In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Holy Church, beloved in the Lord, traditionally gives an extra push of emphasis in her annual celebration of the martyrdom of St. Andrew on November 30 of the year AD 62. In the East, this day always falls in Advent, and in the West the beginning of Advent is always the Sunday closest to the feast of St. Andrew, which means today Western Christians who follow the calendar—the Roman Catholics, the Lutherans, Anglicans—this is the beginning of Advent for them because it is the feast of St. Andrew. For at least the past thousand years, consequently, St. Andrew has become associated with the Church’s preparation for the Nativity of the Lord.

We would not be far off the mark, I think, if we called St. Andrew the Fourth Apostle, in the following sense. He does not appear in the apostolic band on the same level as Peter and the two Sons of Thunder. On one occasion, however, we find him listed as fourth to those three. St. Mark says, “Now as Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, ‘Tell us when will these things be, and what will be the sign when these things will be fulfilled.’ ”

St. Andrew is of special importance to English-speaking Christians. It was from the monastery of St. Andrew on the Caelian Hill that Pope St. Gregory I, Gregory the Dialogist, sent Augustine and Laurence and the other Benedictine missionaries to England in the year 596, and they founded the holy see of Canterbury. St. Andrew has lots of links to the British Isles, but most especially Great Britain. A relic of St. Andrew is in Scotland. In fact, the city of—the monastery and the city of St. Andrews is founded over those relics.

Today I want to make three points about St. Andrew. I don’t often get to preach a Sunday sermon on Andrew, although I’ve had occasion to preach some Wednesday sermons about him, the last 16 years. The three points: first, his relationship to Christ; second, his ministry; and third, his martyrdom.

Let us speak first of his relationship to Christ. Now, you just heard it, but let’s hear it again. This account of his call.

At that time, John the Baptist was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following, and he said to them, “What are you looking for?” And they said to him, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.

Now, in this account we learn several things. We learn that Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist. We learn as well that John publicly identified Jesus as the Lamb of God. That is to say, Andrew was first introduced to Jesus as the sacrificial Victim who was to atone for the sins of the world. His first encounter with the Lord was explicitly related to the message of the cross. Furthermore, we learned that Andrew immediately followed Jesus. This following had something of the nature of a quest. Andrew was looking for something, so that’s why he was a disciple of John the Baptist: he was looking for something. Like lots of young people, looking for something.

So Jesus says, “Let’s see if we can identify this: What are you looking for?” And Andrew says, “Well, it would be enough right now just to see where you’re saying.” We learned that Andrew immediately followed Jesus. This question, “What are you looking for?” was very vivid in Andrew’s memory. He heard it, we are told, “about the tenth hour.” Now this level of chronological precision is rare in the Bible. Normally the time of daylight is divided from the first to the third, the third to the sixth, the sixth to the ninth hour, and the ninth hour to evening, sundown. Tenth hour!? That’s rather precise. In other words, the sun is not just halfway down toward the west; it’s a wee bit more than that. This indicates, I believe, on Andrew’s part, a vivid memory of the event. Years later, decades later—decades later—you have that very precise “it was about the tenth hour.” I couldn’t tell you what happened at four o’clock in the afternoon yesterday, much less decades earlier. “It was about the tenth hour.”

Everything else we know about Andrew is related to his experience of conversion. The vocabulary of holy Church always refers to him as “First-called.” First-called. He was the original Christian disciple. First-called. Number-one Christian in a chronological order, number one.

Second this morning, and somewhat more at length, let us speak of Andrew’s ministry. It began, in fact, right after his conversion. As we heard this morning, Andrew first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah,” which means the Anointed One. He brought him to Jesus. He brought him to Jesus: there’s his ministry. He starts with the family. It starts with the family: brings his brother to Jesus.

In the Bible, Andrew appears to serve entirely as a conduit for others to come to the Lord. Even in that scene which prompts the Church to remember him as the first-called, he immediately went to share his blessing with his more famous sibling. It is no wonder that he was known among the Christians simply as Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. That’s his normal title. [Laughter] In my family, I’m known as Pat, Jim’s brother. Identified by your brother, it’s not a bad thing, really.

As the first-called of the Church, then, Andrew was apparently recognized to enjoy a special access to the Lord. If you wanted to approach the Lord, Andrew was your sure bet. Andrew was at the head of a whole network of friendships. There was his brother, Simon Peter, whom he brought to Jesus. There was also his friend, Philip. We heard a lot about Philip this morning; in fact, we heard more about Philip this morning than we did about Andrew! There was Philip. We find Philip and Andrew almost always together in the gospels. If Andrew’s there, Philip’s not far away, and vice-versa.

There was also Nathaniel, the son of Tholomew: Nathaniel Bar-tholomew, another friend of Philip. There was Thomas, with whom we find Andrew fishing in the Sea of Galilee, in the last chapter of John. The two sons of Zebedee, the Sons of Thunder, James and John, were also on that little fishing trip. Andrew was their friend as well. It is obvious that Andrew cultivated these friendships, and that’s a great deal of his ministry: the cultivation of friendships.

In fact, this network of friendships became the original nucleus of the Christian Church. It is chiefly in Andrew that we perceive the Christian Church as a place of friendships. I am so sorry some other religion has already co-opted the expression “Society of Friends.” [Laughter] If I didn’t know a little more Church history, I would join them for that reason. [Laughter]

All the qualities necessary to friendship we find in Andrew: affection, encouragement, loyalty, and support. Now these elements of life, beloved in the Lord, are not incidental to the Church and the well-being of the Church. Life in the Church is friendship with God and friendship with God’s other friends. And we see this quality immensely exemplified in the character of Andrew. So Andrew’s relationship to Christ was conveyed to others through his sundry relationships, his friendships.

Let us remember the story of the Greek-speaking visitors to Jerusalem. Remember, they came to Jerusalem, they heard about Jesus, there was a reputation. They come to Philip—he has a Greek name, after all: Philippos, lover of horses—they say, “We want to see Jesus.” Seems like a perfectly reasonable request to make to one of the Twelve. Philip says, “Oh, I don’t know. Let’s go talk to Andrew.” He takes them to Andrew, the only other apostle that also had a Greek name: Andreas, which means “manly.” I could elaborate on that, but I won’t. So Philip went first to Andrew, says the text, so that the two of them might facilitate the meeting between Jesus and the Greeks. Evidently, Philip felt the need to have the helpful, accessible Andrew by his side at that time. Philip had not yet had Pastoral Theology 101, and I think Andrew taught it.

In all of the gospels, however, there is one scene that seems most clearly to reveal this trait of friendly, relaxed availability in Andrew, and that scene is in John’s narrative of the multiplication of the loaves. That story is told six times in the four gospels. John is the only one who tells us of Andrew’s role in that story. I’ll read it for you. “One of his disciples, Andrew…” Actually, that’s what I’ve written down here. I should have put back a verse early, where Jesus turns and says to Philip, “How are we going to feed all these people?” He says it to Philip. Why’d he say it to Philip? Because he wanted Andrew to hear it. He says to Philip, “How are we going to feed all these people.” And Andrew says, “Well, we’ve got a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish.”

Now let’s be attentive to the text. Let’s always read the text closely. Let’s ask ourselves how Andrew knew that that little boy present was carrying those particular items of food. How did Andrew know that? It’s unlikely that a small boy would be holding all seven items in his hands at the same time. The five barley buns and the two little dried fish must have been carried in a sack of some sort. Picture it in your minds, because it certainly happened. It certainly happened. As a prosecuting attorney would say, there’s no other way it could have happened. This lad is part of a large crowd that went with Jesus for several days. His mother had packed him a lunch, several meals in one little bag. By now, the lad had already eaten most of that food. The fresh fruit was gone, for example. The Twinkies went the first day. [Laughter] All the boy has left in that sack are five barley loaves, possibly a day or two beyond their prime, and a couple of dried or salted fish.

Now how did Andrew know what was contained in that little boy’s bag? The answer’s obvious. Andrew noticed the child standing near him, alone perhaps, maybe a bit distracted, probably couldn’t follow all three points of Jesus’ sermon. So Andrew asks him in a cordial, engaging way, “Say there, son, what all did your mama pack you in that bag?” Notice that? There’s high theology going on here, but there was a little boy standing there; Andrew engages him. That’s the friendship of the Church. There’d be no ministry in the Church, I think at all, except through friendships.

Third and finally, let us speak of the cross. The unwavering Tradition of the Church fixes Andrew’s death in the Greek city of Patras on November [30] of the year 62. According to that same tradition, Andrew was crucified on a big X. This became known as St. Andrew’s Cross. Icons of St. Andrew commonly portray him holding this form of the cross. Because his relics—part of his relics; I think it was a shin-bone—were carried to Scotland, this big cross, the cross of St. Andrew, was incorporated into the flag of Scotland. Later, when the kingdoms of Scotland and England were united, Andrew’s cross became part of the flag of the United Kingdom, the Union Jack. On this side of the Atlantic, the cross of St. Andrew was adapted into the flag of the Confederate States of America—mammoth irony. Even to this day, to this very day, that Confederate flag is the only American flag that contains the image of the cross; the only one: a great irony.

When Andrew first saw Jesus, Jesus was introduced as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. From the very beginning, even from the moment of his conversion, Andrew accepted the vocation of the cross. His conversion was inseparable from the cross. He never knew Jesus apart from the cross. This is why the myriad of liturgical texts associated with the feast of St. Andrew speak so eloquently of the cross. We had a heavy dose of it last night: marvelous vespers service last night with all those rich texts about the cross. And this morning at matins, all those wonderful texts. Great imagery in the hymnography. We start talking about, for example, the fishing rod of preaching. What a metaphor! The fishing rod of preaching.

You see, Andrew’s cross is a big X. It most literally marks the spot. Andrew was the man on the marked spot. He was the man in whom several roads crossed. In his vocation, he linked together so many things that might have remained apart. As the disciple of John the Baptist, Andrew was a man of the Old Testament; by his conversion to Christ, he became the link between within salvation, joining the Old Testament and the New. By joining his many friends in Christ, he became the living link in their relationship to God and to one another. This quiet saint who apparently never drew attention to himself served entirely as a conduit to others to come to the Lord. A deeply converted man and a friend of the cross, he spent his life sharing the love of God with others, and each year holy Church remembers him as she prepares for the birthday of the Lord. Amen.