Today’s gospel reading is from John. It contains the first words spoken by Jesus. So, what are they? Are they words of wonderful wisdom? Are they words about God? Perhaps they are words that tell us how to live our lives. What might be these first words of Jesus as John records them in his Gospel?

Surprisingly, Jesus first words are a question: ‘What are you looking for?’ Two disciples of John the Baptist have taken note of what he has been saying about Jesus and have peeled off from John’s group and started following Jesus. We learn that one of them is called Andrew. The other, intriguingly, is not named. Jesus does not wait for them to speak to him. Rather, Jesus turns round and says to therm, ‘What are you looking for?’

This is the question that God is always asking of us, ‘What are you looking for?’ Are we looking? It’s rather assumed. Are we searching? Or, have we given up on that a long time ago? But maybe we are searching. Something deep within us is on the look out. But for what? What is it that would satisfy us? What is the pearl of great price? To allow ourselves to be people on the look out is to have let the Holy Spirit into our hearts.

‘What are you looking for?’ asks Jesus. The two disciples reply, ‘Teacher, where are you staying?’  They want to spend time with Jesus, stay with him for a while. And this is how it turns out. They stay with him that day.

If you read through John’s Gospel you become alert to certain key words that crop up time and again. ‘Stay’ is one of them. The Greek word gets translated in a number of ways, but its the same word. So we get, stay, remain, abide, dwell.

It occurs five times in today’s Gospel reading. We get here something of the range of meaning and its significance for John:

•  John the Baptist has been told by God to look out for the one on whom the Spirit descends, and stays. Jesus is the one on whom the Spirit remains. He is permanently Spirit-filled.

• The disciples’ question, ‘Where are you staying’ seems to use the word ‘stay’ in a more mundane sense. They’re asking, ‘Who’s house are you staying in?’

• The disciples remain with Jesus for a whole day. This is about personal encounter and engagement.

We see from this that John’s use of the word ‘remain’, has a mundane, personal and theological range.

So why is this word so important for John? The answer is that John knows that where you, stay, where you remain, and who you stay with and spend time with, is a matter of salvation. Nothing less. John writes his Gospel as an invitation to spend time with Jesus to get to know Jesus. It’s a bit like that saying from the other Gospels, ‘Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’

John’s Gospel has the parable of the vine. It’s in chapter 15, a chapter where this word ‘remain / abide’ keeps cropping up. Jesus is the vine and we are the vine’s branches. If you remain in me, says Jesus, you will bear much fruit. If you don’t, you will wither and die.

John makes this striking claim because of who he believes Jesus to be. Jesus himself abides, John understands – Jesus stays, remains, somewhere. So where is that? It is in the Father’s heart. It’s there in chapter 1, the chapter that sets out so much of who Jesus is. ‘No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.’

To stay with Jesus, to remain with Jesus, to abide in and with Jesus, is to come to the Father’s heart. And when that happens, the water of our lives is changed into wine. We drink from the living water and we are fed with the bread of heaven. In fact we are reborn, raised from the dead, and start living the life of the Spirit.

So how might this happen? How might we remain with Jesus better? How might we make more room for Jesus? It’s probably best to avert a possible misunderstanding at this point.  You might be thinking, ‘Well, if I make more room for Jesus I’m being asked to push out other people, even family members. Sorry, I can’t look after the grandchildren this afternoon I’m spending it with Jesus.’ Or, ‘Yes that would be a fun thing to do, but, sorry, I’m spending this evening with Jesus.’

This is crucial to get right: God does not compete for space in our lives. God is not that sort of being.When we read words on a page we don’t worry that the meaning is going to make the words irrelevant. Or worry that the music is going to make the notes in the score redundant. God hasn’t made us so that the stuff of our lives is irrelevant and has to be pushed out. The non-competitive presence of God enhances our lives, brings colour, joy, vibrancy, delight and an overflow of meaning and purpose to everything we do, feel and are. Listen to what Jesus says his presence will do: (John 10.10) ‘I came that you may have life, and have it abundantly.’

We know the things that make for abiding with Jesus: saying your prayers, prioritising love and reconciliation, reading and listening for God’s voice in the scripture readings, seeking justice in your work, political choices and contributions to society, regularly coming to the Lord’s table and preparing properly for Holy Communion.

But given that I have focused on John’s Gospel today another way commends itself: St John’s Gospel. It has the benefit of having, as a recent commentator has said, ‘a deep, plain sense’. At one level it is easy to understand. But its depth invites you in to more profound understandings. Also, it is the only writing in the New Testament that speak explicitly to the reader. The relevant verse leaps off the page: John 20.31 ‘But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.’

‘… so that you …’ Who is this ‘you’? Well, it’s you and you and you and me. John’s Gospel is written so that you and  I may have life, the fullness of life in Jesus. Abiding in Jesus places us right in the burning heart of the Father, whose inexpressible, unimaginable love pours out towards us moment by moment, and offers us the fullness of life, here and now, and for ever.

Service: Canon Bill Croft, 15th January 2023. (St John The Baptist Church Peterborough UK)

Readings: Isaiah 49.1-7; 1 Corinthians 1.1-9; John 1.29-42