Bright Wednesday - What Do You Seek?
Knowing the deep desires of your heart unveils who you are and what you worship.
Christ is risen!
“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” During the COVID lockdown, I remember being tempted with despair, but then I read the rest of the quote and refused to allow the temporary to drown out the Song of the Resurrection in my heart!
This startling quote from the great American poet Henry David Thoreau captures an insight into the challenge of our human lives.
All too often, I find myself asleep to the true dignity and purpose of these years granted me by my Creator. And what’s worse, there are moments of clarity about this situation that terrify me.
In our Gospel Lesson on this Bright Wednesday, we see our Lord Jesus asking the very question and providing the answer that will lead us to purpose and peace with our mortality.
Look at John 1:35-52. We will only quote a section:
At that time, John was standing with two of his disciples; and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned, and saw them following, and said to them, “What do you seek?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying; and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two who heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).
Here our Lord Jesus reveals how we are to embrace this victory over mortality by the situation that arises as two of John’s disciples start to follow Jesus. Our Lord noticed these men following Him and He turns and confronts them with the question that makes all the difference: “What do you seek?” (John 1:37).
If I am ever going to struggle in a healthy way over my purpose in life and my fear of mortality, I have to struggle with that question, “What do you Seek?”
Notice Jesus doesn’t ask them, “Who do you seek?”
He asks them a much deeper question, “What do you seek?”
Stripping away all the delusions and self-satisfying and self-serving narcissism of my life, what do I seek? What do I want? What is my purpose? These questions must be explored if I can ever know myself well enough to understand who I am genuinely. And it is in the context of knowing Who God is that will reveal who I actually am.
These disciples answered well! “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” (John 1:37). You won’t find answers to this fundamental question by yourself. You have to come, in humility, to the place where you honestly admit, “I won’t learn about myself by myself. I have to go where He is to find myself.”
The Lord gives us the second half of our healthy and life-giving spiritual journey when He tells these men, “Come and See.” (John 1:38)
No answers.
No philosophy.
No high-minded “head in the clouds” concepts.
Only the path of following in trust and hope. Be WITH Him, and you’ll know not only Him but yourself as well!
Today, what do you seek? Can you hear the Lord’s offer to “come and see” so you will know Him? After all, He is the image of God, and we are created in the image of God, so to know myself, I must know Him. On this Bright Wednesday, hear the words of the Faith that “Christ is risen” and see that it isn’t in following a philosophy or an idea or religious concept that sets the human heart at peace with our mortality. It is in knowing Him, seeking Him, and being with Him that answers the most fundamental question of the human heart. If I am ever to escape a life of “quiet desperation,” it will be by embracing my true purpose in life – following Him Who has destroyed death and granted the world eternal life, by being a Normal Orthodox Christian!
P.S. When the women with Mary had come before dawn, and they found that the stone had been rolled away from the sepulcher, they heard from the Angel, “Why do you seek among the dead, as a mortal man, the One who exists in everlasting light? See the grave clothes in the sepulcher. Run and proclaim to the world that the Lord has risen and put death to death; for He is the Son of God who saves the human race.”
Fr. Barnabas Powell is the parish priest at Sts. Raphael, Nicholas, and Irene Greek Orthodox Church in Cumming, GA. He is also the founder of Faith Encouraged Ministries and produces the Faith Encouraged Daily Devotional on Substack. Watch the Faith Encouraged YouTube Channel here - https://www.youtube.com/@FaithEncouraged
We celebrate Fr. Barnabas’s birthday for the rest of April in our Annual Pascha Fundraiser! Please take a moment and click the link and wish Fr. Barnabas a happy birthday with a special gift for Faith Encouraged! Thank you!