The collect today sums up for us the past season. "Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded..." “Stir up”, in the original Latin was the verb excita, from which we get our English word excite. The lessons of Trinity-tide have, over and over again, encouraged us to be stirred, excited. . We have been taught what good works are, what they yield, that is, what their fruit is; we have been shown in a variety of ways how our wills should be stirred up, excited and encouraged, into being aligned with God's will. But after all this time we run the risk of forgetting what it is that makes this possible. We run the risk of getting the idea that it is through good works that we are saved, and we may tend to forget that it is through God's grace that we are saved, and through the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ that we are released from the chains of sin and our good works become pleasing to God. So now we need once again to be reminded of the facts of the Incarnation, Crucifixion and Resurrection, we need to walk once again with our Lord through the history of his earthly life: To be stirred, excited by the Good news of Jesus Christ.

           The walk begins long before the actual birth of Jesus. The prophet Jeremiah, many hundreds of years before, looks to the coming Messiah in an extraordinary way. While the Messiah will be a descendant of the great king David, he tells us, he will be radically different from all the other descendants of David. So many of them were unjust and unrighteous. This king, we are told, will be so righteous that his name will be "Righteousness". But over and above this, this new king will transcend the historical Kingdom of Israel. He will not be a king in the old sense, he will not look back to Moses and the escape from Egypt that figured so strongly in the Hebrew self understanding, rather he will unite all of God's people, and bring them into a new land and a new life. The Messiah is promised to be a new Moses, who frees people not from the slavery of Egypt, leading them through the Red Sea and into the land of Canaan, but instead frees people from the chains of sin, leads them through mortal death, and into their true home, heaven. And the new Moses will not be a mere man as the old Moses was, but the living God himself. The Lord God himself will lead his people to salvation.

           From the Prophet Jeremiah we then turn to the Gospel of John and the events surrounding the beginning of Jesus' ministry. The Baptist, the last of the prophets, recognizes Jesus as the Christ with the words "behold the lamb of God". And the calling of the disciples begins.

           Notice how this happens. Jesus didn't go out and round up John and Andrew and Peter and Philip all in the same way. Each came in a different way. John and Andrew were drawn to Jesus through the declarations of John the Baptist. Andrew in turn led his brother to Jesus, and Jesus himself searched out Philip deliberately. And this diversity exists for us too. We each come to Jesus in our own way. Some of us are persuaded by the teaching of the prophets and Holy Scripture, some are drawn by the witness of others, some of us, Jesus comes and gets himself. We all are different, unique individuals, and our faith develops in different ways. But we all come to know the same Jesus, the Christ.

           When Jesus saw that John and Andrew were beginning to follow him his first words to them were "what do you seek?" This is addressed to us as well. What do you seek? What is it that you expect to gain from following Jesus? The disciples knew only that they sought the Messiah. They had no inkling of the price. We, after the fact, have the advantage of Jesus' teaching, so we should know what is expected of us. We should know that to follow Jesus means to walk the road he walked that leads to the cross, suffering and death, but we know too that in following Jesus we are led beyond, into the Resurrection as well, and that this path alone leads us to that which we seek, our heavenly home.

           So we begin again the great cycle of the Church year and over the coming weeks and months we are invited, with the disciples, to come and see. Come and see John the Baptist, the voice crying in the wilderness. Come and see the infant Jesus born in a stable in the City of David. Come and see the adoration of the Magi. Come and see the miracles, the healings, the power of Jesus over all creation. Come and see his arrest, trial and crucifixion. Come and see your Lord dead on the cross. Come and see the empty tomb. Come and see Christ's Ascension into heaven. Come, and see the Lord, ruling with power and dominion at the right hand of God the Almighty, who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.