The Second Sunday of the Year, B

            St. John’s Gospel, from which we have just read, is often considered by Scripture scholars as a kind of “Genesis” of the New Testament.  The beginnings of both books certainly lead us to think so:  “In the beginning God…,” is the opening of Genesis; “In the beginning was the Word…,” writes St. John, introducing the prologue to his evangel.  The first is the description of the creation of the world:  “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  But the second, John’s words, have to do with the Christian story of the re-creation of the world; that is, as John relates, this Word who is from the beginning, through Whom all the world was created – this Word, Who is God, took on flesh and dwelt among us. 

            “The Christian story of the re-creation of the world….”  Re-creation, or, put more precisely, the redemption of the world, the rescue of creation from the disorder into which it had fallen.  What disorder?  That introduced into the created realm by Adam and Eve when they rebelled against their Creator.  And they do what human beings have been doing ever since:  they run and hide, in the very Garden of God’s creation, trying to take shelter in created things lower than themselves.  But what does God do?  He searches for them, and His voice, carried on the soft evening breeze in paradise, reaches their ears, our consciences:  “Where are you?”  They are hiding; they, rebels that they are, they are afraid.  And why not?  It is a bit frightening to realize that the Almighty is drawing near, in Whose light all pretense, evasion, rationalization are fruitless exercises of exposed cowards.  They have alienated themselves from the only source of life and happiness, and so they scurry for cover.

            It won’t do.  It won’t do because God just keeps approaching, drawing nearer, with Holy Eye upon us, peering into our very souls.  And this only intensifies when we reach the climax of God’s search for man as recorded in John’s Gospel:  no mere voice heard on the wind, echoing in the human heart, but rather God Himself, the Word spoken by whom the heavens and earth appear out of nothing – the Word Himself takes on flesh and dwells among us; and the disciples have the frightening experience of bumping into Him in today’s Gospel.  No wonder they were a bit uneasy, a bit afraid and hesitant.  After all, let us remember that this One they would like to try to follow – perhaps at a “safe” distance – is the very One described by St. John the Baptist as He who would come and baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire, One in whose hand is the winnowing fork with which He will thresh the harvest yield, dividing wheat from chaff.  He is the One whose sandal, the Baptist proclaimed, “I am not worthy to stoop down and loosen.” 

            Christ is so very different from the caricature that now holds so much sway in peoples’ minds:  a weak figure, passive, whimpish, and so anything but One who arouses fear.  But let us remind ourselves as to how He really was and so why He is quite frankly Someone to be feared, at least at first.  He readily accepts the title Messiah, which immediately exalts Him into a King.  He would, as the Gospel story goes on to show, teach with a unique authority, demand obedience, change the names of the men around Him, denounce the whole of the religious establishment, perform miracles, cleanse the temple using a leather strap to drive out the desecrators, vanquish the demonic, proclaim Himself the coming Judge of the whole world, throw down the gauntlet before the Roman authority, and lay down His life – not out of weakness, but out of manly obedience to the will of God the Father.  “No one takes my life from me,” He Himself assures us, “but rather I lay it down freely.”

            And it is this One, the Christ, who is now moving about in our world looking for the lost, that is, the hiding.  Where are you?  No wonder the hesitancy on the part of the disciples when this Man whirls around to face His would-be followers and demands of them, “What are you looking for?”  Ah, here is that searching light that was so threatening to Adam and Eve, that Voice, the Word Himself, now in flesh appearing to search us out, to flush us out of our hiding, to expose in the healing light of God’s truth just what it is that we are about.  “What are you looking for?”  Uh, well, Rabbi, they stumble and stutter, “Where are you staying?” they manage to say.  Yes, what are the accommodations like if we follow you, you know, the things we’ll need, the extent, that is, of the commitment we make.  And Jesus will have none of it:  “Come and see,” is His simple command to them… and to us. 

            Come out of hiding.  Stop the equivocation.  Come and see, the very thing that is so potentially frightening in the presence of the Savior’s splendorous light, the searching light of His knowledge of our deepest thoughts and hidden motives.  They’ll all be exposed in His company.  But nevertheless, come.  Come and see the Truth, and know the freedom of it.  No more hiding away in the underbrush of our gardens of distractions and camouflage. 

            In other words, the answer to the question in Genesis – “Where are you?” – is, if left to ourselves, that we are apart from God, alienated from Him, and so often hiding and yet always in His searching, penetrating Presence.  And the answer to the question in John’s Gospel – “What are you looking for?” – is the very One who is asking the question, Jesus Christ.  He is the answer, scary as He may be at times, He is the answer.  Come and see.