Rabbi, Where Are You Staying?

Second Sunday after the Epiphany

January 15, 2017

John 1:38

Rabbi, Where Are You Staying?

In the name

of the Father

and of the ☩ Son

and of the Holy Spirit.

It can be easy to forget that some of Jesus’ disciples were not new to being disciples. Disciple means follower, and Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist before he began following Jesus. And when he switched to Jesus, it was what everyone had been waiting for: Andrew, Jesus, and John himself.

John was sent to point others onto the Messiah, and Jesus was this Messiah. Messiah means Anointed One, the One upon whom oil is poured—or in this astonishing case, the Holy Spirit. Jesus is this Anointed One, as John gladly confessed:

“I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on Him. ³³I would not have known Him, except that the One who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is He who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ ³⁴I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God.”

JOHN 1:32-34

And so Andrew began to follow the Messiah, the Jesus who would wash away Andrew’s sinfulness. And Jesus would also become Andrew’s rabbi, his teacher. The relationship of teacher and student is one of questions and answers, and so Jesus and Andrew’s first conversation was just that:

³⁸Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”

They said, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are You staying?”

³⁹He replied, “Come, and you will see.”

So they went and saw where He was staying, and spent that day with Him. It was about the tenth hour.

JOHN 1:38-39

It seemed so simple. Rabbi, where are You staying? The Greek word here can be staying or remaining or abiding or even enduring. But Andrew just meant where are You staying, where are You eating supper? But these ordinary questions predicted all of Jesus’ teaching to them. He would spend three years teaching Andrew and his brother Peter and the other ten disciples and many more just exactly where He could be found. I imagine a quiet smile on Jesus’ face as He answered Andrew as He looked ahead to their time of learning together.

It would not be all smiles. There were moments when Jesus had to rebuke His disciples for Andrew’s lack of faith, but yet in the end His teaching created in Andrew fear, love, and trust in the true God and His only Son that stayed with Andrew all the days of his life.

Every day, I pray that you like Andrew will ask Jesus, “Teacher, where are You staying?” And through His Scriptures, that is the Holy Bible, He says, “Come, and you will see.”

For even the Son of Man

did not come to be Served,

but to Serve,

and to Give His Life

as a Ransom for Many.