We are
keeping today the feast of St Andrew, whom we call in the Orthodox Church “The
First-Called”. We meet him for the first time in the Gospel on the banks of the
River Jordan as disciple of St John the Baptist, together with him that later
becameе St John the Divine, St John the Evangelist. Together with him, and
hundreds of people he heard John, his teacher, his guide in the life of
repentance proclaim Jesus who was coming towards them as the Lamb of God who
takes upon Himself the sins of the world, declare Him to bе Him for whose sake
he has come to the banks of Jordan to preach repentance, to turn the hearts of
men towards their God, to call them to a new life of faithfulness.
And
having heard that in Jesus this expectation, this longing had been fulfilled,
Andrew, together with John, leaves his master, his teacher, the one who has
turned his soul towards God, given him newness of life, he turns away from him,
leaves him to follow Jesus, because this is why his master had come into the
world: that he may proclaim Jesus in His coming, and then diminish for Christ
to grow, before the eyes of men, in the lives of men, to be forgotten, because
he was only the Forerunner.
To act as
St Andrew did proved him to be a true disciple of his master; and how much each
of us, all of us, we could learn in this act of greatness of heart, because it
is hard to have found one who discloses to you what is precious in life, what
is significant before God, who sets you on the way of repentance and of a new
life, and then discover that he was nothing but a forerunner, nothing but one
who was there to prepare the way of the Lord, and turn away from him, leave him
to bring his message to others in order oneself to follow the Lord for whose
sake he had preached, he had taught, he had been in the midst of men.
And John
and Andrew leave him, and follow Christ who gradually leaves the banks of
Jordan, going they do not know where; and Jesus stops and turns towards them
because they are following Him, they pursue Him, having heard the message of
John they will no longer let go of Him; and Jesus stops and says: what do you
want of Me?.. And their answer is: we want to know where Thou dwellest… A
simple phrase… And Jesus takes them with Him, and they spend a day with Him –
but what do they discover? Is it only а wooden cabin, a hut of mud where Christ
has been dwelling for a few days? One of the spiritual writers of our century
says, No; they discovered two things. They discovered that the Annointed of
God, the Christ, the Son of God incarnate lives indeed in a humble hut, that He
Whose presence fills the Heaven which cannot contain Him, can dwell in a small
cabin; but at the same time, listening to His word, looking into His face,
plunging their gaze into His eyes they discover that before them there is One
Whose dwelling is in Heaven, that they are in the presence of the living God
Who has become man in order to save, to renew, to redeem, to live and to die
for their sakes.
From that
moment they become His disciples, they never will separate themselves from Him,
they remain with Him, and their story merges with that of the other disciples –
Peter, whom Andrew brings to Jesus, to whom he discloses Him Whom he has
already discovered; John, who brings his brother, and all the other ones —
Philip and Nathaniel, and everyone else.
And we
meet him again in the Gospel, once, when, before the Crucifixion, fulfilling
the prophecies of old, the Gentiles come to Jesus; and they turn to Philip and
to Andrew because they recognise them as men of Galilee, of that region that
was partly pagan, recognise in them people who will understand their language
and understand also their desperate longing, because he has lived in their
midst and he knows how poor they are and how their hearts long for fulfillment
from Heaven, from God. And they them to Jesus. They are the first ones who
opened the doors to the Gentiles, to bring them to the Lord. They prepared the
way which later Paul will tread so gloriously, so conqueredly. Then, after the
Crucifixion he shares with the other ones the agony, the horror of the death of
Christ, and comes to life, no longer with the old, earthly life that has been
his, but a new life, the life of the Risen Christ, the life of eternity in the
resurrection of his blaster, his Saviour, his Lord and his God.
And when
the Apostles dispersed to bring the good news to the whole world, he also goes
to preach, and the story of his life brings him to the East and to the North,
and we are told that he reaches as the ultimate point of his preaching the
hills of Kiev in pagan Russia. And then he returns to die the death of
martyrdom, in a manly, in аn unhesitating wау, dies, crucified as his Master.
How much
we can learn from the life of this man, a simple man of Galilee who knew how to
listen to a message, and to follow, first him who prepared the way of the Lord
and then had the greatness of heart, the faithfulness to let go of the first
hand that had brought him to the gates of eternity to follow Him Who was
eternity, Life, God come into the world, and who throughout his life remained
faithful, and was proof-prepared to pay the cost of this faithfulness, so that
we may live, we may receive his message, we may also, through him, discover our
Lord, and follow our only God, our only Lord, our only Saviour. Amen.
By Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
Source: http://www.pravmir.com/can-learn-st-andrew/
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