Turning the Tables: Second Sunday after Epiphany, Year A, January 19, 2014 - John 1.29-42

            Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them. . .

            In his spiritual autobiography Surprised by Joy the converted atheist C. S. Lewis talks about the moment when he could no longer deny God's existence. "People who are naturally religious may find difficulty understanding the horror of such a revelation. Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about 'man's search for God.' To me, as I then was, they might as well have talked about the mouse's search for the cat."

            These two disciples of John the Baptist have been playing cat-and-mouse with Jesus. Their rabbi has twice pointed to this man as the Promised One. They catch the scent and take up the trail. But they exercise a certain stealth as they pursue the scent. They stalk the spoor from upwind. Perhaps this is merely the respect of the student for the teacher, but something more may be at work.

            Both times he identifies Jesus, John refers to him as "the Lamb of God." The first time he adds the modifier, "who taketh away the sin of the world."

            As good Jews, these guys knew how lambs took away sin: by the sacrifice of their own lives. John (the Evangelist, not the Baptist), like any good storyteller, foreshadows the end of his tale right here at the beginning: The priests in the temple will condemn this Lamb to death and his pure blood will redeem sinful humanity.

            Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them. . .

            In a blinding moment the hunted turns hunter; the mouse finally locates the cat only to discover that the cat has been waiting. While they're trying to figure out what to say, he speaks to them. They come with questions but he turns interrogator. Then Andrew finds Peter and Jesus finds Philip and Philip finds Nathaniel: This cross-devoted Christ refuses to remain the object of anyone's search and becomes instead the subject of his own safari. He whips by and baptizes them in a blustering breeze that sucks them ineluctably into its slipstream as it churns toward Calvary.

            Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them. . .

            We don't need to worry that we will fail to find God because God will not fail to find us. Maybe, however, we need to ponder all that this means and worry about that. And then we need to follow.

Meow!

Doug