Scripture can be found here…
He was a lot, John the Baptist. He took some getting used to. Dressed all strange, a smelly, half-dried camel pelt for a not-quite-as-decent-as-it-ought-to-be covering, a leather belt around his waist, grasshoppers stuck in his beard, and hollering out odd things in public that made people stare, and murmur at one another, and turn away.
John was a lot. But you got used to it, you know? Because—what he had on offer—who, in my situation, would even hesitate?
You probably know me as the brother of Peter—we called him Simon, until the Rabbi changed everything. I’m the younger brother, which means, the one who, if our parents had had two denarii to rub together, I was the one who did not get to inherit. But they didn’t, so it was never really an issue.
But that was the issue. We were fishermen—so was our father, and our uncles, and their father, and on and on back until Adam’s grandson, I guess. We were the kind of fishermen who had the same boat our great-grandfather had used—with patches of newer wood added every year, to hold back the rot. My father once said we had every kind of tree that grew in Galilee represented in the carefully repaired mosaic of wood that was our boat.
That’s what we could afford. Some years, we couldn’t even afford the repair. One year, the boat won’t hold another added plank, and we’ll push it out into the water and let the sea have it, and look for another one, cheap, and used.
So when John came through, and invited everyone to follow him down to the river for baptism, an old familiar ritual made new by his fiery preaching—I thought, why not? What could it hurt? It’s not as if my life was one of wonder and possibility. It was nets and fish and that boat: repair and hold your breath, day in and day out, year in and year out. So I told my older brother, Simon, that’s what I intended to do, to follow John. He shrugged, and said nothing. He never even turned away from his nets.
I went down in the river to pray: How long, O holy One? How long?
And as I heard John’s scratchy voice, I felt a thrill of excitement in my spine. He said:
It is coming.
The kingdom of heaven.
He is coming.
I’m just a voice, crying out in the wilderness. I’m just the witness.
I’ll baptize you with water.
But the One who is coming will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire!
And then, almost a whisper:
I am not worthy to untie his sandals.
And I plunged headlong into the water, falling face-first, dunking myself even before John had a chance to. But he lifted me up, and leaned too close, so that I could smell his grasshopper breath, and said,
Repent. Get ready for a new life. The kingdom of heaven is here.
And he held me by the shoulders and plunged me back under the water, and pulled me up again.
I waited on shore for him; a few others did as well. As the sun sank and the air grew cool, he finally came out of the water himself. Without a word, we followed him.
And so I had a life in two parts. Up in the middle of the night to prepare the nets and launch out into the sea with my uncles and father and brother before dawn; bringing the haul of fish to market before noon; and then? Racing down to the river to find John, to watch him baptize all the people who, like me, wanted something else, and then following him home—to a cave in the desert—to see what else he might have to say.
One day John was in the middle of a long, rambling treatise on trees, and whether they were sound or not, and when was the right time to cut them down and burn them in the fire. As he spoke, a man approached, walking right toward him, very purposeful. And John stopped abruptly, and went kind of pale. After a breath he held out one emaciated arm, and pointed at the man, and declared:
“Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
And there it was. Yelling out odd things—to be fair, entirely bizarre things. And sure enough, some who had been waiting their turn to be baptized looked at their neighbor, and shook their heads, and reconsidered. Stepping out of line, they walked away.
What on earth did this man—who was already gone, by the way, we didn’t even notice him leave—but what did he have to do with temple sacrifice? How on earth could he be “Lamb”? Lambs were small, they were weak and young, they were dependent—and yes, they were the offering for sin, when you needed forgiveness. How could a man be the Lamb of God? Hadn’t we as a people turned our collective backs on human sacrifice the day the angel stayed the hand of our ancestor Abraham, and let his son Isaac live? No wonder those people walked away.
We followed John to his cave that night for the last time. The man of many words was strangely quiet. He had little appetite for his strange food. It seemed possible that the man who came to witness, the man who considered himself only a voice, had run out of things to say.
The next day I hurried to John at the river after a dismal morning of fishing in blustery weather. I met another of his followers on the way and we wondered together what this day might bring. We didn’t have to wait long to find out.
Once again, the man came—and now I took note of him. He was a Galilean, young, but a worker from the looks of his hands. Again he approached John with single-minded determination … but then, oddly, it seemed as if he would pass right by. I was staring at him, waiting, for… something.
And then I heard John’s voice, loud and strong:
“Look, here is the Lamb of God!”
John’s other follower looked at me, and together we looked at him, an unspoken question in our eyes. And so slightly you could have missed it, he nodded, and he looked after the One we soon would learn was called Jesus, and we knew it was time to go.
We followed him, but he stopped, and turned to us.
“What are you looking for?”
Well.
What was I looking for?
Something else, for one thing. Something other than boats and nets and 153 different kinds of fish to worry about and not catch.
But not just that. Something. Something I couldn’t even name. Something to live for. Something, maybe, to die for. Something real.
He was looking at me. His eyes were strong—intense. But they were also patient, kind.
I hesitated, searching for the right word, while my companion asked a simple question.
“Rabbi, where are you staying?”
He looked from one of us to the other.
“Come and see.”
Something in my heart soared, and I found it, the word. The thing I was looking for.
Hope.
That night as I walked home, I had an urgent message for my brother. And I knew, once again, that he would probably not say a word, but simply turn to his plate, lift his cup. I knew that the older brother wouldn’t have much interest in what the younger brother had to say.
But I knew something else. I knew that the night of bad fishing had crushed him.
Simon was quiet, and according to the stories you’ve probably heard about him, he was not considered an exceptionally intelligent man. But there was one thing my brother was a genius at, and that was fishing.
Simon knew when we rose in the middle of the night exactly where the tides were, and just how the strength of the wind was likely to affect the movements of the schools of fish. He knew by the smell of the wind, whether it would rain, and how much, and how long, and when there would be squalls. Simon knew which schools were moving about in the middle of the night, and which were near the boat closer to first watch, and which were smart enough to swim away if the men in the boats were too boisterous. My father saw it. My uncles saw it. Simon was a genius. There was no one like him in Galilee.
So when we had a bad night of fishing, he took it badly. He got a haunted look in his eyes. I never asked, but I always suspected he was entertaining visions of the family starving, but he, with his solid, rock-like build, would outlast everyone so that he would get to watch their suffering.
It was the only time that I, the younger brother, pitied him. It was the only time I felt for him. Other men shrugged off a bad night at sea. They went home to their wives and complained and told stories and felt as confident as ever when they set out the next night. Not Simon. When he failed, it haunted him. He suffered like no one else. And I would have done anything to make that better. But I never could.
But that was before. A lifetime ago. Now, I knew what I had. I knew what I could offer him. I had gone to the Rabbi’s house. I had sat at his feet. Now, I had something to offer my brother.
I burst in the door of the house. Already my father and uncles had eaten, and the fire was low, but still warm. Simon sat in a corner, that stricken look on his face.
“You won’t believe it,” I said. “The Baptizer was right. The One he talked about has come. Come and see. We’ve found him. We have found the Messiah.”
Simon looked at me as though I were raving, as thought I were drunk. Then he looked away, wrapping his arms around himself as if there was nothing that could warm him.
I went into the next room and returned with my father’s cloak, thin but warm enough, and I settled it around his shoulders. He watched me, silent. I sat down next to him, and stretched out my legs. I waited, watching the last embers of the fire glow. Now it was up to him.
“Tell me,” he said, finally.
And I did.
The next day he slept in. His wife thought he was ill, but he was fine. He looked better than he had in months. Just after dawn we set out, and walked down the winding streets to the house where the Rabbi was staying. As we walked I had a strange sensation. All our lives, we had been only the older brother and the younger brother. We had known our roles. He was the one who knew the family trade. I was the one they told what to do, and I did it. He was the one who understood the sea and the fish and the winds and the waves. I was the one who listened and acted fast when he barked out instructions. He was the one who our father confided in. I was the one who listened from the next room or the back of the boat.
But now… I was taking him to the Rabbi. To the Messiah. The One we had been waiting for.
I was taking him.
Rabbi Jesus was sitting outside in the early morning air. He looked up as we drew near. He stood, and as he caught my eye, I realized that he saw me, not as someone’s younger brother, but, simply, as myself, as a man. Then he looked in to my brother’s eyes, and smiled.
“Simon, son of John,” he said, “you are Peter, my Rock.”
And that’s how it began. And that is how it continues.
One witness to the next. John told me, and I told my brother, I invited him: Come, and see. And now we are witnesses.
Someone told you, someone said, “Come, and see.” and now you are witnesses.
That’s how it began. And that is how it continues.
Thanks be to God. Amen.