Epiphany 2 – 2026
John 1:29-42
Marian Free
In the name of God who invites us to be part of God’s very self. Amen.
Today we break our journey through Matthew’s gospel to gain an insight into the theology of the writer of the John. Given that we read Matthew’s account of Jesus’ baptism last week, you may have noticed some significant differences in John’s version. Familiar elements of the story include the detail that John was baptising in the Jordan when Jesus appeared and that at some point prior there was a dove which descended from heaven as prophesied and which enabled the Baptist to confidently declare that Jesus was the Son of God. Missing from this story is Jesus’ actual baptism by John and the voice from heaven declaring Jesus to be God’s beloved Son.
In this gospel the Baptist sees Jesus approaching and announces: “Here is the Lamb of God” (assuming that his listeners, who are not mentioned, will understand what he means). In John’s version the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry has no temptation story, and Jesus does not walk along the lake to call Peter and Andrew, James and John. Rather, when Jesus reappears the following day and once again John states: “Look, here is the Lamb of God” two of John’s disciples, Andrew and one other leave John and follow Jesus. Andrew then identifies Jesus as the Messiah, and it is he who brings his brother Simon to Jesus.
This morning’s reading introduces a number of complex themes that will be repeated throughout John’s gospel. These include bearing witness or testifying to, looking or looking for, seeing, and abiding, each of which is used in a particular way in this gospel. For the initiated, (by whom I mean scholars who study John’s gospel), it seems that the author is writing in code, a code that he is confident that his listeners are already privy to, and which therefore does not need to be elaborated. There is however no codebreaker for those of us who are trying to unpack this gospel two thousand years later. It is left to scholars to notice patterns and repetitions and to try to discern the meaning behind the words and symbols that John uses.
Today, I’d like focus on the word “abiding,” (μενω in Greek), which occurs five times in these verses and is one of the key words in John’s gospel – it occurs 40 times in total. You will of course be familiar with the expression from the discourse on the vine in chapter 15. There Jesus says among other things: “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.” (4). The word “abide” describes the sort of intimacy with another (in this case Jesus) that it is so close that it is as if the two are one. Abiding in Jesus means being absorbed into Jesus and allowing ourselves to absorb Jesus into our very being.
In English, “μενω” or “abide” is translated as “remain” or “stay”, which means that we tend to miss when it occurs and therefore are unable to discern John’s deeper meaning. Today for example, you will not have heard “abide” at all despite the five repetitions.
In verses 32 and 33 “abiding” describes the relationship between the members of the Trinity. John says: “I saw the Spirit descend and it abided in him” (32) and “The one on whom the Spirit descends and abides, is the one who baptises with the Holy Spirit” (33). The Holy Spirit descends as a dove and takes up residence, “abides”, in Jesus.
Later in the gospel, Jesus makes it clear that Father is also part of this intimate relationship. He says: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The Father who abides in me works through me.” (14:10). Perhaps, more astonishingly, the fourth gospel claims that those who abide in Jesus, by extension, abide in the Trinity. If Jesus abides in the Father and the Spirit, then we who abide in Jesus, likewise abide in the Trinity. “You know the Spirit of truth, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.” (14:16) Later, when Jesus describes the relationship between himself and believers as that of a vine and its branches he says: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love” (15:10).
This concept of being absorbed into the Trinity and absorbing the Trinity into ourselves is perhaps most fully expressed in the language of chapter 6 where Jesus says: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them.” (56). According to the author of the fourth gospel then, the relationship between the members of the Trinity and between a believer and the Trinity, is so close that it is if they are indistinguishable one from another.
Given this background, the next three occurrences of “μενω” in today’s gospel have a deeper meaning than we might otherwise give them. Andrew and another of John’s disciples, follow Jesus. When Jesus notices them he asks what they are looking for. Their response is to say: “Where are you abiding?” Jesus responds: “Come and see.” “They came and saw where he was abiding, and they abided with him that day.”
From the very beginning the author of the fourth gospel describes the relationship between members of the Trinity and the relationship between believers and the Trinity as one of union – of each abiding in the other to the point that they are almost indistinguishable one from another.
There are many challenges in the fourth gospel, but perhaps it is this concept of abiding that is the most confronting and the most difficult for us to attain. Jesus describes his relationship with the Father and the Spirit as one of complete union and he invites us to allow ourselves to be absorbed into that union.
Too often in matters of faith, as in other relationships, we hold something back. Jesus asks for nothing less than full participation in the Godhead and for us to allow the Godhead to fully dwell in us. This, for many of us an impossible goal, but it is a goal to which we must aspire if Jesus is to truly abide in us and we in him.
Tags: abiding, begin absorbed by, John the Baptist, John's Gospel, Trinity
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