Today’s Gospel is all about seeking God. John the Baptist, the herald, first pointed all Israel toward the coming of the Messiah. Once the Messiah had come, he pointed his own disciples toward Jesus too.
I feel that these two disciples recognized that Jesus was someone very special when they heard John call him the Lamb of God. The Gospel doesn’t say, but I wonder if they knew why John was sending them away after Jesus. It does seem to say that they followed Him without making any kind of contact.
It is Jesus who starts the conversation by stopping and asking them what they were looking for. The two disciples are looking for a teacher, not just any teacher, but one they can stay with and live with, and they did stay with Jesus that night. Again, we don’t know what exactly happened that night, but Andrew came away telling his brother Simon that he had found the Messiah.
We are all like Andrew and the unnamed disciple. Each one of us has heard the voice of a John the Baptist in our own lives and turned to look. And Jesus has turned to each one of us and asked us what we are looking for.
How will we answer Him? Are we looking for material security-as in follow God and you will prosper, literally. Are we only looking in the Gospels for phrases that support our own personal opinions of how other people should behave? Do we begin to follow Jesus only to turn our ministry into something that makes us feel important at the expense of other people and of the ministry itself?
I want to answer like Andrew did; that I am seeking Him for His own sake and not for what I can “get” from Him
How will you answer when He calls to you?
Copyright © 2013, Carol Ann Chybowski
photo credit: jenny downing via photopin cc
Carol Ann Chybowski
Carol Ann Chybowski is a long time member of the Catholic Writers Guild. She has published book reviews at various websites and appears in two volumes of A Community of Voices: An Anthology of Santa Barbara. When not busy about her parish, Carol Ann can be found knitting, gardening, or on horseback.
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