ROCKY
(John 1:29-42)
By Raymond Webster
My comments today on this passage from John are in thanksgiving for Lorna Penny’s one hundredth birthday.
Yesterday there was a news report that the family of Christina Green, the nine year old girl killed in the shootings in Tuscon, Arizona, had made an organ donation, and there was news that the donation had saved the life of another child. The nation has been in mourning after these shootings, and for this child – who was born on September 11, 2001.
Word of this donation, I understand, was first made at Christina’s funeral by the Roman Catholic bishop of Tuscon. In the face of this tragedy, in the face of violence and an evil act, her family did something that has in it the generosity and love and light of Christ, that we see in the Gospel stories, in the New Testament.
In our Gospel reading today, when Jesus came to be baptized, he was greeted by John the Baptist with the majestic words:
“Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
The writer of John’s Gospel goes to considerable lengths to tell us that when we see Jesus lay down his life in love for us, and for the whole world – God so loved the world – we see what God is like: that God is self-giving love.
Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote these words about the great image in the last book of the New Testament, the Revelation to John – about the image of Lamb seated on the throne:
It is the union of sovereignty and sacrifice that is the heart of the Christian message. Is there in this world, dark, divided, bewildered, and bewildering any meaning, shape, purpose, clue, sovereignty? Our Christian answer is: Yes, there is meaning, shape, purpose, clue, sovereignty – and these are found in the death and resurrection of the Christ, in the way of living-through-dying. It is through such sacrificial love that God’s sovereignty is known, and evil is already being overcome; and one day its victory will be complete.
Michael Ramsey, Jesus and the Living Past Oxford, 1980, page 76
I have asked that Paschal Candle,a symbol of presence of the risen Christ, be in the church today, in memory of Christina Green, and remembering the gift of her family – the light of Christ’s love in the face of evil.
Next Sunday we will read from Matthew’s Gospel the story of Jesus stopping by the fishing boats to call the disciples to follow him. I believe God gives us this story, so when we hear Jesus call them, we hear God’s call to each one of us, to follow Jesus as his disciple, day by day, on his way of love.
Next week we will read how they immediately left their nets and followed, and it strikes me as logical and very probable they already had met Jesus and gotten to know him. Today we hear a story of how they first met Jesus.
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 …
He first found his brother, William Temple writes … and so became the first missionary.
William Temple, Readings in St. John’s Gospel,
London: Macmillan,1945, page 28
He first found his brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" … (Andrew) 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).
Peter comes from the Greek “petros,” from “petra” for “rock.” Petra is the name of the ancient city across the Dead Sea (in modern Jordan today), hewn out of the rock cliffs.
The name the Fourth Gospel records Jesus giving Simon Peter is “Cephas” – one of only a handful of times in the Gospels that an Aramaic word is kept, transliterated into Greek. The other is the word “abba”, the familiar word for “father” Jesus used as a sign of the intimacy between himself and the one he called abba, Father – an intimacy with God into which he invites us.
I found this note in the great scholar of John’s Gospel, Raymond Brown:
… (the play on “Peter” and “rock” is not good in Greek where the former is
Petros and the later is petra; it is perfect in Aramaic where both are kēphâ). Neither Petros in Greek nor Kēphâ in Aramaic is a normal proper name; rather it is a nickname (like American “Rocky”) which would have to be explained by something in Simon’s character or career.
Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel according to John (i-xii) (The Anchor Bible) Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966, page 76
“like American ‘Rocky’” I love it!
Well, it is not impossible Jesus could see in Simon the qualities which would make him the leader of the disciples.
Simon – Rocky -- far from perfect. Far from infallible. In the stories of the arrest of Jesus, we are told Simon Peter denied even knowing Jesus three times. And Simon Peter ran away with the others, all the men except John. Only John stayed with the women beneath the cross of Jesus.
But Jesus forgave Simon Peter. The great Easter stories in John of the risen Christ present with his followers in the upper room and then in Galilee, are great stories of forgiveness.
Simon Peter became with Paul leaders of the new Christian church being planted around the Roman Empire. Do you remember the great traditional story, that when Simon Peter was being put to death in the city of Rome – in Nero’s circus on the edge of the city – he asked to be crucified head down, out of humility for having denied knowing Jesus? So Simon Peter is shown in Caravaggio and Michelangelo.
Simon – the Rock -- Rocky – ended his life following Jesus in offering himself in love.
Simon Peter was not perfect. He was, as we are, perfectly and fully forgiven and loved. So are we. The love of God in Christ, God’s forgiveness, are fully given to you and me, here in this Eucharist. . We are called to face the city and world in this love. We are called to face evil in this love. We are called to bring people, as Andrew bought his brother Simon, to this love.
The love – the friendship and forgiveness found in Christ, the way of life lived in love, dying to self in order to live and come alive -- was the rock on which Peter the Rock built his “character” and “career.” Better, it was the rock on which he built his discipleship.
It is the rock on which we are to build our discipleship.
(This sermon was preached by the Rev. Raymond Webster, Rector, in St. Chrysostom’s Church, Chicago, Illinois, on Sunday, January 16, 2011, the Second Sunday after the Epiphany.)
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The Gospel text is from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.
