When you were a kid did you ever toss a
stone or rock into a pond? What is created from that action, ripples? How far
do they travel? If we take the time to notice we’ll see that the little waves
generated by the rock hitting the water travel all the way to the shore. The
waves keep going until they run into something solid. The energy created by the
rock keeps going until it is transferred somewhere else.
Last week we remembered and celebrated
Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist at
the Jordan River. Today’s gospel lesson from John tells us Jesus went back to
the river and there John gives testimony that Jesus is the One they’ve been
waiting for, the Messiah.
Because he testifies that Jesus is the
Messiah two of John’s disciples leave him and follow Jesus. Jesus notices and
stops and asks them what they want. They reply that they want to know where
he’s staying. So, he invites them to follow him and they spend the afternoon
with him. Then they go back home.
It doesn’t end there. Andrew, one of
the disciples, goes to his brother, Simon, and tells him they have found the
Messiah. The next day they go back to where Jesus is and Jesus gives Simon a
new name, Cephas (Peter). And the reading for today ends there but that’s not
the end of the story, is it.
In the gospel of John we read that he
goes back to the river and he invites Philip to follow him. And Philip went to
find his friend Nathanael and invited him to come and see the Messiah.
Nathanael was skeptical. He didn’t believe a rabbi could come from the small
village of Nazareth.
Jesus’ said, as he approached, “There’s
a real Israelite, not a false bone in his body.” Of course Nathanael wanted to
know why he said that and Jesus told him how he’d observed him beneath the fig
tree. That’s all it took. He was convinced that Jesus was the One, the Messiah
everyone had been waiting for. So, he followed him.
These men were the first called by
Jesus to follow him. They stayed with him until he was arrested and taken away
to be crucified. They committed their
lives to being his disciples.
Because they wanted to be like Jesus
and learn everything he had to teach them we are here this morning listening to
the Word being read and the Message being proclaimed.
God cast a rock, Jesus, into the pool
of humanity and the ripples are still being carried to the distant corners of
the world. The energy created when Jesus began his ministry still hasn’t
dissipated. I don’t believe it ever will.
I may need to qualify that statement.
It never will as long as there are people committed to giving their testimony
to others who may be skeptical like Nathanael.
If the Story quits being shared I can’t
imagine what God will do then. Maybe that will be when Jesus will return. I
wonder.
I want to go back to the part of the
story where Andrew and his friend follow Jesus. Have you ever wondered why they
would leave John and follow Jesus? What prompted them to do that?
Jesus and his disciples were all from
Galilee. In Acts, when the Holy Spirit descends on the disciples gathered in
the upper room, the disciples begin to speak in different languages and the
people outside cannot understand how they knew how to do that because they were
all Galileans. They implied that people from Galilee weren’t intelligent enough
to learn other languages.
Actually the opposite was true. Galilee
produced most of the rabbis how taught in the temple of Jerusalem and in the
synagogues in the villages. All the boys and girls went to school to study the
Torah, to memorize it word for word. Then at about 10 or 12 the girls stayed
home to learn how to keep house and the boys continued to study.
If they were the best of the best of
the Beth Midrash then they would seek a rabbi they respected and wanted to
learn from. They’d ask to follow him.
These young men were called the talmidim. They would leave everything
they had and follow the rabbi so that they could learn to be like him. They
listened, they watched, and they imitated their rabbi. The talmid wanted to be
exactly like their rabbi.
If they were dedicated and disciplined
enough they would become teachers themselves and pass along what they had
learned from their rabbi.
Now we understand why Jesus’ disciples
dropped their nets and left their families to follow him. They called Jesus
‘Rabbi’ out of respect for him as a person and a great teacher.
Jesus had such a huge following because
he fit the description of a 1st century rabbi who was at the most
advance level of learning. They were many talmidim who wanted to learn from
him. That’s another reason why there were so many around him when he was
teaching on the mountain or at the lake. And that’s why the Pharisees were so
afraid of him.
He taught like someone who had received
training from the best of the best. That’s why they questioned by what
authority he taught because there were many who had his knowledge of the
scriptures.
And that’s why people still gather in
worship to hear the lessons from the Scriptures. They desire to learn from
Jesus. They want to hear again his word. They want to imitate him, to be like
him.
And when they learn it all they will
teach others. They will give testimony and the ripples will continue until
everyone has heard the Story of God’s love for the world in Jesus, the Christ.
