“COME AND SEE”

By the time you read this post, we will have landed in Korea, dazed with jetlag, but hopefully in bed. Not to sound too dramatic, this post stands as the culmination of the last five years of reflecting and writing. Flying over the Pacific Ocean is a good symbol for our threshold crossing. A new chapter awaits us. As always, thank you for reading.

Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples;
And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!
And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.
Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi, (which is to say, being interpreted, Master,) where dwellest thou?
He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day: for it was about the tenth hour.

John 1:35-39, KJV

During one of the recent group spiritual guidance sessions, we did Lectio Divina on the passage above. After I shared my reflection, someone in the group mentioned the word, abide, which is more often translated as remain. The word lingered for a few days afterward.

The word abide was the favorite of the Apostle John, appearing eight times in John 15 alone. (Out of 120 total occurrences of the word in the New Testament, John penned more than half of the total in the Gospel of John and his epistles.) As the Spirit descended and abode upon Christ (John 1:32-33), John urges us to abide (remain) with Christ. This rich language channels the very heart of the union, which is the main thrust of the Gospel of John. To abide means to be in union with Christ and the Triune God.

Before I considered the invitation to abide, my initial felt invitation was to “come and see.” The words “look and see” are the most repeated action verbs in the passage above. There is the action to look upon or behold, which is more equivalent to searching for awe and curiosity. Then there is seeing, first by Jesus, then by the disciples. Perhaps our seeing always follows Jesus’ seeing us first. We think we see first, but Jesus has been seeing and watching us all along. We see because Jesus saw us first.

I, too, have been doing a lot of looking, searching, for the last five-plus years. After locating Jesus, I followed Jesus as I have been accustomed to. However, in many ways, this path of followership was new to me, as my life was at a very different place. The calling to follow Jesus is not a static one but involves live interaction with my present life, making it novel and fresh every day. After the exchange of seeing, I imagined Jesus gently and plainly inviting me to “come and see.” No hesitation on the part of the disciples, as there is no hesitation on my part. What immediately follows is the scene of abiding. Incidentally, the words dwelt and abode are the same Greek word.

Concurrently, I have also been reflecting on the paragraph by John O’Donohue.

At any time you can ask yourself: At which threshold am I now standing? At this time in my life, what am I leaving? Where am I about to enter? What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold? What gift would enable me to do it? A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms and atmospheres. Indeed, it is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that it intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up. At this threshold a great complexity of emotions comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope. This is one of the reasons such vital crossing were always clothed in ritual. It is wise in your own life to be able to recognize and acknowledge the key thresholds; to take your time; to feel all the varieties of presence that accrue there; to listen inward with complete attention until you hear the inner voice calling you forward. The time has come to cross.

O’Donohue’s rich and wise words echo the dynamic part of following Jesus as we all face and cross the thresholds multiple times in our lives. As “it is not a simple boundary” but a “frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up,” I experience every single emotion of confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, and hope.

Confusion cultivates listening to every aspect of one's inner being (body, mind, heart, and soul) and leaning into its wisdom.
Fear is the guttural call to summon courage and faith into action.
Excitement is energy to face the unknowns and uncertainties and to invite curiosity.
Sadness is the invitation to let go of the old and let in the new.
Hope is the eternal spring of goodness and mercy.

Then the “inner voice calling me forward” comes, which stands because God’s voice has been calling me, ever so patiently.

The time has come to cross, to abide.