A Lesson in How to Share the Good News?

"Come and see."
This is an expression that runs throughout St John's Gospel.
Jesus says it to Andrew and the other disciple who follow him after John the Baptist has pointed Jesus out to them.
When Jesus asks them, "What are you looking for?" they answer indirectly and say, "Rabbi, where are you staying?"
"Come and see," says Jesus.
Come and see where God incarnate lives and how God incarnate lives and then ... make your own mind up.

My brother-in-law was in advertising for many years. He taught me that you cannot sell someone something unless they are already in the market for it. When I used to deride certain advertisements in magazines or on television he would say to me, "Yes, Alison, but they are not aimed at you. They are aimed at "As" or "Cs," not "Bs." I am not sure I was a "B" but the point is the advertising business categorises people according to things like income, education, tastes, the magazines/books/newspapers they might read etc. So for an advertisement to work on me I had to be in the market already for it (even if I didn't know I was) and it had to be aimed specifically at me.

"Come and see," says Jesus (if I have what you are looking for.)
"Come and see," says the Samaritan woman in John 4, to other people in her village after she has met Jesus.
"Come and see," says Philip to Nathaniel who has just joked, rather contemptuously, that nothing good ever comes from Nazareth (John1:43-51).

But all these people who respond to Jesus are already in the market for him whether they know it or not. Andrew and the disciple with him certainly are or they wouldn't be following Jesus. That is what makes Jesus' question so absolutely on the mark: "What are you looking for?" The Samaritan woman at the well is hungry for answers to spiritual and theological questions. Nathaniel may appear very off-hand but he is part of that friendship group that comes from Bethsaida made up of Peter, Andrew, Philip and possibly others (Jn1:44).

The invitation is to "Come and see" and when they do they are all immediately drawn to this extraordinary human being who is Jesus. But what they do not know is that what they see is just the beginning. They will see where God on earth "abides" (literally, "pitches his tent) when they "see" him with the sick, the sad and the outcast; when they "see" him teaching; when they "see" him hung on a cross; and when they "see" him with their own eyes, raised from the dead.

That invitation, "Come and see" is made to all of and this is the journey we all set out on and then see that there is more to see and more and so much more. Sharing the Good News with others need never be onerous. We don't create the market. The person is either already interested or not at all. All we have to do is issue the invitation when we think they are ready, "Come and see…Come and see for yourself if this is what you are looking for." If it is then one day they will hear what all disciples of Jesus Christ hear: another phrase that is said many times in John's Gospel, from the first to the last chapter,
"Follow me."

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