This was the answer Jesus gave to the two disciples, Peter, and Andrew, when they asked him: “Rabbi (teacher), where are you staying?” Jesus told them: “Come and you will see!”
Follow me and I will show you where I stay. This is the literal meaning of the answer of Jesus. In the ordinary circumstances of our daily lives, we do not really look for deeper meanings or we do not really “read between the lines” because things like these come at the later part of the conversation or show.
So, the disciples saw where Jesus was staying, and they stayed with him on that day, and they became his disciples. We can only wish to receive such an invitation from Jesus himself.
“Come and see!” This is an invitation for you and me and all of us who believe in Christ Jesus. But it is never easy to do and respond to this simple invitation. It will never be easy especially for us, people of this modern and materialistic generation.
To be able to come to Christ, we must learn how to detach ourselves from our previous direction, which is usually focused on all the worldly things and enticements. We must be ready to re-focus ourselves and direct our attention, if not our whole life, to Christ. We must also be ready to walk down the road which led him to the cross. And so, coming to him alone is not easy.
If we will only stop for a while and reflect on all the events and happenings in our life, we will surely discover that there are a lot of obstacles for us to be able to come to Christ. We all know that this world has its own magic to keep us focused and even fight for what is worldly, the exact opposite of what our Lord has in mind. And since we are but weak human beings, our perennial excuse is this innate weakness and error-prone selves. It has become an age-old alibi, instead of accepting it as a challenge to our faith and eventually renew our lives and follow Christ and come to him.
So, how can we be near Christ as his disciples? On our own, we know we cannot do it. With the grace of God and with the help of our brothers and sisters who are also trying their best to follow Christ, I am sure we can improve and get closer and closer to Jesus one step at a time. Let me just remind you that doing this will require a lot of our effort because salvation is not a gift which is freely given for all to enjoy.
If ever we succeed in coming to Christ because we finally learned to live our lives away from the allurements of this world, that will be the time for us to see him, look at him, and learn from him. We are not expected to just see him and acknowledge his presence. As followers of Christ, we must learn from him and, eventually imitate him, lest our seeing him falls back to nothing.
However, it is a pity that our expected guides to come and to see Jesus are also blind and worthless guides. I can bet that you know what I mean. This is now the time for you to read between the lines. Most of them had their eyes focused only on the gloss and glitters of money and power. Some of them even have the guts of making money out of their ministry as priests and guides for people who got lost along the way. This is something that we must accept because this is real. But we cannot just accept things like these without doing something to correct what has gone wrong. It is our duty and obligation to do what must be done so that justice may reign in our midst. Anyway, one final reminder, do not forget about the reality of heaven and the reality of hell. How I wish and pray that you do not go to the deepest deep of hell because of your insatiable thirst for money.