pointed people towards the light of Christ, in one sense, our work is done. We cannot make the decision for them whether to follow Christ’s call to discipleship or not. That has to be their choice.

But we can issue an invitation to share in something good. Jesus’s Come and See is not a command to learn a particular doctrine or to follow a particular law. It is to have our eyes opened to the light and love of God in the world around. And, when we call others to Come and See, it is not a way of bullying them into sharing what we believe but a way of inviting them too to share in the grace of God.

Come and See; Go and Tell - the two go hand-in-hand. These are not safe invitations but whoever said following God was about being safe. A God who risks his life for others is not a God who plays safe.

But, we have nothing to lose. For we also have God’s promises that whatever happens, nothing can separate us from his love in Christ Jesus. However, far we fall in human terms, God’s arms will be outstretched to hold us in love and welcome us home.