Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

I remember the first time I visited Christ the King Lutheran Church for the Sunday liturgy. It was during a time that Kathy and I were a bit lost. We had decided to leave the denomination in which we had grown up. We had experienced the death of my brother. We needed work in order to eat. And I was finishing my dissertation. Stress levels were high.

I felt a strong need for a “word from the Lord,” some indicator as to which direction I should go. I was desperate for a sign. I was searching hoping to find something to hold on to. Then our friends told us about Christ the King Church. I had complaints about worship in the tradition in which I was raised and some bitterness toward persons and events in the past. And so I was skeptical about church even as our friends told us about this congregation. In this context the challenge was issued, “Come see for yourselves.”

We did and over the following years we became members of a Lutheran congregation which just happened to be this congregation. I began the long process of applying to the roster of ordained ministers. I went through the anxious times of seeking my first call to a Lutheran parish, and finally you called me to serve as associate pastor. It takes the eyes of others to help us discover that which we would not otherwise recognize. It takes an invitation, “Come and see.”

Now the point of this is to illustrate the difference which occurs in life between finding and discovering.

Granted I was seeking something in my pilgrimage of faith and in my occupational role. Did I go out shopping and simply acquire the item I was seeking? Did I find what I was looking for? Or did that something find me? There is a subtle difference between finding and discovering.

The mystery of faith turns on this distinction between finding and discovering. Our world is filled with seekers, people who are searching for meaning and direction in their lives. The strange thing about seeking something is that usually we have to know already what it is we are seeking. We go to stores looking for a particular item. The sales person asks can I help you find something. We answer, “I don’t know if you can help me because I am not sure exactly, but I will know it when I find it.”

Often this happens in our mundane lives. We search and search for what we imagine it is that we are looking for. And often we discover that we have been found by that which fulfills the need or the wish that drove us in the quest. Being found by that for which we thought we were seeking is the difference between simply finding something and miraculously discovering something.

In the biblical faith we are taught that in our search for God we never find what we are looking for. The normal experience is that we discover that we have been found by that illusive presence that was searching for us.

This is what the psalmist is trying to express when declaring:

LORD, you have searched me out;
O LORD, you have known me.
You know my sitting down and my rising up;
you discern my thoughts from afar. .
You encompass me, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain to it. (Ps.139:1-2, 5-6 ELW)

At the wedding yesterday we heard the words from First Corinthians 13.

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. (Vs. 12)

In the Gospel we hear the church’s witness to the mystery of God’s presence long before we are aware. We hear also of the resulting call to respond to God’s invitation to be God’s children. Sometimes we get wrapped up in the wrong questions when we interpret passages like these. We are concerned about how the event occurred, even if the event occurred. It seems clear to me that the author of John is clearly giving his audience instruction on how one really discovers oneself in the presence of Christ. We do not find Jesus, but we discover that Jesus already knows us and has found us.

In today’s verses from the Gospel of John there is much emphasis on “finding.” Jesus finds Philip. Philip finds Nathanael. Philip announces, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” The verb used in the Greek text is the same verb we have come to know in the anecdote concerning Archimedes. He was perhaps the greatest scientist of antiquity.

Archimedes was commissioned by the king to determine whether a new crown had been made of pure gold. There was a suspicion that the goldsmith had mixed silver with the gold. Archimedes sought a way to determine this without damaging the crown. One day as he was taking his bath, it came to him. Every substance will displace an equal amount of water in relation to the weight of the substance. All he had to do was dunk the same weight pure gold as the weight of the suspicioned gold crown. Upon his discovery Archimedes is reputed to have jumped out of his bath and run naked through the neighborhood proclaiming, “Eureka!” We usually translate this verb as “I found it.” But the better translation is, “I discovered it.” And so it might should be in the Gospel of John.

Philip is excited about having discovered the one of whom Moses and the prophets had written. But Nathanael is skeptical almost dismissing the whole prospect of such a remarkable announcement. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” I think that we can characterize Nathanael as someone with low expectations.

It is Philip’s answer that moves the story along, “Come and see.” Philip and Nathanael approach Jesus who immediately calls out, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” Nathanael is shocked to be already known by one that he perceived that he himself was seeking. In response Nathanael confirms Philip’s claim that Jesus was the one of whom the Moses and the prophets wrote. “You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Nathanael does not seek and find God. Nathanael seeks to find, but discovers that he has already been found.

Jesus says to him, "Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." This is a reference to the story of Jacob at Bethel. Jacob also encounters the illusive presence and responds with these words.

Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, "Surely the LORD is in this place — and I did not know it!" And he was afraid, and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." (Genesis 28:16-17)

Dear congregation, the Gospel tells us that Jesus is the connection between heaven and earth, between Creator and creation, between God and humanity. Why is it so? Because in Jesus Christ we see the ultimate sign of God’s love when we see in the love of Christ the outpouring of self even to the point of death. Jesus Christ the Son of God becomes God’s most crucial communication to us of who God is, what God is like. And included in this communication is the announcement that the God like this is also like this for you.

We have assembled here around Word and Sacrament for one reason and one reason only: to encounter the living Lord who is God’s Word to us. Our confession of Christ is not about finding what we were looking for. Our confession is about the surprise of discovering that we have already been found. That is the unexpected in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our gathering together in this place is for one reason only – to give persons a “heads up.” We will not find the God we are looking for. We have better news than that. We will discover the God who has already visited us. When was the last time you invited someone to “come and see?”

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.