What Are You Looking For?

A sermon for the second Sunday after the Epiphany
January 18, 2026, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR

Readings: Isaiah 49:1-7; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42; Psalm 40:1-12

“What do you seek?” Erika stood at the front of the chapel with a group of fellow university students around her on the first Sunday of the spring semester. The priest had asked the question: “what do you seek?” The students were part of a Catechumenate class, a time of preparation for Confirmation offered by the Episcopal campus ministry. Erika, like many in that group in front of the priest, had not grown up Episcopalian. She had shown up in college, and she felt drawn to Confirmation, to a mature, public affirmation of faith. Classes would begin later on in the week, but on that day, a Sunday morning, she and her fellow seekers stood before the priest to officially begin the process. He asked, “what do you seek?” Luckily for them, the answer was provided in the bulletin. Liturgical churches are helpful in that way. The group answered as one: “Life in Christ.” It’s a good answer. To Erika, it felt honest, but she needed to put some meat on it, to understand it for herself. She was looking for Christ–or at least a new way of knowing him. 

Erika is in good company today. We find ourselves, again, at the Jordan River with John the Baptist. “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” he cries today. He has to say it a couple days in a row before people get the idea. Look! he cries–the Lamb of God! Finally his disciples get the picture. They leave John and go after Jesus. Like that priest in front of Erika, Jesus turns around and asks them a simple question: “What are you looking for?” Unlike Erika, the disciples don’t have a bulletin. They stumble for an answer. So they ask Jesus where he’s staying–or where does he abide? “Come and see,” he answers. It’s the start of their journey. Little do they know at this point, but Jesus will soon abide in them, and they in him. 

Andrew and the other disciple: What are you looking for? They stumble for an answer today, but they must have known. After all, Andrew tells his brother Simon Peter shortly thereafter, “we have found the Messiah.” He must have been looking for the Messiah. Like them, Erika was looking for the Messiah, too. The real deal. She had grown up with a vision of Jesus, one more often created in the image of the day’s politics and culture wars than anything else. That wasn’t the Messiah she needed. That Messiah does not save. 

“What are you looking for?” Andrew tells his brother they found the real deal. Erika hoped–I once hoped–that she had found the real deal, too. A Jesus she could know in Scripture, in tradition, and in reason. A Jesus she could meet in prayer and in community. A Jesus who cared more for the marginalized and the oppressed than the powerful. A Jesus who was less concerned with a presidential candidate than the person cold on the streets, or hungry at home, or lonely and afraid. A Jesus who could heal, who could bridge untenable divides, who draws all people (no matter who they are) to himself. That’s the Jesus she wanted. That’s the Jesus I wanted and want still. When Erika answered that day, “life in Christ,” that’s what she meant. 

The most dangerous thing we can do is create Jesus in our own image. It’s popular today–it’s popular in all times. When we create Jesus in our own image–the image of our culture, our politics, our preferences–we end up, not with the Messiah, but a puffed up image of self masquerading in religious language. We end up with a Christianity more concerned with political litmus tests than the cross, a Christianity more concerned with gaining power than the commands to love all and to serve the poor. We end up with a Christianity whose message of salvation is not about grace, but about political platforms. We forget that the real Kingdom of God is one without boundary or border, one that transcends space and time, one for all people (even our enemies),one of love and justice and peace. 

“What are you looking for?” Like Erika, I’m not looking for Jesus on my own terms. I’m looking for the Messiah. I’m looking for the Kingdom of Heaven that breaks out even now. I’m looking for the One who has promised to make all things–even me–new in the light of his peace. I’m looking to repent of who I am so that I can be changed into who he is. I’m looking for a life of prayer rooted in a real-life community of people who haven’t figured everything out yet (that’s you all, by the way). I hope you’re looking for that, too. 

What are you looking for? What do you seek? If it’s life in Christ, welcome. You will find that here as the prayers are prayed and the hymns are sung, as the Word of God is broken open, as the Body and Blood of Christ are shared. You will find that here as we embrace one another for who we really are–sinners who have received grace upon grace, who know the forgiveness of sin and the love of God. You will find that here, with the help of the Holy Spirit, as we serve the vulnerable in Jesus’s name, as we welcome children, as we love the sick and lonely, as we seek out the ones the world takes advantage of. You will find life in Christ here as a gift from God for you–not because you deserve it, but because God loves you. 

You will find life in Christ here. Come and see.