“Follow Your Star… Not!”
Year B, 2 Epiphany, John 1:43-51
January 15, 2012
UNEDITED
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
We have a member of our staff who collects and displays a whole line-up of Fortune Cookie sayings on the door of his office. Another member of our staff sneaked an additional one up on his door, the most recent one that says, You eat way too much Chinese food. I mention that to you because a couple of weeks ago Jane and I did Chinese take-out and of course I opened up my Fortune Cookie and it said, “Follow Your Star.”
“Follow Your Star.” Go to Google and check it out. Follow Your Star is a growing movement in our country. It’s all about exploring your human potential to find peace and happiness. It’s all about turning inward and finding Nirvana and bliss by following our own inner voice. There are poems and short stories about following your own little star. Like the song, “Follow Your Star” by the electric psycho-pop group StarRider that says, “Follow your star… follow your star to the edge of time, and you will find your answer.” Even Kermit the Frog has a version of Follow Your Star in one of his movies. This is all an indication of how thirsty people are; how people are searching for spiritual meaning and purpose and for the answers to our human condition.
“One day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. And he found Philip and said to him, “Follow ME,” John 1:43. According to Matthew these were the same words Jesus spoke to Peter and Andrew, “Follow me.” Aren’t we glad Jesus didn’t say to his disciples, “Follow your own little star” because I’m telling you, that leads to nowhere but wasteland.
To a great extent we live in a deceived world, turning away, and going after lying vanities. It was Whitney Houston that sang, “No matter what they take from me, they can’t take away my dignity.” You know the song. Listen to these words:
Everybody’s searching for a hero.
People need someone to look up to.
I never found anyone who fulfilled my need,
A lonely place to be, and so I learned to depend on me.
No, don’t do that! Jesus said, “Follow me… You can depend on me. I will fulfill your need. I am the answer, the way and the truth and the life. I will take you to the place I have prepared for you. I am the Lamb of God who takes away your sin. Follow me… If you’ve been googling for answers, quit it. If you’ve been reading rubbish New Age thoughts, burn them! And follow me” saith the Lord.
I want to preach just as directly and simply as I can. Have you heard Jesus say to you, “follow me”? If you haven’t, he’s doing it this morning. Just as sure as you’re in church this morning (or listening on the radio this morning or listening later on the web) Jesus is saying to you very personally, “Follow me. Quit that other stuff, burn those other books, spurn the wisdom of Mr. Worldly Wiseman and follow me.”
What does following Jesus entail? What do you think about when you think about following Jesus? Usually when we think of following Christ we think in terms of law and cleaning up our acts. We usually think it will be a matter of some un-repented sin or tedious duty to perform, but in fact, the primary summons is that Jesus wants to give us something. The invitation to follow him is come just as you are and He will bring you to everything you need.
Let’s put Jesus’ summons to follow him in context. Earlier in this same first chapter of John it is written: [10] Jesus was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. [11] He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. [12] But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God… In other words, we follow Jesus to become Children of God and heirs to His kingdom. Indeed! He wants to give us something.
Philip was so exited. Verse 45: “Philip found Nathanael, and said to him, ‘We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph’.” In other words he told Nathanael that he had found the sum and substance of the Old Testament prophecy. This is another way of saying they had found the Messiah. We don’t know how much Philip understood about Jesus at this point. But notice how positively Philip speaks, he doesn’t say, we THINK we have found him; we HOPE we have found him, but WE HAVE FOUND him of whom Moses and the prophets wrote.
Nathanael finds this hard to believe. In the final verse of our reading Jesus said, “Nathanael, follow me and ‘you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man’.” In other words, Nathanael is told Jesus is the link between heaven and earth. This refers back to the ancient story of Jacob’s ladder and it symbolizes the whole power and love of God now available for man in and through the Son of man.
The earliest followers of Jesus: were they promised a proverbial rose garden? Heavens no. They would see many tribulations. But in following him they found the pearl of great price; they found what they were looking for: hope, forgiveness, freedom, peace and joy.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, our Lord is sufficient for this life and the next. Look to him, turn to him, and follow him and him alone. We need no other prophets to reveal God’s word or will. We need no other priests to mediate God’s salvation and blessing. We need no other kings to control the thinking and lives of believers. Jesus is everything to us and for us through his death and resurrection.
Christ our Lord, the risen King called his earliest followers. We hear this morning that he spoke to Philip and Nathanael, but he is speaking just as directly to us today. “Follow me.” And although much of the world still knows him not, those who receive him and believe in his name he gives power to become children of God.
If an official for the Publisher’s Clearing House said, “Follow me, I have something to give you”, you’d follow right? Well, I want to close by quoting a grand old evangelical English Bishop of the 19th Century, J. C. Ryle. Listen carefully to this:
“(A man follows) Christ empty—that he may be filled; sick—that he may be healed; hungry—that he may be satisfied; thirsty—that he may be refreshed; needy—that he may be enriched; dying—that he may have life; lost—that he may be saved; guilty—that he may be pardoned; sin-defiled—that he may be cleansed; confessing that Christ alone can supply his need—then he comes to Christ. When he uses Christ as the Jews used the city of refuge, as the starving Egyptians used Joseph, as the dying Israelites used the brazen serpent; then he comes to Christ. It is the empty soul’s venture on a full Savior; it is the drowning man’s grasp on the hand held out to help him; it is the sick man’s reception of a healing medicine. This, and nothing more than this, is (following) Christ.”
May God draw reluctant hearts, and now give doubting souls courage to believe this for Jesus’ sake.
Amen.
