Dear Friends,

This morning we hear from the Gospel of John how Jesus launches his public ministry and calls his first disciples.  And it begins with John the Baptist, who points Jesus out to the crowd at the Jordan River as the “Lamb of God.” Interestingly, even though John has just baptized Jesus and grew up knowing him as the son of his mother’s cousin, he continues, “I myself did not know him.” Twice he says it, in case we don’t believe him the first time.

What strikes me the most about this narrative is that, rather than trying to gain credibility by pretending to know everything for sure, John admits to being on a journey of discovery. He announces what he knows so far, that the sign of God rests upon Jesus, but he does not presume to know all there is to know.  And what this says to me is that there will be both a lot of knowing and not knowing on the journey with Jesus. In some ways we will come to know more than we ever dreamed possible, and in some ways we never will know him, what and who he really is, nor will we fully comprehend ourselves in our fullest depths.

It can be difficult to claim with confidence what we know so far but do not yet know totally. In my own ministry, I find myself struggling with this all the time…who am I to say out loud what I might not know as deeply and thoroughly as I might someday? Jesus has barely begun his public ministry, and people begin already to make conjectures as to who he is, what his motivation is, whether or not he will live up to the rumors they have heard that he is the longed-for Messiah.  But by doing this, their own hopes and longings get tangled in their desire for him to be for them what they long for him to be. Will they leave space for him just to be who he is?

Maybe this is why Jesus says to the curious people who are drawn to him, “Come and see.” In other words, don’t try first to learn all about me as though that were possible. Just be with me. Watch me. Come hang out in the places I hang out. Let yourself weep and laugh over the same things that move me to tears and laughter. Let me be myself as I become who I am becoming, and you just be yourself, too. Let’s let go of our preconceived ideas of who we “should” be and discover our true identities, our real names.

As we continue our journey through the Season of Epiphany, light, revelation and into the new year ahead, let’s open ourselves to the process of beginning again, and again and again, knowing yet never fully knowing, discovering who we are in God’s family.

 In Christ,

Amelie+