We are still in the season of Epiphany, but Lent is literally just around the corner. Once again the Sunday gospel passage looks back to the crib and forward to the cross. We also focus on one of the rare passages where Andrew is named, which is rather fitting as I am preaching at St Andrew’s Church in Clayhidon this week. You will be very welcome to join me at 10am, or at any of our churches across the Upper Culm Valley Mission Community.

Cast your mind back to Christmas night. The shepherds are doing their thing, gathered around a camp fire to keep themselves warm, keeping an eye out for marauding wolves and foxes and other potential sheep thieves. Perhaps they are dozing, leaning into the fleecy flank of a sheep for warmth and comfort, or swapping long stories with each other. Somewhere down in the overcrowded city a baby has been born, nothing remarkable about that, and nothing to garner the shepherd’s attention, except that an angel has suddenly appeared in the sky to tell them all about it, an angel with accompanying heavenly choir. Now they are instructed to go visit, but why on earth would they do that? Something attracts their attention which we have taken for granted for years of retelling the story.

You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.

Luke 2:12

The shepherds know about sheep. They know about sheep and their value, the lambs that will be kept for breeding, those that will be sold on, those that will be fattened up for the table, and those who will be used for sacrificial purposes at the temple. Only the most perfect lambs could be used for sacrifice, and to ensure that they remained perfect, without the slightest blemish, they would be wrapped in cloths from birth. Jesus being ‘all meanly wrapped in swaddling cloths’ as we sing in the carol, wasn’t an indication of the lack of wealth of his parents, but yet another indication of his future. This tiny baby was to be the sacrificial lamb who would take away the sin of the world.

Fast forward to today’s gospel passage and Andrew, along with another disciple is listening to John (the Baptist) when Jesus is spotted. John is a cousin of Jesus, and yet he claims here not to have known him. It seems that despite having leapt in the womb at Jesus’ own wombly presence, until Jesus came to be baptised, the cousins never met again, Just as John received an epiphany before he was born, at the riverside he received a second, confirmed by God’s voice from heaven and the Spirit’s presence in the form of a dove. Now though, as he stands with his own disciples, Andrew amongst them, he recognises his cousin, the Messiah, as the ‘Lamb of God’.

Look here is the Lamb of God!

John 1:36

John’s whole purpose is to point people towards the Messiah, and today he does just that, releasing his own disciples to become disciples of Jesus.

This is the first recorded incident of Andrew, doing his own thing at a distance from the others, and becoming the catalyst for something or someone else. Andrew will be the disciple who introduces the boy and his packed lunch to Jesus in order to feed thousands, he will introduce other seekers to Jesus too. Today he will introduce his brother who will become the key disciple and the holder of the keys to heaven.

I often wonder why Andrew is allowed to wander off to do his own thing, and why, despite being the first disciple of Jesus, he is left out of some of the other important moments that his brother and his fishing cousins James and John were included in. I have a theory I cannot back up, but I wonder if Andrew was different from the others? I wonder if Andrew had Downs Syndrome or some other mental ‘disability’ which meant he couldn’t keep up with the others, that excused him from some of the responsibilities which gave him the freedom to search out the Messiah and discover John, which took away the polite bashfulness which might prevent others from saying ‘come and meet my new friend’.

He first found his brother Simon and said to him ‘We have found the Messiah.’

John 1: 41

If my inkling is correct, we see here yet another example of God’s wonderful inclusivity. Andrew may not be the one to witness the transfiguration, he may not become the first leader of the Christian church, but he is not only included in the original 12, he is valued for who he is and recognised as having an important role to play.

Today’s passage can be seen as a bridge between Christmas and Easter, the birth which sacrificed Jesus’ place in the heavenly realms for the chance to live amongst us, and the death which sacrificed his human life; but it is also a reminder that God loves each and everyone, not just for the way we fit in, but for the wonderfully unique way in which God created each of us to be true to ourselves.

As Paul writes in this week’s epistle

I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him.

1 Corinthians 1:1-9

You can read the full gospel passage here

If you are looking to enhance our Lenten Discipline this year, see what I have to offer here.