Epiphany 2 Year A – John 1:29-42 (Narrative sermon – Andrew)I’d been one of his disciples for such a long time, followed where he had gone, and like so many others, at the back of my mind, I always wondered was he the one?But John was always pointing away from himself and to another. It certainly wasn’t always clear at first who that other was, or even might be, I don’t even know if John always knew himself, just that he was there to prepare the way for him.The Jews in Jerusalem would send priests and Levites to ask him outright, who he was, and John was absolutely adamant, I am not the Christ, he would exclaim, neither was he Elijah, and as the argument would intensify, he would just say ‘among you stands one you do not know, he is the one whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.’I was there of course, on that day, when there was this strange encounter on the riverbank, when John was completely stopped in his tracks, by this man who came to be baptised. John tried deter him, saying ‘I need to be baptised by you, and do you come to me?’I couldn’t quite understand what he meant, and yet, the man insisted claiming it was proper to fulfil all righteousness, and so John consented.By this time, having followed John the Baptist, for so long, I had seen so many baptisms, he wasn’t called John the Baptist for no good reason, that to be honest, they mostly all melded into one, but this one was completely different.As the man came up out of the river, it was as if the heavens opened, and the Holy spirit descended on this man like a dove and there was this thunderous voice from heaven, saying, ‘This is my Son, who I love, with him I am well pleased.’All, completely out of the ordinary … other worldly you might say … pointing to something, but I couldn’t quite work it out, not then at least. And to be honest, everything seemed to go quiet again after that. It was a day I will never forget, but as quickly as he had appeared, the man disappeared again, weeks had passed by, but it was as if he had completely vanished. There were rumours of course, some said he had simply walked off into the desert alone, no food, no drink …. and he hadn’t been heard of since. Foolishness, the desert was no place for an unprepared man.I wondered what it was all about … And then, just like that there he was again, just walking towards us and John simply said ‘Look! the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.’I couldn’t even begin to imagine then, what John meant by that, only that he seemed be referring to sacrifice, God’s ultimate sacrifice perhaps. It was only much later, that I would truly see what John meant, as Jesus hung on the cross, to take away the sins of the whole world.John did say more of course, talked about the one who would come after him, that would be greater than him and then he talked about the day he had baptised the man he referred to as, the lamb of God, and I think I knew then, that I simply had to find out more for myself, but as is so often the case, I had missed my chance … the man was gone … I didn’t know where he had gone to, or how long he might disappear for this time and so I had to hope, that I would see him once again, that I hadn’t completely missed my opportunity.And so when the very next day, it happened again, Jesus, passed by and John again said, look, the lamb of God, I knew it was my time, I couldn’t, I wouldn’t, let another opportunity pass me by.I had to know what this all meant for me, for you, for everyone. I didn’t go alone, but it was just the two of us.And as we followed, Jesus turned and asked us ‘what do you want?’ But perhaps it was the way he asked the question, if felt much deeper than simply ‘what did we want?’ as if we wanted something physical. It was as if he was inviting us to examine the very depths of our hearts and to see and to bear witness to our deepest earnings.So, what did we want deep down?For me, I think it was answers … to find the truth … some sort of revelation, a moment of Epiphany if you like … after all that is what I had been seeking all those years, following John the Baptist, and I think my friend felt the same way too.But, well, I didn’t say that, neither did my friend, we simply responded in true rabbinic fashion, after all, this was our tradition, we answered his question, by asking another …. ‘where are you staying?’This was really not a question about location … although I guess it sounds like it was …. We didn’t really want to know where he was living, or indeed where he had disappeared to over the last few weeks … it was more about where he abided, where we may come to be present with him. And to this he simply gave an invitation …. ‘Come and you will see.’ Simple yes, invitational yes, but with this invitation also came a choice and a challenge. I knew in that invitation, that if we were to come and see, we had to be open to the possibility of seeing something new. Something that we had to be willing to see, to open our eyes to, and be willing to look at, even if it what we saw, was something we had never seen before.But I was ready, I was open … I was longing to see who this man Jesus really was.And so we followed, we went and we saw.And as we did, it was as if, the scales were removed from my eyes, and I began to really see Jesus for who he truly was, the one we had been waiting for, the Messiah.I did get my epiphany moment.And so, I did the only thing that seemed natural to me at the time.What else could I do?This was such good news, I could hardly keep it to myself.I went to find my brother Simon …. And I told him ‘We have found the Messiah, or in other words the Christ. And I took Simon to see Jesus too.And as Jesus looked upon my brother, my impetuous, often hot-headed brother, it was as if Jesus could see right through him, into the person none us even knew existed, I doubt if Simon even knew the man that Jesus saw.Jesus, renamed him on the spot, Simon, son of John, you will be called ‘Cephas’, which means Peter or the rock.It would be a while before he lived into his new name, but Jesus knew the man he would become, as he does with each and everyone one of us, he knew Peter really would become the rock on which the church was built. Come and you will see – that is all Jesus said to me, to my friend. A simple invitation. Come and see – how we respond, well that is up to us. But when we have truly seen Jesus for ourselves, then what choice do we really have, other than that we go and tell others to come and see him for themselves too.
