Come and see Jesus

Nathanael must have been a thinking skeptic. Maybe he was the kind of guy who organized everything—mentally and physically. You know the type. A place for everything, and everything in its place. He wasn’t going to be taken in by emotionalism or hype. He was the sort of guy who hung back and studied the situation before making any kind of decision. His friend Philip knew better than to give Nathanael the hard sell. “We’ve found the One the prophets wrote about,” he said. “His name is Jesus, and He’s from Nazareth.” When Nathanael asked whether any good thing could come out of a place like Nazareth, Philip simply said, “Come and see.”

Where Jesus is concerned, “come and see” is an unbeatable invitation. Because He draws men to Himself, and His winsomeness is irresistible. Seeing Jesus—the real Jesus—is the most compelling argument that exists for Christianity. (Or, as one of my sons says, “There’s only one good reason for being a Christian…and that’s Jesus.”)

I once shared Christ with a man who was a Nathanael-type. I offered him books by C. S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer and other brilliant apologists, but it seemed all he wanted to do was debate. Finally, I took him to see the stained glass windows of our church. We walked around the outside of the building , and looked at all the windows. “What do you think?” I asked him. “They’re actually not that impressive,” he said. “I couldn’t agree with you more,” I told him. “Now, let’s go inside.” When we arrived in the sanctuary, the lights were not on. Instead, the sunlight was pouring through the windows, illuminating their absolute beauty. “That’s the way it is trying to know God and Christ from the outside looking in,” I told him. “The step of faith that brings you inside is the one that illumines your darkness.”