January 15, 2023
Hope Lutheran Church
Rev. Mary Erickson
John 1:29-42
Staying with Jesus
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
You learn about someone when you see where they live. For instance, I stopped and saw the log cabin where Abraham Lincoln spent his early childhood in Knob Creek, KY. To stand in the primitive dwelling and take in the tiny space where a whole family lived, the lack of creature comforts – the space witnesses to Lincoln’s frugal beginnings and helps to explain the man he would become.
John’s two disciples want to know something similar of Jesus. “Where are you staying?” they ask him. He tells them to come and see. You learn something about Jesus when you experience where he dwells.
The Greek word for “dwell” or “remain” or “stay” is µ???. It occurs five times in this brief passage. John says that he saw the Holy Spirit descend from heaven in the form of a dove and “remain” on Jesus. Next, he discloses that it had been revealed to him in advance that he was going see the Spirit “remain” on someone.
So when John points out Jesus to his two disciples, they immediately started following Jesus. They ask, “Where are you ‘staying’?” After he invites them to come and see, they went with him and saw exactly where Jesus was “staying.” And then they “remained” with him.
They stay with Jesus, they dwell with Jesus. What a great thing to do, remain with Jesus. So many of our hymns voice this sentiment:
• Abide with Me
• He Walks with Me and He Talks with Me
• Abide with Us, Our Savior
• Stay with Me
• Spirit of God, Descend upon My Heart
Our soul’s desire is to remain and abide in God. And the more we do so, the more fully and completely we dwell with Jesus, the more we come to be shaped and molded into his likeness.
An old tale is called “The Happy Hypocrite.” It tells the story about a man who was born with a very noticeable facial deformity. While growing up, the people of his home town rebuffed him. He grew up isolated and lonely.
When he became a young man, he moved away so that he could begin a new life away from the community that had rejected him. Along the way, he discovered a mask that perfectly fit him. It transformed his disfigured face into a beautiful one. At first, wearing the mask was uncomfortable. But he continued to wear it every day and over time he grew accustomed to it.
He settled into a new town and there he made many friends and associates. He fell in love and got married. All the while, he was afraid that people would find out about the mask and discover his true deformed self underneath.
After several years, a bitter-hearted woman from his home town came to his new community. She discovered who he really was. And in her spiteful heart, she confronted him publicly before all of his friends and family and accused him of being an imposter. She forced him to remove the mask he had worn for so long. And when he did, the face underneath looked exactly as the face of the mask. He had worn the mask for so long that his real face had conformed to the shape and character of the mask.
This is what happens to us when we abide in Christ. Day by day, our hearts and minds conform to his. His cares become our cares. His love fills us to the point that it pours out from us, too.
This was exactly the desire of Frank Laubach. In 1915, Frank Laubach and his wife moved to the Philippine Islands. He worked for a Christian mission society. Then in 1930 he moved to live among Muslim Moro people on Mindanao. They were highly resistant to Christians. However, Frank Laubach hadn’t moved there to make Christian converts in an aggressive manner. He had resolved just to live among them.
Now, Frank Laubach had a remarkable spiritual life. Earlier, he had experienced a spiritual restlessness. This inner agitation led him to search deeply for Jesus. He wanted to stay with Jesus, to really dwell with Jesus each and every moment of the day. So he started what he called his “game with minutes.” He challenged himself to find ways to think about God for at least one second every minute.
He prayed, “God, I want to give You every minute of this year. I shall try to keep You in mind every moment of my waking hours… I shall try to let You be the speaker and direct every word. I shall try to let You direct my acts. I shall try to learn Your language.”
He devised little ways to bring his attention back to God. Like, while performing a repetitive task, like washing dishes, he pondered the scriptures. He set up an empty chair and he imagined Christ sitting in it. He read the newspaper out loud, as if he were reading it to Jesus. He kept a cross in strategic places where his eyes would wander to while he worked.
Gradually, over time, this abiding with Jesus transformed him. He said he sensed “being led by an unseen hand which takes mine while another hand reaches ahead and prepares the way, grows upon me daily.”
And when he looked around at his Muslim neighbors, he ceased to see them through his own eyes. He said, “I choose to look at people through God, using God as my glasses, colored with His love for them.”
So when he lived among the Moro people, they could tell there was something different about him. And even though Frank Laubach was a Christian, they opened up to him. They sensed the profound effect his indwelling with God had made upon his soul. During his time with the Moro people, Frank Laubach brought literacy to half of their population.
“Rabbi, where are you staying?” And Jesus said, “Come and see.” And they went, they saw where he dwelled, and they dwelled with him.
Like John’s disciples, like Frank Laubach, Jesus calls us to dwell with him. And the more closely and constantly we stay with him, the more his light and love will infuse through us. We will see with his eyes, we’ll reach out in his love, we’ll speak in his mercy and truth.
And friends, the good news is that this motion of indwelling doesn’t start with us. It started with Jesus. He is the one who took on flesh to dwell with us.
And he comes to us still in the most intimate way through his meal. In our Lord’s Supper he comes to us with his real presence. Through the bread and the wine, he comes directly to us. We take him into ourselves, and his presence fills us. He says, “Take and eat. Here, take me in. Let my true presence dwell within you and fill you. Let my grace, my peace, my joy fill you. I will be with you, within you. I will dwell with you until you come to dwell with me.”
May our hearts find their homing in Jesus.
