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For some, the faith journey begins with being part of a Christian family with church-going, Sunday school, and other involvements. Others hear God calling them to faith through the Bible or other Christian writings; some find God because of a life crisis - illness, bereavement, a sadness - all of which lead to a re-evaluation of life's values. Quite a few are attracted to Christianity through the witness and encouragement of others. Some, of course, have direct encounter with God in some way. Whatever the way we come to faith here are three things that develop it. The birth of faith, the nurture of faith and the revelation of what that faith means in terms of who God really is and what he does for us.
To help me explain this, I think of three people who have a central role in the Christmas and Epiphany stories: the Blessed Virgin Mary, St Joseph and St John the Baptist. Mary is the Christ-bearer, who brings him to birth. Joseph is the bringer of stability and the one who nurtures him in his early life. John the Baptist is the revealer who recognises Jesus for who He is and that is made abundantly clear in today's Gospel. All three have their part to play in showing us God's own vocation as the Divine Lover who brings us salvation in Jesus Christ and who loves us into His Kingdom as Jesus claims each one of us as His own.
In the story of our own faith journey, we become Christians when God brings that faith to birth in our own hearts. We are, in a spiritual way, allowing God to be born in our lives, as Mary physically made the birth of Jesus possibly through her own life. Our faith is given shape and substance as we learn from the experience of others in the Church and are drawn into the loving fellowship of the Christian community. This is the ministry of nurture which involves us all as members of a welcoming, open and loving group of people. It also involves some in a specific ministry of helping people to open the eyes of faith in recognition of who Jesus really is and so be encouraged to discover more about God in the Scriptures and through personal prayer. As St Joseph surrounded his family with gentle care, so each of us has a role in nurturing Christians in the faith. Not just children but all of us need nurturing. We all have a part to play in this. It's about our sharing insights of faith with each other and encouraging each other to a deeper love of God.
As we grow in knowledge of God then more is revealed to us. We begin to understand something of God's nature and the immensity of his love and desire for us. We go deeper and we begin to offer ourselves to God for him to use us in proclaiming that love to others. This is the John the Baptist stage of our faith.
John's role is pivotal to the Christian story and his own life follows the pattern I have just described. When Mary went to visit her cousin Elizabeth at the start of her pregnancy, w are told by St Luke that the babe in Elizabeth's womb leapt for joy. John the Baptist even before his own birth, was brought to life by the presence of the embryonic Jesus. He was then nurtured in his own faith during the 'hidden' years when we believe he spent time with the Essene Community in the desert, where he learned to live close to God. Then, of course, he became the Revealer of Jesus, proclaiming him through his preaching and ministry of repentance baptism. A ministry which was a response to God's call - as St Luke tells us:
The word of God came to John, the Son of
Zechariah, in the wilderness.
A ministry whose sole aim was to prepare the Way
of Jesus whose ministry replaced his.Today's Gospel reminds us that his ministry of preparation was not confined to the baptism of the masses. It also included a much more intimate preparation of a smaller group. It is clear that John not only worked amongst the crowds but that also he had his own band of followers - his disciples. Amongst those disciples was Andrew whom we hear about today. We don't know a great deal about Andrew from the Gospels, though, within the story of the Church, he has quite a role. Legend suggests that as the Church moved out of Jerusalem, because he spoke Greek he took the faith to Greek speaking communities and later to Eastern Europe. Certainly, in the Eastern Orthodox Church he is highly revered. There is an ancient story of how this came about, told by one of the Church's earliest teachers, Origen, and recorded by the great Church historian of the early Church, Eusebius, in the 4th century. The story is that after Pentecost the disciples drew lots to decide who would go on mission to particular places. Andrew was chosen to take the Gospel to Scythia which today is the area of southern Russia and the Ukraine on the north side of the Black Sea.
However, interesting though that might be, it is his role in the Gospel which is more informative about how faith works itself out in witness. There are four incidents in St John's Gospel in which he plays an important role. In today's Gospel we hear two of them. Two disciples, one unnamed, though scholars believe it is St John, the beloved disciple, and Andrew. As disciples of John the Baptist they have already had their faith awakened and nurtured by John. They had been called to faith by his own witness, attracted by his commitment to God and his zeal. He encouraged the growth of their faith through his teaching and preaching and through involving them in his own ministry. We can assume that they assisted at he mass baptism of the people. It is often when we are involved in ministry and activities in the church that our faith is nurtured and we learn more about God. This knowledge of God was suddenly given a deeper revelation when John, standing with his disciples, saw Jesus coming towards him. Turning to his disciples he called Jesus the 'Lamb of God', something he repeated the following day.
The title 'Lamb of God' moves us into the realm of theology. It looks back to the sacrificial lambs of the Old Testament Temple worship, and prophetically, it looks forward to the Paschal Lamb of Easter, the sacrificial offering of Jesus on the Cross for our Salvation. This is a proclamation by John which is instantly recognised by his two disciples because of the teaching they have received from John himself. Immediately, they leave John the Baptist behind and go after Jesus as John had prepared them to do. When they asked Jesus where he was staying, his invitation to come and see was much more than: Why not come to my lodgings. It was an invitation to follow - to become disciples. At that moment, their journey of faith takes them into a new way of life in which they would share the proclamation of the Kingdom of God with Jesus and then, after Pentecost, would take on that role as the leaders of the new Christian Church.
A lot has to happen to them before that moment but what we have in today's Gospel is the beginning of an amazing adventure of faith. An adventure which begins with the simple invitation to come and see. And look what immediately happens. Spending just a little time with Jesus, Andrew found himself captivated and exhilarated. John had taught him well. He knew instantly that he was in the presence of the Messiah and he wanted to share Jesus with others. Full of excitement he rushed off to tell his brother Peter and dragged him off to see Jesus. Later he was to bring to Jesus the boy with five barley loaves and two fish so that the crowd could be fed, and then, just before Jesus's arrest, he brought some Greeks who had come to a Temple Festival and who wanted to see Jesus.
Within the Gospel we don't hear much more about him, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that when he took up the invitation to come and see Jesus, it led to him immediately sharing that experience with others. That is something we can learn from him. We who have accepted our Lord's invitation to come and see Jesus and to know him as the Lord of our lives are called to share our experience with others. Our vocation as Christians is expressed through worship, service and witness. We are all of us caught up in the mission to make Christ known to all we meet. It does not require more from us than to show how much Jesus means to us and how much our life has been turned around because of Jesus. Our lives as Christians should be an open invitation to others to come and see. That is our vocation. That is what God asks of us.
As you have come to faith through the witness of others, and been nurtured thorough your life within the Christian community, so, like St Andrew,you are being called to do the same for others. It's really about sharing the joy and love of God which is at the heart of our faith. Why would you want others to miss out on that?