Jesus Christ: First You Get Their Attention (John 1:29-42; Luke 5:1-11)
I drive about twenty miles from my home to the church, along a road that passes lakes and woods and well-tended farms. The journey all in all is pleasant except for one detail: the road is festooned with billboards. Now, those signs may help some-one's supply side economics, but they do nothing for the countryside's aesthetics. As I drive past, I am irritatingly aware of the billboards' presence, but I couldn't tell you what any of them say. Except one!
This particular billboard has half a car sticking out from it, giving the impression that someone driving too fast has gone right through the sign. Standing by the car and looking under its hood is a mannequin clad in a mechanic's white coat. When the breeze blows, the coat comes to life, and seemingly the man does too. I have passed the sign dozens of times. I know it is fake. But every single time I go by, it grabs my attention. On a road over-populated with billboards, most of which are eminently forgettable, it takes something striking and dramatic to get ahead of the pack and grab the most jaded attention.
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Before He could effectively call the twelve disciples to Him, Jesus had to find the hot button of their imagination and press it to trigger their interest. This He did over a period of time, through a series of events.
John records in his gospel account how Andrew was first put on inquiry about Jesus. As John the Baptist was busy baptizing converts one day, Jesus walked by and John paused long enough to point to Him and say, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" (
John 1:29). This, of course, was an attention-getter of the first magnitude.
When the same thing happened the following day, Andrew and another of John the Baptist's disciples went after Jesus, spent some time with Him, and came away so impressed that Andrew told his brother Simon, "We have found the Messiah" (
v. 41). That was enough incentive for the action-oriented Simon, and the next day he arrived at Jesus' doorstep to find out for himself who this man was. Jesus had gotten his attention, too.
Christ still does the same sort of thing today. A number of years ago, I received a phone call from a young college student asking if I would talk to her, and I quickly agreed.
"Don't be in such a hurry," she said. "I was in church last Sunday night and listened to you preach but, frankly, I didn't believe a word of it."
"Why, then, would you want to talk to me?"
"Because I think you know God."
I was getting more intrigued by the minute, so I asked how she came to be in church the previous Sunday evening.
"Some friends and I were out drinking when one of them suggested that we should find a church service to disrupt. Apparently your church is the only one in this area that has a Sunday evening service so we drove up to your place."
"Oh, you mean there was a group of you in church?"