FC Burkitt’s claim in his preface to Schweitzer’s The Quest for the Historical Jesus, that Christianity is at a crossroads (Schweitzer, 2005), is relevant as much today as it was when he first made his observation over a 100 years ago.

For a young adult, what does it mean to be a Christian today, and how does one even understand Christ, in order to build a lifelong relationship with him? Why is this even important? Who is this ‘Son of Man’ that the New Testament keeps referring to? What was he like? What was his message to humankind?

The life of Christ seems like a protean myth which keeps shape-shifting, depending on which school of thought one refers to. Is it really dishonest to question what we have been given to believe as true? Why then do religious denominations swear the truth of their own individual interpretations of the personage and message of Christ? Each of these interpretations has at least one point of conflict with the other, if not many. Some that would probably astonish Christ himself. Do they not hence, inadvertently, deny the fundamental truth of their faith through dichotomous interpretations that only confuse the young seeker?

The Christ of history seems to battle with the Christ of dogma!

“Whom, then, do you seek?” – a question that pops up at three important points in the life of Christ narrated in the Gospel of John.

A philosophical contemplation of the ‘good life’, more fashionably expressed as eudemonia in an Aristotelian sense of human ethics, has been examined over time and interpreted by many. More recently Csikszentmihalyi through his idea of ‘flow’ (Beck, 1992) or staying ‘in the moment’ examined how, through mindfulness, we can flourish as individuals and communities. For Zen monks, being ‘in the moment’ allows the ‘present moment’ to become a ‘wonderful moment’ (in the words of the Vietnamese monk, Thich Nhat Hanh (Hanh, 2002). Hanh also inspired Martin Luther King Jr. in his non-violent struggle against the inequity of civil rights and how these inequities are interpreted by various custodians who hold authority in deciding how mankind must organise themselves. A similar theme resonates very strongly with Dr B. R. Ambedkar where an incisive and dignified appeal is made to human reason expressed in the text of his speech titled ‘ (Ambedkar, 2015); one which never got delivered and which stands out as a tragic testament to the annihilation of truth by the speech reviewers who eventually revoked Dr Ambedkar’s invitation fearful of society taking offence to the material. The speech, now considered a definitive piece of writing on social inequity, simply attempted to propose a truthful aspiration for human society where one can, in a Shakespearean sense, shuffle off the archaic coils that continue to fetter the human soul in bondage.

Why must my liberty be judged by another man’s conscience?, asks the philosopher Paul in his letter to the people of Corinth in Greece (1Cor. 10:28-30). If I aspire to be a partaker through the power of grace, why must I be evil spoken of, for those things which I consider ‘my right’, as a person only desiring for all of humankind to live equitably in the truth of our essence?

How does the individual seek the immanent self and construct a personal identity that shapes an equitable condition for personal and social flourishing?

In this brief essay, I examine 3 crucial moments in the life of Christ, from the Book of John – a spiritual text in the New Testament which examines the question of human identity, where a singular question asked on three separate occasions breaks new ground for those to whom the question is directed.

In the Gospel of John, when the curious followers of his cousin, John the Baptist, meet him, Christ asks them, “What seek ye?’”(John 1:38). The words are uttered again to Judas and the band of soldiers who come to arrest Christ towards the end of his earthly ministry, “Whom seek ye?” (John 18:4). Mary Magdalene is astonished and dumbfounded when the same existential question is put to her by a risen Christ, a third and final time (John 20:15). A question that once again brings her face to face with her destiny.

In the first instance, for the followers of John, a certain curiosity leads them to approach Christ and encounter this question. A young Christ has recently begun his ministry. He is just about reintroduced to us in his adulthood. For the followers of John,  he could potentially be the One who can show them a pathway to redemption. A man of wisdom and spirit. The Messiah that they have been waiting for. This ‘seeking’ by John’s followers is anticipatory and open to testing. Is this Man worthy of being followed?

Christ responds with “Come and see” – an open invitation to explore and reflect on the nature of Christhood. ‘Come and see’, is not ‘Do or believe this because I say this’. ‘Come and see’ invites the follower to use the power of personal reflection and a spirit of inquiry, all of which distils into an abundance of faith held through human experience. It is an invitation to walk on water. To surmount our struggles and walk above them. ‘Little faith’ will only enable little steps before we sink back into the depths of our struggle, like the disciple Peter experiences and where Christ rebukes him for being ‘of little faith’. To rise up and walk requires faith to transform the surface of our lake of fears into solid ground. For Peter, his faith is tested many times with a climactic culmination when he encounters a risen Christ on the road he takes to escape from Rome, where he has been preaching the good news. ‘Quo Vadis?’ (Marlowe, 2004)  Or “Where goes thou?”, Peter asks Christ. “To Rome to be crucified again,” Christ responds. Peter must turn back and confront his destiny. In doing so, he becomes like Christ.

For the followers of John the Baptist,  this invitation to ‘come and see’ creates an opportunity to release themselves from an aimless life and explore new possibilities.

“Whom seek ye?” For the soldiers of the Sanhedrin (the religious body which governed the Jews) who have come to apprehend Christ, the question is specific and corporeal. Christ follows it with ‘I am he’. For the soldiers, there is no ambivalence or metaphysical expounding here. Unlike with the followers of John the Baptist, the identification here is temporal. It is enough for them to complete their mission, head back to the Sanhedrin, report to the top religious bosses, deposit Christ into their custody, and get on with their lives. A procedural transaction. For Judas, the disciple who betrays Christ, this becomes a turning point. Christ observes that the human condition is such that offence must come into human thought and action, both of which are free agencies given to man. But woe to the one through whom such offence comes. One may argue that there is an Aristotelian tragic element in Judas’ offence. Judas’ hamartia or tragic flaw eventually leads him to his death in the ‘field of blood’, an empty wasteland that was purchased with the proverbial 30 pieces of silver that he received for his role in Christ’s apprehension.

The question ‘whom seek ye?’ which ends the soldiers’ enterprise, as well as that of Judas, is but an extraordinary starting point for a journey that the followers of the Baptist are invited to. Because from the preliminary ‘what seek ye?’, follows ‘come and see’, after which comes the fateful call to ‘follow me’. A potential release from an aimless life (what seek ye?), an exploration of new possibilities (come and see), finally leads to the acquisition of a clear purpose (follow me).

“Woman…whom seekest thou?“

The third and final time Christ poses this question. There is an aesthetic beauty in the imagery of this ethereal encounter between the woman and her Master. Weeping outside the burial tomb, Magdalene mistakes Christ for the gardener because ‘they have taken her lord away from her’. A distraught Magdalene weeps at her loss. She fears that even in death, her Master has been desecrated. But the risen Christ is standing there, right before her. He calls out her name. She recognises him and exclaims ‘Rabboni’ (Master)! It would have been a moment of astonishment and fulfilled devotion for her to take refuge in the risen Christ. Her moment of ignorance is discharged when Christ reveals himself to her and she comes face-to-face with the essence of her risen Rabboni.

This leaves us the possibility of a question that Christ poses for the seeker. ‘Who or what is it that ye seek?, Would you like to come and see? Would you engage in this dialectic with yourself as a personal meditation and see where it leads you?’.

Works Cited

Ambedkar, B. (2015). Annihilation of Caste : The Annotated Critical Edition. Navayana.

Beck, L. A. (1992). Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. (1990). Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience. Journal of Leisure Research, 24(1), 93–94. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222216.1992.11969876

Hanh, T. N. (2002). Present Moment Wonderful Moment: Mindfulness Verses for Daily Living. Parallax Press.

Marlowe, M. (2004). Quo Vadis? A Sermon on the Pericope Adulterae. Retrieved from Bible Research: https://www.bible-researcher.com/quovadis.html

Schweitzer, A. (2005). The quest for the historical Jesus. Dover Publications.

The New Testament (books)