How A Narrative Text, Which Pastor Figured Was Just A Bridge To The Next Piece, is Actually Filled With Connections and Ties

March 2, 2021                         John 1: 38-42

³⁵The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, ³⁶and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!”  ³⁷The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. ³⁸When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” ³⁹He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. ⁴⁰One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. ⁴¹He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). ⁴²He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

            My initial thought was to divide this portion into two, the first being the disciples following Jesus, and the second about Andrew’s introduction to Jesus of his brother.  But the action flows in such a straightforward manner that I thought these would make for two overly brief posts on the blog.

            I read the first verse and it strikes me that Jesus heard John talking about him as he walked on by. What we do not know is how often the two of them might have been meeting at this point.  John the baptizer led off Jesus' ministry, it would make sense that the two would have something to share.  It would also make sense for John’s disciples, who have been hearing his ministry of preparation for the Messiah, to wonder about exactly who John had been extolling. 

            A question that I have had is why John the baptizer did not take the lead in folding his own ministry into that of Jesus?  Jesus is the Messiah.  John has been very clear that this is what God had directed his ministry of baptism by water to reveal-who the Messiah was.  But that is not God’s call for him.  From this point, John is going to become more involved in a ministry of public accountability.  He will publicly denounce the King and his extra-marital, indeed, familial infidelities. 

            So if John is not going to follow Jesus himself, it does make sense to me that from among his followers, there are those he would point in Jesus’ direction to do so.  These two in particular he singles out so that he can point Jesus out to them.  And they followed him.  This passage opens as Jesus realizes he is being followed and asks them straight up, “What are you looking for?”  They respond that they are looking for a ‘rabbi’, they are looking for a Teacher, which is one of the titles of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

            For me, that signals these two were looking for what John had been preaching about.  They were looking for the one that fulfilled John’s ministry.  So they ask, “Where are you staying?”  Thus they can find him again.  Instead, Jesus issues an invitation, “Come and see.”  They ended up back at his ‘hotel’ and spent the day with him.  What were they doing this whole time?  Well, if Jesus is a teacher, my assumption is he was teaching them.  And something must have stuck. 

            At four o’clock, one of John’s former disciples, identified as Andrew, was convinced.  He went to find his brother, Simon, telling him “We have found the Messiah.”  The parenthetical note is that Messiah is translated ‘Anointed’ (ANOINTED, see note below).  It is a translation.  “Messiah” is a Hebrew word, so now translated into Greek, the language of the New Testament, and we know that word, “Christ”. (TRANSLATION, see note below). So if you whack your finger with a hammer and exclaim “Jesus Christ!”, you are exclaiming “Jesus the Anointed!”  His baptism, where the Spirit came down upon him, that is Jesus’ Anointing by God for the work of Messiah.

            This is how Andrew led in his outreach to his brother.  Now the gospel identifies him as “Simon Peter”, a name change, which is what the readers would know him as.  But the story of that name change is about to take place.  If we were writing this today, the rule of thumb, I believe, would be to keep a bit of tension in the story.  Refer to Andrew’s brother by his former name up until the change comes about.  By calling him Simon Peter at the front of these verses, it is like a spoiler for what is to come. 

            Irrespective, Simon is brought to Jesus and Jesus changes his name, (POWER OF NAMING, see note below) or, what I think, is to give him a nickname.  “Simon, son of John, I will call you Cephas”.  Which again, in the Greek, translates to “Peter”.  The reason I suspect it might be a nickname is because “Peter” means ‘Rock’, and Jesus will play on words at least once in using that name.  It is the origin of one of Ultron’s quotes in the second Avengers movie, “Upon this rock (Peter), I will build my church.”  Peter becomes a leader of the disciples, gets the keys to the car…er…keys to the Kingdom.  He is recognized as the first Pope.  So maybe Simon basically becomes known as “Rocky” after this moment with Jesus.

Notes:

ANOINTED: This is a practice from the Old Testament where the leadership of the people was anointed.  When Aaron was made the first High Priest in the Torah, he was anointed to that position.  Samuel, the final judge, would anoint first Saul, and then David, to become the king of God’s people.  In the Anointing comes the ceremonial marking of God for this person to have authority in God’s name.  Given that most Christians think “Christ” is somehow Jesus’ family name, understanding that “Jesus Christ” really means “Jesus the Anointed”, it is a constant reminder that Jesus has been set aside by God.

TRANSLATION: So a couple of terms in here have been ‘translated’.  Messiah is translated to Anointed, the Greek for ‘Anointed’ being ‘Christ’.  And Simon’s new name, Cephas is translated to Peter.  “Messiah” is a Hebrew term translated into the Greek.  “Cephas” is an Aramaic name translated into the Greek.  I believe this was done by John the gospel writer because “Christ” and “Peter” would have been the familiar words to his readers, especially those outside Israel.  Greek was the common language of the Roman Empire, known throughout.  Hebrew was the “holy” language of the Jews, spoken but also the script for what we know as the Old Testament-something of a language of the religious elite.  Aramaic was the local language spoken among the people.  In these deliberate translations, we get a sense of the audience that John the gospel writer is reaching out toward, as outlined in Acts, the church spreading out into the Roman Empire.

POWER OF NAMING: God’s Name is so holy that, although there is a way to write it in Hebrew, “YHWH” when transliterated into English, it was written in such a way that whenever a Jewish leader is reading from Hebrew Bible-the Old Testament-that person will know NOT to read the name out loud, but rather say the word “Adonai”, which means Lord.  A convention in the English translations of the Old Testament is that when you read LORD in all caps, the underlying Hebrew word is YHWH, the unspoken name of God.  “Jehovah” derives from that from the Latin, the “J” taking over for the “Y” and the “V” taking over for the “W”.

Naming is so important, it is in the Ten Commandments, “Thou Shalt Not Take the Name of the Lord Thy God in Vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His Name in Vain”.  This is probably referring directly to YHWH, but God’s Name was important enough to make promises by.

In the Garden of Eden, Adam was tasked with naming all the animals.  The implication is that ‘thus he named them, thus they shall forever be known’.  This is when a suitable partner was being sought for him.  Adam’s last ‘naming’ was of his partner. 

To name something is to take control of it.  The most powerful example of this is in the founding of God’s people.  Those we know as Abraham and Sarah were originally known as Abram and Sarai (transliterations into the English).  With the prophet Hosea, God commanded the names of his children as part of his prophetic work.  We see it in the New Testament as well, the Apostle Paul had his name changed by Jesus from “Saul”. 

Names in the Bible also pretty much ALWAYS mean something, often in relation to the person being named.

Now, there is a flip side to this.  In literature, there is the concept of the True Name.  To know the True Name of something or someone is a power that can be exploited, in some mystical way.  I have seen that mostly in ‘high fantasy’ or ‘magical’ based fiction.  This idea goes way back and has some origins in the idea of God’s True Name.  We get a hint of that in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” where Harrison Ford, as Indiana Jones, talks about God’s Name (but in a completely erroneous way).

            Wow, so this was originally going to be a ‘shorter’ entry.  It is amazing what happens when you start digging into God’s Word. 

Pastor Pete