Rev. Paul Walker “Looking for Jesus at 4 O’Clock”
There is something about Jesus Christ that will always attract people. Even people who don’t recognize Jesus’ divinity find him compelling. Thomas Jefferson spent his old age studying Jesus of Nazareth, creating a Bible that excised the supernatural and emphasized the moral teaching of Jesus.
New York Times writer Nicholas Kristof recently interviewed author and pastor Tim Keller, saying that though he is skeptical of the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, and the miracles, he “deeply admires Jesus and his message.” It’s safe to say that many people in the modern world would fall into that category.
There is something about Jesus Christ that still attracts people. In his new book, “The Great Good Thing”, best selling mystery writer Andrew Klavan chronicles his experience of being attracted to and meeting Jesus Christ. His subtitle is “A Secular Jew Comes to Faith in Christ.” Klavan was baptized close to his 50th birthday. He had prided himself on his urbane skepticism, his freedom of thought, and his worldly success. Yet, he recognizes his attraction to Jesus, even as a teenager.
Klavan knew he wanted to be a writer, so he dove into all the classics. He says, “By the time I was 15 or so, I had begun to understand that Christianity was central to everything I had been reading….I was only a boy and I didn’t understand much, but I began to understand that at the heart of all Western mythology, all Western civilization, all Western writing, all Western thought, and every Western ideal, there stood a single book, the Bible, and a single man, Jesus of Nazareth.”
In this morning’s gospel, after the Virgin Birth but before any miracles or the Resurrection, before any Western classic is written or read, 2 Jewish men are attracted to Jesus. This sermon will follow the exchange between these men and Jesus Christ. It is an exchange that happens still, and may even happen to you this morning.
John the Baptist sees Jesus walking by and says, “Look, there is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” That’s quite a thing to say about somebody and two of John’s disciples take note. So, Andrew and an unnamed disciple (maybe John) come up to Jesus. Jesus then asks the still penetrating question, “What are you looking for?”
It’s a good question, isn’t it? People say that Jesus is the Answer, but the guy specializes in questions. What are you looking for? Sometimes we don’t know what we’re looking for, but we know we’re looking for something. Sometimes the thing we’re looking for isn’t the thing we’re looking for. Sometimes we think we know what we’re looking for, but, in the words of U2 from 30 years ago, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.” What are you looking for is a universal question. Whether it’s your next meal, a hot date, inner peace, world peace, your true self, or the salvation of your soul, you are looking for something.
What are you looking for? The men in this morning’s gospel don’t answer Jesus’ question with an answer. They answer with a question, as He so often does. “Rabbi, where are you staying?” “Where are you staying” is an odd response to “what are you looking for.” Or is it? What is behind the seekers’ question? There is something about Jesus that makes John’s disciples want to be with him. They want to stay at his house. They want to get to know him. They want to be in relationship with him. What they are looking for is somehow bound up in knowing Jesus Christ.
I believe this is still universally true. What you and I are ultimately looking for is bound up in knowing Jesus Christ. We were all created by God and alienated from Him and one another by our sin and self-interest. Yet within each of us is a desire to be in harmonious relationship with our Creator and all of His creation. So God came to us in Jesus Christ, the friend of sinners. In response to our inner longing, He says to us what He says to the 2 men who ask him where He is staying: “Come and see.”
The text simply says, “They came and saw where he was staying and they remained with him that day.” Obviously they experienced the grace and love of Jesus Christ when they went to where he was staying. The part of the story that captivates me is the fact that the time of day is recorded. “It was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon.”
Why is that curious detail in the inspired scriptures?
To me, 4 o’clock in the afternoon is a kind of no man’s land. When Christie and I traveled abroad, we always felt particularly homesick at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, as if we still hadn’t found what we were looking for. 4 o’clock is a lonely time – not the time for a meal with others, too late for a nap, too early for a glass of wine, too late to start something fresh, too early to call it a day. In the winter the light wanes at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. In the summer the heat still oppresses at 4 o’clock in the afternoon.
“It was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon”, the bible says. Again, why that detail? Author William Styron recounts his intense struggle with depression in his memoir, “A Darkness Visible.” Each afternoon, he would descend into crippling despair. He says, “It was October, and one of the unforgettable features of this stage of my disorder was the way in which my own farmhouse, my beloved home for thirty years, took on for me at that point when my spirits regularly sank to their nadir an almost palpable quality of ominousness. The fading evening light—akin to that famous “slant of light” of Emily Dickinson’s, which spoke to her of death, of chill extinction—had none of its familiar autumnal loveliness, but ensnared me in a suffocating gloom. I wondered how this friendly place… could almost perceptibly seem so hostile and forbidding.”
Its no wonder that the English have tea at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. The custom arose because in 1840 the English Duchess Anna was hungry in between a 1 o’clock lunch and an 8 o’clock dinner. Traditional afternoon tea consists of a selection of dainty sandwiches, scones, cakes, and pastries served with clotted cream and preserves. Tea grown in India or Ceylon is poured from silver teapots into delicate bone china cups. People gather, to ward off both the physical and the existential hunger of 4 o’clock in the afternoon.
Maybe 4 o’clock in the afternoon is your happy time, but there is some o’clock in every life that cries out for meaning and love and God. The 2 men in the story apparently find what they are looking for, or more precisely, who they are looking for. Andrew finds his brother and says, “We have found the Messiah.”
The two seekers defect from John the Baptist’s camp and become disciples of Jesus Christ. This is because law never satisfies our longing, only grace can. John the Baptist specializes in pointing out our sins; Jesus Christ, on the other hand, is the Lamb of God that takes away our sins. He is the one we are looking for because we are all in need of absolution, not accusation.
The man at the center of it all still stands before you. He is here now, broken in the bread, poured out in the wine, absolving with his love. He will also be with you at 4 o’clock this afternoon. He is in every hostile and forbidding place in your life, with His arms of compassion open wide.
1600 years after the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection, philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal found the Messiah. After years of anguished looking, he came to Jesus and saw. After his conversion, he wrote a note to himself and sewed it into the lining of his coat. It was found after his death.
Here is what the note said. “Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob….Certitude, heartfelt joy, peace. God of Jesus Christ…My God and your God….Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy…..”
Come and see.
Amen.
