John 1:35-42

John's Disciples Follow Jesus

35 The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. 36 When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God!"

37 When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. 38 Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, "What do you want?"

They said, "Rabbi" (which means "Teacher"), "where are you staying?"

39 "Come," he replied, "and you will see."

So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon.

40 Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. 41 The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ). 42 And he brought him to Jesus.

Jesus looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas" (which, when translated, is Peter).



Dig Deeper

Nicknames are a funny thing. They can be very intimate; they can tell us a lot about a person; they can endear us to those who call us a nickname. When I was in college, there was an upperclassmen on our basketball team who was not only the captain, he was the best player. I quickly discovered after just a day or two as a new player on the team that it was his team, no buts about it. One of the memorable things that he went about each year was to give a nickname to every person on the team. There was a catch, though. We younger players could not figure out when he decided to give someone a nickname. It seemed haphazard, with no rhyme or reason. Mind you, these weren't always the most creative nicknames, but that didn't matter. Getting a nickname from this guy meant a great deal to the younger players. During one game, I got a pass from a teammate and went up and dunked the ball over a defender. A few minutes later, we ran off the court for a timeout and our captain walked over, put his hand on my shoulder and said, "nice play Big Mike." This was huge because until you got a nickname, he only called people by their last name. There it was, he had given me my own nickname. It turned out that you earned a nickname by making a big play, which usually involved dunking on someone. The whole process of his giving nicknames, though, cemented his position of authority on the team, encouraged the younger players, and really made us feel closer to and appreciated by our leader.

There are many quick little scenes throughout the four Gospels where we get to see the wonderfully human side of Jesus. If we slow down and read these scenes and then think about the human reality of the Gospel accounts, we can begin to see why those around Jesus loved him so much and were so loyal to him. As John describes the beginning seeds of Jesus' ministry, this is one of those scenes. Jesus doesn't just woodenly walk around teaching and calling people to follow him intellectually. He creates bonds, build friendships, and shows people how to love one another. This is what is behind his deeply human and endearing act of giving Peter a nickname. In doing so, he establishes his authority and no doubt encouraged Peter. But in the end, what he really did, is create a lifelong friend, and show Peter exactly what the impact their friendship was going to have on Peter's life. Following this teacher was going to make Peter a whole lot more than just a disciple, it was going to make him a rock.

John tells us in 20:31 that the reason that he wrote this Gospel is so that people might read it and believe that Jesus is the son of God. One of the ways that John will demonstrate this is through the recurring theme of new creation. From the opening verse of this Gospel, John made it clear that this was going to be a creation event. The life of Christ was the means through which God would restore His original creation marred by sin. As John moved from the prologue, rich with creation language (terms like "beginning," "life," "light," and "darkness,") he will carefully open his narrative with seven days; the days of the new creation. The first day was John's testimony regarding Jesus (1:19-28), the second was John's encounter with Jesus (1:29-54), and this is the third day.

On this third day of the dawning of the new creation account, John sees Jesus coming once again. Once again he announces that Jesus is the Lamb of God. The true measure of a godly man is his genuine humility, and John is clearly infused with that. This great man doesn't hesitate to point his own followers to a greater man. He is not trying to build his own little castle, but point to the coming of the kingdom of God. We should note that not only was John a great prophet, full of humility, but was apparently a great teacher as well. He had taught his disciples that the true purpose of his ministry was to point to the one that would come. The two disciples (we are told in verse 40 that one is Andrew while presumably the other is John, the beloved disciple) listening to John the Immerser that day had learned well. As soon as John pointed out that the Lamb of God was with them, they knew what to do and immediately began to follow him. This should be instructive to Christians today who usually, at one time or another, have to leave behind our old traditions and religious associations to truly follow the Messiah, just as surely as the Immerser's two disciples did that day.

As they begin to follow Jesus, he turns and asks what they want (it's hard to imagine that as Jesus says to them, "what do you want?" John doesn't mean for his readers to consider that question for ourselves). He hasn't really called them yet so much as they have followed him. He asks them what they want to which they don't really have a a good answer, so they ask him where he is staying, addressing him with the term "Rabbi" (which John has kindly translated for his non-Jewish readers informing us that Rabbi means teacher), a term of respect in that time that had not yet fully become the technical and formal term that it would a century later. They have been waiting and looking for him and, perhaps a little to their surprise, they find that Jesus has been looking for them. If they want to know where he is staying then all they need to do is to follow him, just like their teacher John had prepared them to do.

As they arrive where Jesus was staying, it was already about four in the afternoon. In the first century, people generally did not move around too often after sundown, so when the author tells us that they spent the day with him, the implication is that that went where Jesus was staying and then spent the night there with him.

Whatever they talked about must have been quite enlightening for Andrew and the anonymous disciple (probably John, as mentioned above) because as soon as he got up in the morning, the first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him. Everything that they had been waiting for was not in vain, the Messiah was here (again, John puts the Aramaic "Messiah" into the Greek "Christ" for his readers).

Andrew wastes no time in bringing his brother Simon to see the newly found Messiah. It is noteworthy that Andrew is mentioned three times in the Gospel of John and every single time he is shown to be bringing someone to meet Jesus (cf. 6:8; 12:22). When Jesus meets the young, brash fisherman that everyone knew as Simon, brother of Andrew, son of John, he gives him a new name. Jesus looked square at Peter in the eye and told him that he would be called Cephas (John once again translates for his readers telling us that in Greek the name is "Petros," or as we have it in English, "Peter"). In that nickname, Jesus has not described who Peter is. Surely a quick glance at the other Gospels shows us that as well-meaning as Peter was, he wasn't yet the most reliable of sorts, certainly not the kind of guy you would choose as a leader in a new religious movement. No, Jesus is not describing Peter as he is, but as he would be under the transforming power of walking with Jesus. He would become "the rock," which is what "Cephas" means. In the Old Testament, God usually changed someone's name to specify a new calling (Abram to Abraham; Jacob to Israel) and also to demonstrate authority over an individual (2 Ki. 23:34; 24:17). Jesus accomplishes both of those things as well as telling everyone around exactly who Peter was going to be in Christ.

As we quickly consider this calling of Andrew, John, and Peter we immediately note that there appear to be some differences with the accounts of Jesus calling his disciples in the other Gospels (cf. 4:18-22; 9:9; mark 1:16-20; 2:13-14; Luke 5:1-11, 27-28). It seems that the disciples go with Jesus immediately, and from the start understand that he is the Messiah in John's version, but follow Jesus at a later point and consistently fail to understand his true identity. Are we dealing with divergent accounts that contradict? Not at all. The difference lies in that John seems to be describing the call to general discipleship that took place first while the other Gospels are describing Jesus' climactic call to special discipleship, apostleship if you will. In fact, the encounters that John has given here help to paint the background to the dramatic decision by the disciple stop, drop everything, and follow Jesus. John's account helps us to understand the account of the other Gospels and, quite frankly, makes their accounts more understandable and more plausible. As for the fact that John describes that they believed Jesus was the Messiah right away while the other Gospels consistently describe the failure of the disciples to understand who Jesus was, again we have no contradiction. They may have known or believed from the beginning that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, but, as the other Gospels make clear, they had no idea what that really meant. They were in for a three-year journey of transforming their thinking about who the Messiah was and what God was doing. As we approach the remainder of the Gospel of John, let's try to approach it with the same open mind, willingness to learn, and realization that we have



Devotional Thought

Have you let Jesus rename and redefine you? You have a birth name, but have you ever embraced the new name that he has given each one of us?: Christian. Let the name Christian truly define who you are and see what Jesus has in mind for you to become.