Prayer

Lord as we ponder your words open our hearts that we may understand and know you. Amen 

Sermon    

     I can imagine one of the joys parenting is having your child come bursting into the room overflowing with excitement just grabbing your hand and squealing  come and see come and see.  You follow with a touch of anticipation sharing in your child’s joy but with an equal measure of “can anything good come of this”   What will you find. A wonderful picture or your youngest child covered in glue stick and glitter.  

Philip is called by Jesus, and Philip is so excited about this He goes to find his bestey Nathanael.   Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” And now one of my favorite lines because it is so human.   Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”  Like a parent taking the hand of their child to go see some wonder with a certain amount of expectation to finding a disaster Nathanael says fine, leaving his rather comfortable spot under the fig tree he goes to see. 

     The excitement of something new is held in that phrase “come and see”  It speaks of accomplishment, or discovery.  It speaks of witness.

There is something in us that want’s to be seen, that says come and see.  See what I have done. That desire for affirmation.  More so than ever due to social media one could say this has almost for some become the only way of measuring self worth.   The idea of the private person is lost in the soul bearing posts of Facebook or Instagram.  People come and see, see me and like me, follow me. If I get so many likes or follows I win Silver, or gold or Diamond or dream beyond dream Red Diamond.  The fragile human ego hangs by the thread of a Like and subscribe.  

 Just recently a Medieval wall paintings that had been hidden for almost 300 years was uncovered by builders working in a roof space at a Cambridge University college England.

The artworks were found during restoration work at Christ's College.

The paintings celebrated the royal patron of Christ's College during the early 16th Century.

The college was first established as God's House in 1437 before moving to its present site in 1448. It was re-founded as Christ's College in 1505 by Henry VII's mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort.

"A powerful and pious woman, with a keen interest in scholarship, Lady Margaret left her indelible mark on the college," Dr Faraday the University Historian  said. "The wall paintings are an early example of her family's savvy use of visual 'branding' even beyond the royal court.

"Henry VII had a very weak claim to the throne but became adept at using visual symbols like this to promote his kingship.

"The motifs continue to be tied up with the college's identity to this day, but as an early example of Tudor 'marketing', the wall paintings demonstrate the long history of something we think of as a modern phenomenon.

"Such survivals are extremely unusual."

The desire for likes in social media is not new, just different.