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Sorry I have been away from the blog for a couple weeks, I will blame my absence on the busy holiday season. The text for this week is John 1:29-42. (I’ll trust you to read before moving along)
I am not a big fan of John’s Gospel, mostly because John seems to ramble on and on in his stories. Of all the Gospels, John by far has the most extended conversations between Jesus and other people. And very often in those conversations Jesus bounces around in his subject matter. As a person raised on TV, I enjoy the other gospels much better, because those have a lot more “action” that John’s Gospel.
This week’s text, however, is an exception to John’s normal ramble. Instead, there seems to be a lot of action and very little talking. Lots of verbs that denote doing: looking, seeing, hearing, following. And in what might be Jesus’ shortest conversation, at least in the book of John: “What are you looking for?” (Jesus)..”Rabbi, where are you staying?” (2 disciples of John)..”Come and see” (Jesus)
These first words of Jesus in John’s Gospel speak to the deepest question of life: “What are you looking for?” What do you want out of life, I think Jesus is asking. What is most important to you? And in their response, these 2 disciples of John the Baptist seem to move into a whole different conversation: “Where are you staying?” “Come and see,” Jesus tells them, and the text says that they stayed with Jesus that day. That’s it. For once I wish John had gone on in his rambling conversations of Jesus, but we don’t read anything about what they talked about at wherever it was Jesus was staying. (although John does share that “It was about four o’clock in the afternoon”. And I am sure that John, being the master of double meanings in his gospel, has some deep reason for this little tidbit of time, but I sure can’t decipher it)
Could it be, that when Jesus asks the most important question of life, these two disciples of John the Baptist don’t really want answers? Could it be that they just want to be with Jesus?
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i wish you were into matthew
Comment by Audrey Connor January 10, 2011 @ 11:59 amI am going to take a stab at this. Could it be that Andrew and Peter saw the heavens open up and proclaim Jesus as His Son? Maybe only Andrew, Peter, and John had this epiphany and they said, “wow, did you see that?” Who wouldn’t want to get to know this individual? He would be a good person to get to know given the great voice from heaven proclaimed him. It has always seemed interesting to me that after this miracle, nothing happened. Wouldn’t the whole world have noticed a split in the sky and heard the voice? So, I would posit that Andrew and Peter and John needed to learn more, and not rely on a feeling…they were curious.
Comment by Robert Orr January 10, 2011 @ 5:24 pm