Called to Come & See - Sermon for the Second Sunday After Epiphany (January 18, 2026)

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 49:1–7 | Psalm 40 | 1 Corinthians 1:1–9 | ​John 1:29–42

“God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:9).
 
Have you ever had a phone call that ended up changing your life?
 
Many of us have at some point or other. One minute, we’re going about our day, business as usual, and the next we’re speaking to someone, and for better or worse, that conversation… that connection alters the course of our story forever.
 
Maybe it was someone eagerly sharing good news with us… or offering us a chance to take on some new and exciting opportunity. Or maybe it was the kind of call that breaks our hearts instead… a painful argument… or news of a tragedy that catches us completely off guard. Or maybe it’s just another telemarketer. Or worse yet, someone running a scam.
 
When the phone rings… we never really know what is in store for us, do we? And when we answer the call, who knows where that connection will take us?
​
Our Scripture readings this morning have much to say to us today… not about phones, but about another kind of call… another kind of connection… that invites us, along with every generation of Christians, to answer the Living God’s summons to and ‘come and see’ where He is leading us, and what lies in store for us and our world.
 
As we know all too well, right now our world’s being led in many different and even destructive directions, and those who have been charged with the high responsibility of guiding the nations through these difficult waters seem to be making some incredibly disruptive and divisive decisions which will have long-lasting and unforeseen implications.
And although we don’t know where everything’s headed, or what comes next, for better or worse, it sure seems like the next chapters of our world’s story will never be the same.
 
And in times like these we have important work to do, and choices to make: Will we bury our heads in the sand and do nothing? Will we follow along with the crowd, and go with the flow, come what may? Will we rally around those with the loudest voices, and who wave the biggest sticks? Or will we turn our attention to the LORD in faith, and respond to His voice calling us to follow Him… to “come and see” and take part in what God is up to even now?
 
And unlike so many of those who want to lead today, God really can be trusted to have our world’s best interests at heart… and He has already revealed both His ultimate intentions, and His game plan for bringing it about.
 
In our first reading today, from the Prophet Isaiah, God gives His people a message of hope for how He is at work bringing about His good purposes in some surprising ways. In this passage, we hear of the LORD’s ‘Servant’… an image used by the prophets at times to speak of the faithful ones of Israel… kind of a personification of the community, and their role in God’s story.
 
But the image of the LORD’s Servant also connects to the One who would serve as the ultimate representative of God’s faithful ones… the Messiah, the Chosen Anointed One who brings the whole story of God’s people to it’s proper conclusion. So as we listen to Isaiah’s words, we can have both the Messiah and those whom He represents and leads in mind.

And in Isaiah Chapter 49:1-4, we hear that God has big plans for His Servant. From birth He was set apart and empowered to fulfill a particular purpose:  
 
“Listen to me, O coastlands,
pay attention, you peoples from far away!
The Lord called me before I was born,
while I was in my mother’s womb he named me.
He made my mouth like a sharp sword,
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me a polished arrow,
in his quiver he hid me away.
And he said to me, ‘You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.’
But I said, ‘I have labored in vain,
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my cause is with the Lord,
and my reward with my God.’” (Isaiah 49:1-4).
 
And what was that purpose? What does the LORD have in mind for His Servant? To bring about the restoration of His people… and to bring God’s salvation to all the nations! Isaiah 49:5-6,
 
“And now the Lord says,
who formed me in the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him,
and that Israel might be gathered to him,
for I am honored in the sight of the Lord,
and my God has become my strength—
He says,
‘It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’” (Isaiah 49:5-6).
 
Here in the words of the ancient prophet, God gives us His game plan for His Servant: to rescue both His people Israel and everyone else… the nations… the Gentiles… to draw near to His side all those who have wandered far and dwell in darkness, and who have been cut off from one another… bringing His peace and salvation to every corner of His good creation.
 
And all those proud and powerful ones who currently lead the nations, Isaiah announces, will one day rise up to honour God’s Servant, and fall down at the feet of the One who they once despised. Isaiah 49:7,
 
“Thus says the Lord,
the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One,
to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations,
the slave of rulers,
‘Kings shall see and stand up,
princes, and they shall prostrate themselves,
because of the Lord, who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”
 
All these words of the Prophet Isaiah were spoken to God’s people at a time of great upheaval and uncertainty, when powerful Empires wared with each other, and threatened to swallow up God’s people, and every other nation that stood in their path, or had something they wanted. But even throughout those uncertain times, and through all of the unforeseen troubles and trials faced in the centuries since, God’s people have held onto this message of hope in God’s faithfulness and in His salvation.   

Which leads us again to the banks of the Jordan River, in our Gospel reading today, where we hear John the Baptist point to Jesus of Nazareth and proclaim: “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” (John 1:29-31).
 
John (both John the Baptist, and also John the writer of this Gospel) wants us to see this Jesus of Nazareth as the long-awaited Servant of God… the Messiah… the Hope of Israel in the flesh. But why did John call Jesus the “Lamb of God” instead of the “Servant” of God, as Isaiah does? What ideas are being connected and communicated by calling Jesus the Lamb of God?
 
Very briefly, two main ideas… two images stand out. First of all, there is the use of lambs for sacrifices in the Temple… sacrifices that played a huge part in how God’s people were invited to maintain and restore their relationship with the Living God… offerings God set up to help His people receive His forgiveness, and express both guilt and gratitude. These sacrifices have very deep roots in the story of Israel, reaching back to the story of Abraham and Isaac, on Mt. Moriah, and how in the end Abraham trusted God, and God Himself provided the lamb to spare Isaac’s life.
 
And the second important idea that is brought to mind by John’s image is the story of the Passover lamb… the blood shed and the meal shared that played a key part in the story of Exodus, and God’s great act of salvation for His people… delivering them from slavery, and setting them free to be His own faithful followers.
 
Forgiveness and restoration. Salvation and freedom for God’s people… and for the whole world! By calling Jesus the ‘Lamb of God’ this is what John wants us to see: Jesus is the One set apart to bring all this about! He is the hope of Israel and all the nations! The Son of God, and our Saviour King.
 
And as we heard, some of John’s disciples leave him to follow this Jesus, convinced that He is the Messiah. And when they ask Jesus where He is headed… where He will be staying, Jesus tells them to “Come and see.” (John 1:39).

And so, their story as Christian disciples begins with an open invitation. Jesus doesn’t spell out every step ahead of them. He invites them… He calls them to trust Him. At first to believe John’s testimony, and in time, to see things more clearly for themselves.
 
And what would these first disciples eventually see? That Jesus God’s Messiah saves by suffering… that He reconciles by first being rejected… that He is ultimately victorious… but only after having His blood shed, and His body broken at the cross.
 
They came to see that the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world by taking it all on Himself… dying despised by His own people, just as Isaiah foresaw, before rising again in glory… ascending to the Father’s right hand… and promising from there to come again! To restore true peace to God’s good creation… to bring Israel and all nations together… to extend God’s salvation to the ends of the earth… and to reign as our Saviour King forever… while every other king, and would-be king will one day lay down their crowns and bow before Him… as He deals out true justice, and sorts out the mess we’ve made of His world.

This is where the Scriptures say that Christ’s story is headed: through suffering to the glory of God’s New Creation. And so, if this is where Jesus is leading us… will we answer His call to follow Him? Will we draw near in faith, and come and see up close what His story has in store for us and for our world?
 
Answering His call will keep on changing everything.

I mean, as we heard later on in our Gospel reading, Simon even had his name changed to Peter! And all of the
disciples who chose to answer the call of Jesus faced a lifetime of unexpected changes as they shared in Christ’s story… some truly wonderful, and some terribly hard to bear. They frequently faced rejection and ridicule and danger… but they also experienced up close incredible moments of God’s light and salvation breaking through the darkness, and bearing fruit far beyond their wildest expectations.
 
Because answering the call to follow Jesus, back then as well as today, is really an invitation to be changed… to become something different… something new… with God’s help, to become saints… to be made clean, and pure… sanctified… set apart and made holy by the life-giving sacrifice of the Lamb of God, offered up once and for all.
 
Saints set free by the blood of the ultimate Passover Lamb, who gave His life at the cross so God’s people could be delivered, and drawn out from under the power of all the world’s Pharaohs… and set free to live as God’s one holy people, called into fellowship with the Living God, and with one another.
 
As Christians today, we too are all called to trust and follow Jesus through our days of darkness, and wilderness… to face our own trials and temptations in faith on our way to a heavenly land we have never known… to God’s New Creation, being prepared for us beyond anything we can imagine. But to get there, we have to trust Him… to come and see for ourselves the path He knows we must take… even if it looks nothing at all like the path we had imagined for ourselves.
 
I can still clearly remember one of the phone calls that changed my life, and led me here today. It was an invitation to come to Rothesay for an interview… to fly to a city I had never heard of before, in a Province and part of the country that I knew almost nothing about. And yet, answering that phone call was the start of a whole new journey of discovery… of both challenges and joys… that led me into a new life in the Maritimes… through the paths of lay ministry, ordination, chaplaincy, and eventually here to St. Luke’s as your priest, and brother in Christ.
 
I could never have dreamed of where that phone call would take me at the time, almost ten years ago, and there were many times when I could have turned aside, and taken another path. But I made a choice to trust in God and keep on taking the next step… to come and see what He had in store. And while it hasn’t always been easy, I can see His gracious hand at work through it all.
 
Everyone here at St. Luke’s has our own story too. And our Parish community has had a longer one still. A story with many different chapters… some easier, some harder… but God has been faithfully at work in and through it all, calling each generation to continue to trust and follow His Son Jesus.

And as we face the days ahead, and prayerfully consider the next steps and coming chapters both for ourselves and for our Parish family… may we always remember who we are called to follow… the one who called us to ‘come and see’: the Lamb of God, Christ Jesus our Saviour King. And may we remember where He said He’s leading us: through suffering and darkness to salvation and glory… into the New Life of God… called here and now to be saints, set apart by grace to share in His holy love and freedom together… trusting the faithfulness of God who called us “into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:9).
 
And so, even though we may never know exactly what comes next for us or our world… when we answer Christ’s call in faith… we can trust that we’re in His good hands, and the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world will see us through whatever lies ahead. Amen.