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Catholic Commentary
The First Disciples: Andrew, Simon, and the Call to 'Come and See'
35Again, the next day, John was standing with two of his disciples,36and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”37The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.38Jesus turned and saw them following, and said to them, “What are you looking for?”39He said to them, “Come and see.”40One of the two who heard John and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.41He first found his own brother, Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah!” (which is, being interpreted, Christ ).42He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas” (which is by interpretation, Peter).
John 1:35–42 records John the Baptist's redirection of two disciples to Jesus as "the Lamb of God," with one disciple, Andrew, immediately bringing his brother Simon to meet Jesus, who renames him Peter, signifying a new identity and mission. The passage establishes the theological pattern that authentic ministry produces followers of Christ rather than dependents, and introduces the Johannine themes of seeking, finding, and abiding through personal encounter.
Jesus's first words in John are a question—not a command—that exposes what we're actually seeking, and invites us to meet him where he dwells, not where we think we need to go.
Verse 40 — Andrew identified: The narrator now identifies one of the two as Andrew, described not by his own status but by his relationship to his more famous brother — "Simon Peter's brother." This is characteristic Johannine irony: Andrew appears first, but is permanently identified in relation to the one he will bring to Christ. Andrew's discipleship has an intrinsically apostolic, missionary shape from its very inception.
Verse 41 — "We have found the Messiah": Andrew's first act after his own encounter is to seek his brother. The verb heuriskei (he found) mirrors the seeking of verse 38 — finding is the answer to seeking. The exclamation "We have found the Messiah!" (hēurēkamen ton Messian) carries the jubilation of a long-awaited discovery, echoing the search of Israel across centuries. John translates the Aramaic Meshiha into Greek Christos — a reminder that his Gospel is written for a Hellenistic world but roots itself in Hebrew messianic hope. The "we" is communal: Andrew does not claim a private experience but immediately shares it.
Verse 42 — The renaming of Simon: Jesus's gaze (emblepsas, an intense, penetrating look) precedes his speech. He knows Simon before Simon speaks. The double statement — "You are Simon the son of Jonah" (identity) / "You shall be called Cephas" (vocation) — is structurally parallel to God's renaming of Abram as Abraham (Gen 17:5) and Jacob as Israel (Gen 32:28). In Hebrew and Aramaic anthropology, a new name given by God signals a new identity and a new mission. Kēphas (Aramaic) = Petros (Greek) = Rock. This is the Johannine parallel to the Matthean Petrine commission (Matt 16:17–19); here the mission is embedded in the name at the very moment of first encounter, before any confession of faith, before any failure — entirely an act of divine prevenient grace.
Catholic tradition finds in these eight verses a dense theology of vocation, witness, and Petrine primacy.
On vocation: The Catechism teaches that "God calls everyone by name" (CCC 2158) and that the whole life of a Christian is a response to a divine initiative. The sequence here — hearing → following → abiding → witnessing — maps precisely onto what Vatican II's Lumen Gentium calls the universal call to holiness (LG 39–40). No one reaches Christ in isolation; always there is a human mediator (John, then Andrew) who points the way. This models the ecclesial structure of faith transmission: Tradition carried by persons.
On "Come and See": St. Augustine comments on this passage in his Tractates on John (Tract. 7.9): "What is 'Come and see' but 'Believe and you will understand'?" Augustine identifies the invitation as the structure of all theological knowledge in the Catholic tradition — fides quaerens intellectum, faith seeking understanding. One cannot know Christ from a distance; one must abide with him.
On the renaming of Peter: This verse is pivotal for the Catholic doctrine of Petrine primacy. The Church Fathers consistently read the bestowal of the name "Rock" as a proleptic sign of the office Christ would formally commission at Caesarea Philippi (Matt 16:18). Pope Leo the Great (Sermo 4) writes that Peter's new name signifies not merely personal character but ecclesial function: the Church is built upon the rock of Peter's faith, confirmed by Christ's own act. St. John Chrysostom (Homily on John, 18) notes that Christ's penetrating gaze — emblepsas — reveals his divine foreknowledge: He sees not what Simon is, but what grace will make him. This is the Catholic understanding of Holy Orders and apostolic office: rooted not in human merit but in divine election and gift.
On "We have found": Andrew's Christology — "We have found the Messiah!" — anticipates the entire kerygma of the New Testament. The Church Fathers read this as the moment Israel's messianic longing reaches its fulfillment. Origen (Commentary on John, II.27) notes that the search for Christ is itself a gift: "No one can come to me unless the Father draws him" (John 6:44).
These verses challenge contemporary Catholics on two practical levels. First, Jesus's opening question — "What are you looking for?" — is an invitation to honest self-examination. In an age of relentless distraction, many Catholics practice a Christianity of habit rather than desire. This passage calls each person to name what they are actually seeking, and to test whether it is Christ. A practical response might be to bring that question into regular prayer: sitting in silence before the Blessed Sacrament and honestly asking, What am I truly looking for today?
Second, Andrew's instinct is immediate and concrete: he finds his brother. The model of personal witness — not institutional program but one person bringing another — is the heartbeat of the New Evangelization as described by St. John Paul II and Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium (EG 120). Every Catholic reading this passage has a "Simon" in their life — a family member, a colleague, a friend drifting from faith — to whom they can say, not with argument but with invitation: Come and see.
Commentary
Verse 35 — "Again, the next day": John structures the opening of his Gospel around a sequence of consecutive days (1:29, 1:35, 1:43, and then the wedding at Cana on "the third day" in 2:1), evoking the creation week of Genesis and suggesting that Jesus's ministry inaugurates a new creation. The Baptist's continuing presence with his own disciples shows that he has not disbanded his following but now deliberately directs it toward Jesus.
Verse 36 — "Behold, the Lamb of God!": This is a repetition and intensification of 1:29. Where the first proclamation was made to a crowd, this one is addressed specifically to two disciples — an intimate, redirecting testimony. The Baptist here fulfills his entire vocation in a single sentence: he points away from himself. The Greek ide (Behold/Look) is an imperative of attention — not merely informational but a summons. The Lamb of God (amnos tou Theou) evokes simultaneously the Passover lamb of Exodus 12, the suffering Servant of Isaiah 53:7 ("like a lamb led to the slaughter"), and the daily Temple tamid sacrifice. John's audience, steeped in the Hebrew liturgical world, would have heard all three registers at once.
Verse 37 — "They followed Jesus": The verb ēkolouthēsan is the standard Synoptic word for discipleship (cf. Matt 4:20, Mark 1:18). Its use here is deliberate. The Baptist's witness produces its intended fruit: the disciples transfer their following from the forerunner to the One he proclaims. This is the theology of all authentic Christian ministry — to produce not dependents but followers of Christ.
Verse 38 — "What are you looking for?": Jesus's first recorded words in the Fourth Gospel are a question. This is theologically weighty. He does not simply issue a command ("Follow me," as in the Synoptics) but penetrates to the level of desire. Ti zēteite — "What are you seeking?" — echoes the Septuagint language of seeking God (cf. Ps 27:8, Amos 5:4). The disciples' response — "Rabbi, where are you staying?" (pou meneis) — uses the Johannine keyword menō (abide/remain/dwell), which will become one of the Fourth Gospel's master theological concepts (cf. 15:4–10, 1 John 4:16). They do not ask what he teaches but where he dwells: their desire is for union, not merely information.
Verse 39 — "Come and see": Jesus's response is an invitation into personal experience. He does not provide an address or a theological résumé. is an imperative of accompaniment. The text notes they stayed with him "that day" and that it was "about the tenth hour" (approximately 4:00 p.m.) — a detail so precise it carries the flavor of eyewitness testimony. The Beloved Disciple (traditionally identified as one of these two unnamed disciples) seems here to be recording his own memory of the hour his life changed.