Humankind Week 1: Encounters with Jesus, “Come + See”
Our culture presents a false dichotomy: someone must be either religious (that’s bad) or they are spiritual (that’s good). The only alternative seems to be avoiding the question altogether. In the first message in this series, we see a third way. Jesus invites his first followers to “come and see.” He is okay with them simply observing him and making a decision to follow him, without him either exerting the force of religious manipulation or by offering them some non-personal “spirituality.”
Instead, Jesus invites their investigation of him. And they come away convinced that he is Israel’s promised Messiah and King. They testify to their certainty in John’s Gospel, for example. Jesus still welcomes our questions, saying, “Come and see.” And, he offers us the Gospels, the reliable record of those first followers to aid our own inquiry.