Of our current age, we must not assume that many more would follow Jesus if only he were actually here, in bodily form as he was two thousand years ago. Back then, many did not believe. There was no easy fix, no neon sign leading to an obvious new life. And so it can seem now, too.
Some got it, some like the disciples. They made that decision to follow him. Yet, even in the lives of the disciples themselves, we regularly read of a certain hesitancy to take on Christ’s teaching, an inability to always accept Jesus’s word. Peter even denied him, yes three times.
As we read today’s Gospel, let’s remember something about discipleship, something that matters as much to us as it did to the original twelve. It is this: the disciples’ action of following Jesus did not lead to an automatic acceptance of all of his teachings, did not lead to automatic understanding of his words. In other words, their road as disciples was not a one-act wonder. It wasn’t a golden ticket. No, it was a daily, sometimes an hourly, process of realignment through falling and getting up again. Once they made that decision to follow Christ, the disciples then followed him, but they still had to seek, they still had to remain open and attentive, redacting their own ego to take on the will of their leader.
It is the same with us. We announce that we are Christian, not by a single decision, but by a lifetime of searching and delving, of listening and aligning our will with that of Christ. Another way of putting this is that our Baptism is a river which flows throughout our life, fortifying every situation we face, every joy, every hardship. As we go along on our journey, this river of grace is always beside us. It is our choice whether or not we use that life-giving water.
Turning to Christ, let us begin to seek him. And let that seeking become loving, for he loved us first.
When we find following Jesus difficult, we might remember that the desire to love him is itself a gift, an open blank page sent by the Holy Spirit. And, in just the same way, when we want to pray but can’t, we might remember that the desire to pray is ITSELF prayer. It may not be the prayer we wanted to make, but it is prayer, and prayer is communion with God. Always, on our journey, we have that river of grace – our baptism – to follow and to find sustenance from. So, let us find this wellspring through our reading of today’s Gospel, and begin to follow him afresh, safe in the knowledge that we are already his children. Amen.
GOSPEL
A reading from the holy Gospel according to John
As John stood with two of his disciples, Jesus passed, and John stared hard at him and said, ‘Look, there is the lamb of God.’ Hearing this, the two disciples followed Jesus. Jesus turned round, saw them following and said, ‘What do you want?‘ They answered, ‘Rabbi,’ – which means Teacher – ‘where do you live?’ ‘Come and see’ he replied; so they went and saw where he lived, and stayed with him the rest of that day. It was about the tenth hour.
One of these two who became followers of Jesus after hearing what John had said was Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter. Early next morning, Andrew met his brother and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ – which means the Christ – and he took Simon to Jesus. Jesus looked hard at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John; you are to be called Cephas’ – meaning Rock.
The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.