“Come and See”

“‘Come and see,’ He replied.” — John 1:39

One day, John the Baptist was standing with two of his followers when Jesus walked by. John looked at Jesus and said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”

When John’s two followers heard this, they left John and followed Jesus.

Jesus turned around and saw them following. “What do you want?” He asked.

“Rabbi,” they said, which means Teacher, “where are You staying?”

“Come and see,” said Jesus.

So they went with Him and saw where He was staying, and they spent the rest of the day with Him. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon.

One of those two men was called Andrew. And the very first thing Andrew did was go and find his brother, Simon. “We have found the Messiah!” he told him. Messiah means the same as Christ: the King God had promised.

Andrew brought Simon to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon, son of John. You will be called Peter.” The name Peter means “rock”.

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found a man called Philip, and said to him, “Follow Me.”

Philip went and found his friend Nathanael. “We have found the one Moses wrote about, the one the prophets told us was coming!” Philip said. “It’s Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

“Nazareth?” said Nathanael. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Nazareth was just a little nothing of a town.

“Come and see,” said Philip.

When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards Him, He said, “Here is a true Israelite, a man with nothing false in him.”

Nathanael was surprised. “How do You know me?” he asked.

“Before Philip called you,” said Jesus, “I saw you under the fig tree.”

Nobody could have seen Nathanael sitting under that fig tree. But Jesus had. And Nathanael realised who Jesus really was. “Teacher,” he said, “You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

“Do you believe just because I told you I saw you under the fig tree?” said Jesus. “You will see much greater things than that.”

Did you notice what happened in this story? One person met Jesus, and then went and brought someone else. John pointed to Jesus. Andrew brought Simon. Philip brought Nathanael. And the invitation was always the same: “Come and see.”

The promise kept: Jesus told Nathanael, “You will all see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (John 1:51). Do you remember Jacob’s dream of a stairway to heaven, with angels going up and down? Jesus was saying that He is that stairway. He is the way between heaven and earth.

Read it in your Bible: John 1:35–51

Dear Jesus, thank you that you invite us to come and see who you are. Help me to follow you, and to bring my friends to meet you too. Amen.