The Barefoot Evangelist

Read John 1:1-42 with your family.

This is a very long passage, but it tells the story of folks meeting Jesus from the view of the Gospel of John. Each Gospel has a slightly different telling of the story of Jesus, and the Gospel of John lets everyone know that Jesus is the Messiah right from the beginning.

This passage tells four separate stories about the start of Jesus’ ministry. First it talks about Jesus being part of God from the very beginning of the world. Second is John the Baptist telling people that he is not the Messiah, but the Messiah – Jesus – is coming soon. Third we have John the Baptist telling what happened when he baptized Jesus, how the dove came down from heaven and stayed close to Jesus. And Fourth we have the story of how Andrew began following Jesus and brought his brother Simon, who was renamed Peter, to meet Jesus and start following him.

They knew the prophecies and the promises of God to send someone who was going to save them from the Roman government and anyone else who tried to control them. We can feel the excitement in these stories that finally, the Messiah had arrived.

Now… now they could begin the resistance.