SUMMARY
JesusJesus is the Messiah whose life, death, and resurrection are God's saving act for humanity. calls his first disciples who then find others and bring them to Jesus.
ANALYSIS
After John the BaptistJohn the Baptizer was the forerunner of Jesus the Messiah, preaching a gospel of repentance and preparing the way of the Lord. points to Jesus and says, “Look, here is the lamb of God!” two of his disciples begin to follow Jesus. The primary verb used in the calling of the disciples is “finding” which looks forward to an essential theme of John’s Gospel – that God so loved the world. True disciples will be tasked with participating in the scope of God’s love by finding more possible believers and inviting them to “ Come and see.” After asking John’s disciples, “What are you looking for?” Jesus then invites them, “Come and see” and they abide with Jesus. To “abide” in John’s Gospel means to be in an intimate relationship with Jesus that brings abundant life. Later, Jesus will take his disciples to Samaria to find more believers (4:4). When Jesus finds the woman at the well, she then models true discipleship by going back to her townspeople and inviting them, “come and see.” The story of the SamaritanSamaritans were a people who mostly lived between Galilee and Judea and were avoided or shunned by mainstream Judaism. Jesus' message, however, was so inclusive that he often spoke favorably of Samaritans as he did with the woman at the well (John 4) and in... woman at the well ends with Jesus instructing his disciples to do what she did, “see how the fields are ripe for harvesting” (4:35). When the resurrected Jesus appears to the disciples in the locked room, he will send them out into the world, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (20:21). To find more believers so as to make possible God’s love for the whole world is a primary calling of discipleship in the Gospel of John.
