“What are you looking for?”

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Epiphany. What does that word mean to you? A dramatic revelation? A quieter realization? On the Christian calendar, Epiphany is both a day and a season. The day wise men appeared from the East bearing gifts for a newborn baby, whose birth was heralded by a star. And the season in which we remember all the ways in which Jesus becomes known.

The great stories of Epiphany are stories that inspire artists and writers.

The Magi, who travel in search of a king, and find a child. Years later, the Baptism of Jesus at the Jordan River, when the heavens open, and a voice declares, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” The wedding at Cana, the scene of Jesus’s first miracle, when he turns water into wine. And the Transfiguration, the day on which Jesus is transfigured on a mountaintop, with shining face and clothes of dazzling white.

Those moments are all moments of epiphany. Moments of learning something new about who Jesus is – about his mission, his identity, his power, and his glory.

But an Epiphany can also be a quieter thing. And that’s what we see in today’s Gospel.

Jesus approaches John the Baptist, who recognizes him at once. “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” John calls him the Chosen One. The one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. The one John’s work is intended to reveal.

If you’re a regular churchgoer, you’ve heard the words John used to describe Jesus many times. But what would you think if you were standing in a crowd at the Jordan River hearing them for the first time? They’re strange words. Mysterious. Unclear. The Lamb of God? What might that mean? And what does it mean to take away the sin of the world? To baptize with the Holy Spirit?

Andrew and another disciple see John point to Jesus, and so they follow him, curious. And so we come to Jesus’s first words in the Gospel of John. Jesus doesn’t begin his work with mystery or miracle. Or even by saying good morning. He starts with a question.

“What are you looking for?”

Not “What do you believe?” Or “Will you follow me?”

Just this: “What are you looking for?”

It’s a question we might well ask ourselves. “What are you looking for?” The question doesn’t presume or corner. It invites. But its openness doesn’t make it an easy question to answer.

The disciples answer awkwardly, stalling.

“Rabbi, where are you staying?” they ask.

And Jesus replies simply, “Come and see.”

Come and see. Ordinary words. But also an invitation to an encounter. An invitation to a new path. An invitation, perhaps, to an epiphany. Come and see.

The Gospel tells us that Andrew and the other disciple “came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day.” They took up Jesus’s invitation. They came and they saw. And they remained. They spent time in Jesus’s presence, probably asking questions, listening, not entirely sure what they might be getting themselves into.

That’s what “come and see” usually looks like in practice. It’s not a flash of instant understanding. It’s staying close enough for long enough to let something reveal itself to you over time.

And here’s what happens next: Andrew can’t keep what he’s seen to himself. He goes to find his brother Simon. “We have found the Messiah,” he tells him. A few verses later, Jesus finds Philip. And then Philip finds his friend Nathanael. We didn’t hear that bit of the story today, but it comes just after today’s reading.

Nathanael is skeptical. When Philip tells him they’ve found the one Moses and the prophets wrote about—Jesus of Nazareth—Nathanael scoffs: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” he asks dismissively.

Philip doesn’t argue with him. He doesn’t mount a defense or try to prove his case. He just passes along the same invitation that Jesus began with: “Come and see.”

So “come and see” works in two directions. It’s the invitation we respond to—again and again throughout our lives. And it’s the invitation we extend to others. Not with arguments or proofs, but simply this: I’ve seen something. Come and see it yourself.

Those first disciples who accepted Jesus’s invitation kept coming, kept seeing, for the entirety of his ministry. They witnessed all the dramatic epiphanies we talked about at the beginning. They saw water turned to wine at Cana—Jesus transforming an ordinary moment into abundance and joy. They were there at the Transfiguration, when Jesus took Peter, James, and John up a mountain and was revealed in dazzling glory, radiant with the light of God.

They didn’t figure everything out in any one moment. They kept misunderstanding, kept asking questions, kept getting things wrong, kept needing to see more. Epiphany for the disciples wasn’t a single revelation, but a slow unfolding—glimpse after glimpse after glimpse.

And that’s how it usually is for us too.

Every time we come to church, we’re responding to that invitation to “Come and see” again. Every time we approach God’s table, we say yes to that invitation one more time. We don’t come because we’ve figured it all out. We come because there’s always more to see, more to discover, more to understand.

Faith isn’t a destination we arrive at. It’s a series of encounters we keep showing up for.

And we’re also invited to be like Andrew and Phillip, to say those words to others: “Come and see.” Not because we have all the answers. Not because we can explain every mystery. But because we’ve seen something real, something true, something worth seeing.

We’ve seen a God who asks questions before demanding answers. We’ve seen a God who invites before he commands. We’ve seen glimpses of grace in water and wine, in bread broken and shared, in ordinary moments made holy.

The question Jesus asked those first disciples still rings in our own ears: “What are you looking for?” And his invitation remains the same: “Come and see.”

About the cover image: Looking for Peace (Olhar a Paz), was painted by Brazilian streetartist Eduardo Kobra on a 4300 square-foot wall at 1220 North Highland Avenue in Los Angeles, in 2013. (Photo by Wally Gobetz.)