One of the best experiences I had with my parents was when in 2011 I toured them for four weeks around Australia and New Zealand. At first, they were rather hesitant because of the cost of the whole thing. However, I explained that the opportunity of seeing another country would not always be there. In the whole tour from Sydney, Melbourne, Wellington, Auckland, the most exciting stop was Mt Ruapehu, when my parents get to see snow for the first time.
“Come and See” as I always say whenever somebody keeps asking how’s life in Australia and New Zealand. The gospel for today tells us of the early days of the ministry of Jesus. After Jesus’ baptism in the River Jordan, we see two of John the Baptist’s disciples. One of them is Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, who followed Jesus after the prompting of John the Baptist and asked Jesus, “Teacher, where do you live?” And Jesus replied, “Come and see.”
This episode is unique from the other gospels. In the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), Jesus started to form his band of disciples by calling them. However, in John’s account, these two disciples were actually interested in Jesus and he said, “Come and see.”
Whatever Jesus said or did definitely attracted these two disciples and they followed Jesus to learn something more. And after being with Jesus, these two concluded that, “They have found the Messiah.” For all of us, we would like to ask ourselves, what attracted me to Jesus? What is it with Jesus that we want to follow him? What is it with him that we pray to him and go to Mass every week? Maybe, if haven’t asked those questions now could be good time to ask and discover.
In the second part of the gospel, we see that after being with Jesus for the whole day, Andrew met his brother Simon Peter and told him “We have found the Messiah.” And he took Simon to Jesus. Like in my story above, it is just almost natural for all of us that if we have experienced something beautiful or delightful in our lives, we just can’t help to spread the word around to our friends and relatives.
What Andrew has done is also our task. I believe that our relationship with Jesus has changed our lives for the better, so why should we keep Jesus for ourselves? Isn’t it our task to be a missionary to one another? To share the love that we have experienced to everybody that we meet.
There was a story of a troubled man walking aimlessly in his neighbourhood. He came across a billboard with this sign “No God, no peace; Know God, know peace, come and see, everybody welcome.” This man went inside what turned out to be a church and the priest was there and through his guidance, this man finally knew God and knew peace.
And the second message of the gospel is for all of us. True Christians should never be selfish. I believe that blessings that are shared to other people are blessings that get multiplied. A true Christian who has realised the blessings that they received should invite more people to come to Jesus so that their lives would also be blessed. Just imagine if Andrew kept Jesus for himself, then the blessings that Jesus gives would never reach to other people. Jesus wouldn’t have met Simon Peter and we all knew the role that Simon Peter played not only during the ministry of Jesus but also even far beyond after that.
Let this gospel be the model of our lives. We try to find and discover the Messiah if we haven’t found him yet, and after this wonderful discovery, let us share Jesus with other people who are still looking for him and hopefully we maybe able to be effective witnesses for Jesus and spread his message to everyone who is still looking for a Messiah in their life.