2024-01-04 04:48:46
The Gospel (…) presents the meeting of Jesus with his first disciples. The scene takes place in the Jordan River, the day following Jesus’ baptism. John the Baptist himself points to the Messiah to two of them with these words: “Behold the Lamb of God!” (v. 36). And those two, trusting in the testimony of the Baptist, follow Jesus who realizes this and asks: “What are you looking for?” and they ask him: “Teacher, where do you live?” (v. 38). Jesus does not answer: “I live in Capernaum or Nazareth,” but says: “Come and see” (v. 39). It is not a business card, but an invitation to a meeting. The two follow Him and stay with Him that followingnoon. It is not difficult to imagine them sitting, asking him questions and above all listening to him, feeling his hearts become more and more lit as the Master speaks. They notice the beauty of words that respond to his ever-greater hope. And suddenly they discover that, as the sun begins to set, the light that only God can give explodes in them, in his heart. Something that draws attention: one of them, sixty years later, or perhaps more, wrote in the Gospel: “It was more or less four in the followingnoon” (Jn 1:39), he wrote the time. And this is something that makes us think: every authentic encounter with Jesus remains in living memory, it is never forgotten. Many encounters are forgotten, but the true encounter with Jesus always remains. And they, so many years later, even remembered the time, they might not forget this meeting so happy, so full, that had changed their lives. Then, when they leave this meeting and return to their brothers, this joy, this light overflows from their hearts like a flood. One of the two, Andrew, says to his brother Simon—whom Jesus will call Peter when he finds him—: “We have found the Messiah” (v. 41). They left certain that Jesus was the Messiah, convinced. (Angelus, January 17, 2021)
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