January 18, 2026 "God's Faithfulness is Nothing New"

2nd Sunday after Epiphany

Isaiah 49:1-7

Psalm 40:1-11

1 Corinthians 1:1-9

John 1:29-42

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,

 grace and peace to you from the one who is faithful Amen.

“What has been is what will be,

and what has been done is what will be done;

 there is nothing new under the sun.”

 proclaims the Teacher in Ecclesiastes (1:9),

 often quoted in times of turmoil,

sometimes as an expression of despair-

 there is nothing new under the sun,

why did we expect this time (whatever it is)

 to be any different?

 And sometimes it is quoted as an offering of hope,

 there is nothing new under the sun,

 we’ve faced this (whatever it is) before

and we made it through and we can make it through again.

As we enter into the time after Epiphany,

the time in the church year

 where the lessons seek to reveal who Jesus is,

 there is a sense of nothing new under the sun

 running through our texts for today,

the God revealed in Jesus

is consistent with what God has revealed about Godself in the past.

 Namely that God has always been concerned with the whole of creation

 and God has always brought in partner people

 to work with God on relating to and then restoring the whole of creation.

Even when God got sick of the shenanigans of people

and decided to wipe everything out with a flood and start again,

 God partnered with Noah and his family.

 Later it became Abraham and Sarah and then their descendants,

 the chosen people yes,

but chosen to be a witness for the rest of creation. 

We heard this in our reading from Isaiah this morning

 the prophet speaking as the people of Israel

about God’s call

 and how ultimately God said

“it is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

 because of this people

 “Kings shall see and stand up; princes, and they shall prostrate themselves, because of the Lord, who is faithful…”

 Partnering with Israel

is God’s way of reaching out to the whole world,

God’s salvation and special attention

come with great responsibility.

The psalmist tells a similar story,

saved by God

they proclaim “The Lord put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; many shall see, and stand in awe, and put their trust in the Lord.”

concluding that God doesn’t want acts of worship,

but rather for the goodness of God to be proclaimed for all to hear,

God didn’t save the psalmist for their sake alone

but so that even more people

 might hear of the goodness of God through the psalmist.

This theme is repeated again and again throughout scripture.

So it shouldn’t surprise us when John,

standing in that prophetic tradition

steps aside when he realizes who Jesus is,

 pointing his own followers to Jesus

 though perhaps it’s the relationship that he’s built with his followers

 that allows them to leave him

 and follow the one who he points out as the Lamb of God,

 a title that invokes God’s past faithfulness to the people.

Naming Jesus the Lamb of God

 John draws a connection to God’s past liberating actions

 on behalf of the people,

the Israelites enslaved in Egypt

 saved by the blood of the lamb painted on the door posts

so that the angel of death would pass over them

 and as a whole preserved community

God then led them out of slavery into freedom.

 Indeed in the gospel of John

Jesus will be crucified on the day the passover lambs are slaughtered,

the new passover lamb.

But that’s a ways off,

right now we’re still at the beginning

 but the connection,

 something

 is compelling enough for the disciples to follow.

“The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by he exclaimed, ‘look, here is the Lamb of God! The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.”

Not necessarily remarkable given the circumstances

but what is remarkable I think

is what happens next,

 Jesus asks them what they are looking for,

 and maybe they can’t quite articulate it,

or perhaps they’ve realized

 that they’ve found what they’re looking for

 but how do you say that?

 Or now that they’ve found the one they’re looking for,

 they don’t want to let him out of their sight,

 so they respond “Rabbi, where are you staying? He said to them, ‘Come and see.’”

he invites them along,

 God once again partnering with people,

 and the results are almost instantaneous,

Andrew goes and tells his brother Simon

 “We have found the Messiah”

and brings him to Jesus who renames him Peter,

 the same Peter who will go on to preach a sermon on Pentecost

after which 3,000 more disciples will join the movement

 but again that comes much later,

after the disciples have followed Jesus,

 remained with him,

 heard his teaching,

experienced his healing,

 after they have seen him so faithful to his call as the Lamb of God

that he goes to the cross,

 after Mary brings them strange news from the garden three days later,

 after Jesus appears to the disciples even through the doors are locked,

 after the Spirit blows them outside and makes them the latest partners of God

 who continues to be faithful to all creation.

But first

the invitation,

come and see.

It’s a simple invitation,

 one that all of us received at one point in our lives,

 for many of us it was from our parents

who brought us to the font and the community that gathers in God’s name,

 they made sure we came and saw.

For some it was grandparents,

 for some a friend,

sometimes it starts out as a longing for something

 like the disciples following John then Jesus

but even then somewhere in that search

 someone paused and issued the invitation: come and see.

 Whatever way we came to Jesus,

we did,

and what we found was most of all

a God who is faithful,

concerned with the well-being of all creation,

who refuses to give up,

 and who calls us into partnership,

nothing new under the sun,

 and yet so compelling

 that we each in our own way

 join with God in working for the well being of all creation,

starting with an invitation to those we encounter:

come and see. Amen