Bible quiz time, kids! What are the first words spoken by Jesus in the Gospels? Each one records something different. In the earliest Gospel, which is Mark, Jesus says, after his baptism and time in the wilderness, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.” In Matthew, he reassures his cousin John it is proper for him to be baptized, so that they may, as Jesus puts it, “fulfill all righteousness.” Luke’s Gospel takes it back a few years and has a 12-year old Jesus calm his worried parents when he goes missing in the Temple after a festival, asking them, “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” And this week, we get Jesus’ first words as recorded in the Fourth Gospel, the Gospel of John: “What are you looking for?”
'The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).'
-John 1: 35-42
I imagine those two disciples running after Jesus like a dog chasing a car, not sure what they'll do if they ever catch up to him. And then they stop when Jesus takes notice of them. Probably in shock and awe, they hang on his every word. Then he asks the question, “What are you looking for?”
That’s quite a question to chew on, isn’t it? What about if you were walking along a trail or the sidewalk and you bump into Jesus? Might you be tongue-tied, flabbergasted even? And then HE looks at YOU, and asks, “What are you looking for? What, in your wildest imagination, would you say? What, broth-ers and sisters, are you looking for?
What was Andrew looking for when Jesus first asked him the same question? What was his brother Simon looking for when Andrew brought him to meet Jesus? There is a wonderful scene in the graphic novel Marked by Steve Ross. Now, Marked may be a retelling of the Gospel of Mark, rather than John, but Ross puts a version of this moment in the story, nonetheless. Here, Jesus meets Simon and Andrew in their boats. He looks at Simon and says to him, “I will give you what you’ve been looking for.” “Oh yeah?” says Simon, not even looking up from the nets, “What’s that?” Jesus says, “Your real name.”
How he gets the name is different in each Gospel retelling, but they all agree: Jesus bestows upon the fisherman Simon bar Jonah the Aramaic name ‘Peter,’ which in Greek is ‘Cephas.’ In both languages, the name means ‘Rock.’
Where I come from, everybody had a nickname. If you were an athlete, that was especially the case. My teammate Justin Sturgill was both Stu and Sturge. Crickett Adams, a basketball star at Pound High School, got her nickname because of her size. Big R got his name because, well, he was big and his given name started with R, whatever it was. The late, great Arvil Pilkenton, everyone knew as Ox until the day he died just last month. There’s a shiny nickel in it for anyone that can find out what mine was! In most all of those cases, the nickname supplanted the real one, long after anyone re-membered why the name existed in the first place. In a manner of speaking, it became their real name.
Rock doesn’t just become a nickname for Simon. It becomes the name by which he would be known forever. On some level, whether conscious or not, that’s what Simon wanted when he met Jesus. He wanted his real name, his real self, the self that Jesus already knew. He wanted to be his most authentic and cast away the projections others had of him or that he had of himself.
The encounter with the Holy One nearly always reveals the true self to those with eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to receive. It’s nothing new. God gives Abram and Sarai the new names of Abraham and Sarah after promising them a child in their old age. Jacob wrestles with God through the night and is renamed Israel, the one who struggles with God. An authentic, real encounter with the presence of the Living God changes us forever, sometimes leaving us with a new name, a new identity, and we are never the same after that.
Perhaps that’s the kicker. The question Jesus offers comes with a kind of qualifier. Because to even begin to answer the question means that we have to be willing to tell Jesus the truth, and be vulnerable enough to change and to be changed. We have to be all in, understanding that if we’re going to answer that question we can’t hide anything from Jesus when he puts it to us; after all, he already knows us. He saw Peter when everyone else saw Simon. He sees your self, your true self, the most authentic version of who you are, which is precisely why he asks that question. It is Jesus seeking you out, inviting you into a relationship that will literally change your life, opening your eyes to see the version of yourself that he sees. Saint Augustine of Hippo put it this way, “We cannot even begin to seek for God unless God has already found us.”
The outward and visible signs of the inner and spiritual grace of God are the Sacraments. Our western tradition gives the number at seven, but from the beginning the Church acknowledged that they were endless. Sacraments are real encounters with the real, Living God through ordinary matter that has been made holy by God’s grace. And when we walk away from each of them, we are changed, we are truly a different person, and sometimes we even get a new name when we come away from baptism, communion, confirmation, unction, confession, marriage, or ordination. That’s what happens when we meet Jesus, we become who we already were, we just didn’t know it yet. That’s what happened to Simon Peter and those earliest followers of Jesus.
So what are you looking for? Answers to seemingly impossible questions? Hope in an often times hopeless world? The simple reassurance that it’s going to be ok? A new way forward, down a path you cannot see and know but one that you’re willing to take if God leads you? The fact that you are reading this blog means you’re looking for something. That’s where it starts, in the heart with an earnest longing to know the Living God in Christ, but mark my words, brothers and sisters, if you are willing to answer that question, then you must also be willing to face the incredible, transformative power of Jesus to change you, to give you your real name, your real identity, the version of yourself that he has always seen and known. It’s beautiful, but it ain’t easy – just ask Peter – but Jesus never promised that following him would be easy, only that it would lead to a life that is unspeakably precious.
What are you looking for? However you answer that question, be ready for Jesus to show you who you really are.