Andrew's Fifteen Minutes

We first meet Andrew in John 1. Apparently he had heard John the Baptist declare that Jesus was “the Lamb of God.” Andrew and another person decided to follow Jesus around and ended up spending the day with Jesus. Early tradition suggests that this “unnamed” person with Andrew was John, the beloved apostle.  Andrew soon goes and finds his brother Simon, telling him, “We have found the Messiah.”

Simon will answer Jesus’ call in his life and become better known as “Cephas, which, when translated, is Peter.” Of course Peter will become a key player in the story of Jesus found in the four gospels and a key player in the life of the early church described in Acts and the epistles. Andrew is seldom mentioned in the gospels and mentioned only in a list of the apostles in Acts 1 beyond the Jesus story of the gospels. Peter’s name occurs 155 times in the New Testament; Andrew’s name only 13 times.

Apparently not every follower of Jesus is called to be the upfront, well-known leader that Peter became. But, the few things we know about Andrew make him a character that we shouldn’t overlook as we examine people in Scripture who served Jesus effectively!

One of those “few things” is the simple fact that Andrew is the one who “brought Peter to Jesus.” (John 1)Perhaps with all that was going on where Peter lived at the time, he might have “stumbled on to Jesus” all by himself without Andrew’s help. But Andrew was unwilling to take such a risk and “the first thing” he did was to find his brother and bring him to meet “the Messiah.”  Who wouldn’t be happy to know that on the record of our life of service to Jesus was the fact that we brought someone – in this case a crucial someone – to Jesus?

John tells another interesting story about Andrew. This one surrounds the great feeding of the five thousand and the Sermon on the Bread of Life. According to John (chapter 6) a great crowd was coming toward Jesus, and Jesus said to Phillip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” John makes it clear that Jesus already knew what he planned to do, but wanted to see what the fledgling young followers of His would do.

Phillip replies that it would take “eight months’ wages” and then some to buy enough bread to give the people even “a bite.”  Not to pick on Phillip too much (I probably would have said something similar) but he falls in to the trap of thinking “it’s all up to us” instead of “I wonder how God can use us to take care of this.” Andrew enters the picture with John taking time to note that he was “Simon Peter’s brother.” Clearly Andrew isn’t occupying a starring role in the story if John feels compelled to identify who he is by saying “he’s Peter’s brother.”

But Andrew says, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish. How far will they go among so many?” Clearly Andrew doesn’t see exactly how that meager offering can solve the problem, but at least he doesn’t say “that won’t work!” He seems to be operating with a sense of “I don’t know how this will answer  your question, Jesus, but I’m trying.”

Everyone likely knows how that meager offering was used to feed the multitude of people about whom Jesus was concerned.  In fact, when everyone was fed, there were “twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.”  Perhaps a basket of leftovers for each of the apostles, who like Phillip, might have wondered where the “eight months’ wages” was going to be found to give the crowd a bite to eat.

In Mark 13, Andrew, in the company of the more familiar trio of Peter, James, and John, asks Jesus privately about when “the signs” would take place. This of course is a pretty natural question when you realize that they had just heard Jesus say, “not one stone will be left on another, everyone will be thrown down” in reference to the Temple and other “magnificent buildings” in Jerusalem. 

We meet Andrew again during the final week of Jesus’ life on earth when some “Greeks among those who went up to worship at the Feast” requested of Phillip an opportunity “to see Jesus.” Phillip consults with Andrew, and the two of them make the request known to Jesus. (John 12:20-22) We aren’t told that Jesus actually met with the Greeks who desired to see Him, but His response to Phillip and Andrew make it abundantly clear that Jesus sees that request as indicative of the fact His mission is reaching its climax and “the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” 

That’s pretty much it. Only Andrew’s mention in the list of the apostles in Acts 1 tells us any more about him. In our cultural lingo, “his fifteen minutes of fame” has come and gone. 

But actually that isn’t true, is it? Far more of us can find a soul mate in Andrew than in Peter. Two things stand out in Andrew’s life as we know it: [a] he is willing to bring others to Jesus; and [b] he is willing to offer Jesus whatever he has available, even if it is a meager five loaves and two fish when thousands need to be fed.

It makes me wish that when Luke introduces Peter’s sermon on Pentecost, he would have said, “Then Peter, Andrew’s brother, stood up with the Eleven . . .” (Acts 2:1) Andrew was, it seems, always willing to make Jesus the main thing. And he did that with grace and class. May God raise up a crowd of Andrews in the world around us who will introduce others to Jesus and offer him whatever it is they have.

The Crowds

Matthew’s story of Jesus is prone to involve “the crowds.” The Greek word typically translated “crowd” appears 174 times in the New Testament, nearly one-third of them are found in the twenty-eight chapters of Matthew. 

The Jesus we meet in Matthew has His heart ripped out by “the crowds” that He viewed with compassion, because they were, in Matthew’s perfect analogy for his culture, “like sheep without a shepherd.” There is something palpable about the presence of Jesus in Matthew that attracts “great crowds” to hear Him teach. Yet it is the “crowd” that will demand the release of a murderer and Pilate will wash his hands in front of that very crowd.

At the heart of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew is what we have come to call the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5-7 describes what God intended Israel to be in terms that sets the stage for what Jesus modeled in His own life while on earth in the flesh as the paradigm for kingdom people to do kingdom things. The sermon describes for us what fulfillment of the Law, not abolishing the Law, must look like.

Interestingly, Matthew introduces his account of the sermon by saying, “now when He saw the crowds.” There is no detail as to what kind of people made up “the crowd” that day. It surely was primarily Jewish in terms of faith, but little else can be said about them. Perhaps some where people very impressed with what they had already seen Jesus do. In Matthew’s chronology, Jesus has recently been baptized, led by the Spirit to be tempted in the wilderness, and begun His ministry by declaring, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” (Matthew 4:17)  Peter and Andrew, along with James and John, have been called to be “fishers of men.” In common Matthew language, Jesus has been going about Galilee “teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.” (4:23) Jesus certainly has a following, and just prior to the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew tells us “large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed Him.”

Some of those people must have been sitting on the mountainside. But along with them might have been some people who saw Jesus as a threat. Even a casual reading of Matthew (or any of the other gospel accounts of Jesus’ life) shows us that not everyone was impressed with Jesus. For all we know the crowd could likely contained some folks there out of curiosity and nothing more.

But at the end of the sermon, “the crowds” come back into view. Matthew tells us “the crowds were amazed at His teaching.” The word Matthew uses that is often translated could mean something like stunned, awed, or astounded. However one prefers to say it in English, the bottom line has to be that Jesus and His teaching had a huge impact on “the crowds.”

It isn’t like Jesus is offering some “watered down” version of the gospel here. The Sermon on the Mount continues to be an incredibly challenging word from God about what the kingdom of God should look like. Jesus challenges us at every juncture of life to remind us that following Jesus – or in its immediate historical setting, Israel finally living up to God’s intentions for them – requires a reversal of “how things are” so that they can be “as things ought to be.”

Why is it that Jesus “stunned the crowds,” but so often in our culture “the crowds” aren’t all that impressed with what Christians have to say about life? Research nearly everywhere suggests that our culture in general and millennials in particular, aren’t “awed” by the message of the church in our culture.

Could it have something to do with how Jesus viewed “the crowds?” As noted above, “the crowds” caused Him to be moved with compassion because them as “sheep without a shepherd.” But if Kinnamon, Lyons, and others are correct, “the crowds” tend to view us as judgmental, homophobic, far-right politically, and other less than “awe producing terms.” If “the crowds” are reading some websites and Facebook pages of some who profess to be reflecting the gospel message, there is little wonder why “the crowds” feel that way!

Jesus must have viewed “the crowds” as opportunity, not threat. And even though “the crowds” will turn on Him at the end, He still says “forgive them” and on the Day of Pentecost, a pretty impressive “crowd” responds to the gospel.

The fact that our world – “the crowd” to whom  we are called to be Jesus  – is indeed “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” should evoke compassion, not judgment. Until that happens, “the crowds” aren’t like to be stunned by what we have to say!