The Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 14, 2024

John 1:35–42

John was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” The two disciples heard what he said and followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following him and 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 you will see.” So they went and saw where Jesus was staying, and they stayed with him that day. It was about four in the afternoon. Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two who heard John and followed Jesus. He first found his own brother Simon and told him, “We have found the Messiah” —which is translated Christ—. Then he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of John; you will be called Cephas”—which is translated Peter.

The Lord Jesus “looked at” the one John the Apostle called “Simon Peter”.  The Greek word translated here as “looked at” has a more intense meaning.  It is the same word that St. Mark uses when he tells about the young man who came to Jesus and asked what he must do to be saved: “Jesus, looking on him, loved him and said to him, etc.” (Mark 10, 21).  The Lord “looked at” the future apostle with great care, with love, for some time before he spoke to him.  He stared at him.  He stared into him, relishing this man’s boldness, his impetuosity, and his zeal.  The Lord shows unusual behavior here.  He did not look at Andrew or even John this way.  And, as far as anyone knew at the time, who was Simon to him?  Simon the fisherman,  who had braved storms and endured long nights at sea, must have returned the stare as best he could, looking into the eyes of Jesus of Nazareth, whom his brother Andrew had claimed to be the Messiah.  Simon would have noted the intensity with which he was being looked at.  He would have felt something move inside his heart.  No one had ever looked at him like this.   Three years later, he would see these same eyes looking upon him in very much the same way, and it would cause him to “weep bitterly”: “And the Lord turning looked on Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, as he had said: Before the cock crow, you shall deny me three times. And Peter going out, wept bitterly” (Luke 22, 61-62).  In fact, the verb is the same.  The Lord, looking upon him near the Jordan, is looking ahead to this, as well.

“You are Simon the son of John; you will be called Cephas”—which is translated Peter.  We have here a Hebrew or Aramaic sentence which John translated for his readers into Greek.  The word transliterated as “Cephas” is an Aramaic word that means “rock” or “boulder ”.  It had not been used as a name before and it would have made as unusual a name as words like “grass” or “cloud”.  St. John or one of his followers added the words “which is translated Peter” for those not knowing any Aramaic.  The Greek word Anglicized for us as “Peter” is “petros”, which also means “rock” or “boulder”.  “Petros” is no more a name for a person than “cephas”.  Later, “petros” became Latinized as “Petrus”, which was not a Roman name.  Jesus is changing Simon’s name, a common Jewish name, to a word never used for a name in any language.  He is looking forward to Simon’s confession of faith in him as the Son of God and to the responsibility he will give him to “fix your brothers firmly” in their faith (Luke 22, 32).  He will become the “rock” spoken of by the Lord upon which the other Apostles, like wise men, build their houses (cf. Matthew 7, 24).  

Now, among  the Jews and their ancestors, a person might change his own name, or someone else might change it.  In the latter case, only a parent or a superior could do this.  They could do this because the person in question “belonged” to them.  Thus, we see Almighty God changing the names of Abram and Jacob.  That Jesus, a stranger to Simon, changes his name — or, rather, indicates that he will change his name at a later time — tells us much about how the Lord knew himself to be the Son of God, and told Simon the same, though he would articulate this only later, when his faith had grown sufficiently, when he had thought deeply and long about the look in the Lord’s eyes as he gazed upon him, knowing him.

At our baptism, the Lord looked into us in the same way as he looked into Peter, doing so with love and fixed attention, and he called us by the name he gave us through our parents, speaking it to us through the priest or deacon.  Meditating upon how thoroughly he knows us, and on how he loves us despite knowing that, like Simon, the son of John, we would betray him in our sins, helps us to gaze back at him, and to wonder: “Who?” and then, “How?”