Who You Found

12.17.11

John 1.41 41 The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). NIV

What happens when something good (or cool) happens to you? You run out and find someone to tell – we all like to share good news. Last Tuesday my wife and I went to our local Bi-Mart store and won a gift card because at Bi-Mart, every Tuesday is Lucky Number Tuesday and our number was lucky… (there’s another blog for another time…). So the first thing my bride did was hop on Facebook, and let her sphere of social groupies know what had happened.

Andrew, and another unnamed disciple, was with John the Baptist one day and John said, “Look, the Lamb of God!” Intrigued, the two men – Andrew and this other guy – followed Jesus and asked Him where He was staying. Jesus invited them to see and they went and spent the day with Him. What gets me is the narrative of what Andrew did next, the first thing he did was go find Simon and tell him what he’d found! That is so brother! Andrew I imagine was total blown away, Simon! We have found the Messiah! That’s so cute: it was He who came looking for them…

I love the vividness and honesty of the Biblical narrative – have I mentioned that before? I am blown away with appreciation that Andrew would make a beeline for his brother Simon. I think there’d been talk among them that the Messiah could possibly be around somewhere, after all it was only a few years before that there’d been that star thing and all those kids were slaughtered out in Bethlehem and the vicinity. Obviously, now that John was on the scene and proclaiming his ministry as described by the great prophet Isaiah, there was talk that Messiah could in fact be here! John said so himself!

Andrew saw and Andrew believed! And he wanted his brother to be in on it as well. So he went and told him first! (I’m into exclamation points today…) Simon of course wasn’t quite prepared for the name-change thing, but, y'know, he was blown away too.

Do you remember who you blew away with the news that you’d found the Messiah? I remember telling my folks who seemed less than surprised but courteously courteous. I think they thought I found the Messiah the day I was born. I remember my friends being polite but mystified, “what the (bleep) happened to you!?” (Polite obviously meant something different back then…) I think my siblings thought I’d been captured by a cult. It was a wonderful time but the plain fact is, I told someone first thing. My wife was convinced someone had stolen her husband and replaced him with a weirdo that looked just like him – that is until one night just about a year later she found the Messiah as well – it was a good, good night. I know, I saw it, I was there!

I think the challenge of the discovery of finding the Messiah is keeping it fresh and keeping first things first. There are neighbors to tell. There are co-workers to tell. There are children and grandchildren to tell – first. The first time you see them; the first time you unpack your things at your desk; the first time they ask you, “Gram-pa, who is Jesus?” Then you watch them get blown away when you tell them Who you’ve found… so maybe they can find Him too!