Sermon for the Feast of St. Andrew

admin | 30 November 2012

“We have found the Messiah (which is being interpreted, the Christ)”

These are the words of Andrew as recorded in John’s Gospel in the story read, at least in Canada since 1959, on The Sunday Next Before Advent. Andrew is the one of the two which heard John speak about Jesus and so followed Jesus. But even more than that Andrew brings others to the discipleship of Christ. “He brought him to Jesus.”

Can anything greater or better be said of any of us than that? It turns of course on the insight and knowledge of who Christ is. John in his Gospel feels obliged to explain the idea of the finding of the Messiah. The term, he senses, needs to be interpreted or explained. That tells us this means he is speaking beyond the context of the Jewish community. For the Jews, a term like Messiah is at once well-known and greatly anticipated, certainly a term needing no interpretation. John connects the idea of a promised Messiah with the concept of the Anointed One, the Christ.

From the perspective of John’s Gospel, Andrew initiates a chain-reaction; the beginning of the missionary life of the Church which is about nothing less than bringing souls to Jesus. In the life of the Church, the Feast of St. Andrew is always either just before or immediately after The First Sunday in Advent. His celebration or observance has just that double sense of a beginning and an end, of a making known and a following of Jesus Christ. In other words, it captures the twofold aspect of Christian mission and discipleship. Souls are brought to Christ so as to follow Christ. “Follow me,” Jesus says to the two brothers, Simon Peter and Andrew, in Matthew’s Gospel reading tonight, “And I will make you fishers of men.”

There can be no following without the making known of Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ. We are not privy to the process that leads Simon Peter and Andrew to leave their nets straightway and together with two other brothers, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, immediately to follow Jesus. The reading from John’s Gospel helps us a bit on that score because it suggests that there is a questioning and a questing that indicates a desire and a willingness to learn and to be with the one who can teach them. Jesus had turned to the disciples of John, one of whom appears to be Andrew, and asked them, face-to-face, “what seek ye?” They replied “Rabbi (which is, being interpreted, Master [or Teacher]), where dwellest thou?” That one would feel the necessity of having to interpret the word, “Rabbi,” also clearly points to a context outside of Israel altogether, a context in which everything has to be interpreted and explained. Jesus’ response was to say, “Come and see.” Andrew is the first in this account to respond and the first to bring others into the same understanding. “Verily, their sound went out into all the earth.” The proclamation of the Gospel of Christ requires the interpretation of the Gospel, too.

That understanding is captured in his words to his brother. “We have found the Messiah.” There is the sense of discovery and a delight in what has been discovered such that we cannot keep that knowledge and excitement to ourselves. It has to be shared. Somehow John the Baptist’s words, pointing out Jesus as “the Lamb of God,” have resonated in Andrew and have led him to make the connection between that image and the image of the Messiah. We are drawn into the deep mysteries of God’s dealings with our world and day, the deep mysteries of God’s engagement with our humanity in Jesus Christ.

But how shall we enter into those deep mysteries? Through the study of the Scriptures. The epistle reading from Romans makes this abundantly clear. The understanding of Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ, arises from what has been revealed and written down in the Scriptures. It involves a process of interpretation by which we are drawn up and into a confession of faith. That can only happen through the missionary life of the Church, proclaiming God’s Word and celebrating his Sacraments. And that requires apostolic souls, like Andrew, who labour to bring others to Jesus.

Andrew is the Patron Saint of Missionaries. He makes Jesus known and brings souls to Jesus to follow him. He opens us out to the radical meaning of Christ’s advent, his turning to us not only that we may find him but that we may be found in him.