Once upon a time, two disciples were walking behind Jesus when he turned around on his heels and asked them: "What do you want?" A simple question, unless the one asking it is the Son of God, who is here to take away the sin of the world!"What do you want?" You’d think these disciples would muster something profound like, "We want to know the meaning of life. What's it all about? We want to understand how to square a good God with the bad things that happen in this world. We want to know what the future holds." But these two disciples say no such things. "What do you want?" Jesus asks. Their reply? "We want to know where you're staying."
You've got the Son of the living God, giving you the chance of a lifetime to tell him what you want, and all you can come up with is, "So, where are you hanging your hat these days?" The fact is, these two disciples didn't give a bad answer. In a way their reply was, "We want you!" What's that line from that old African-American spiritual? "You can have all this world, but give me Jesus!" The same message Dr. Martin Luther King gave to the people of this nation.
Now for some folks who don’t come to church any longer because they got the impression from other church-goers that they don’t measure up listen to this reply by Jesus "Where are you staying?"
"Come and you will see," Jesus replies. He didn't issue a bunch of pre-requisites, didn't make them jump through some moral hoops before letting them take what were quite literally their first steps of discipleship. That's the way we sometimes frame it. Come and talk to us AFTER you have your act together. Come and join our church after we're sure you've got your spiritual and moral vision clear. Rather Jesus says, "Come, and then you will see."
What do you want? It’s always a TOUGH question. Well, we want success, a spot in the limelight, our fifteen minutes of fame, a piece of the good life, financial security, a healthy body, to be noticed--we want the kinds of things that someone described that Jesus is unlikely to lead us to. Still, maybe we don't know what we want until we come to Jesus and see who he is.
God prays for us as we reflect: “But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you.” (Psalm 5:11).
Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends who don’t know what they want. May your Spirit gently nudge us to a desire for nothing else but you. "What do you want?" We want you, Jesus. We want to stay where you're staying. Because somehow by being with you, we just know that we're going to find out just what it is we want. It's been Jesus we've been looking for all along, whether we knew it or not.
