Since St. Andrew’s Day was this week, and St. Andrew is the patron saint of Scotland (where I live), he’s this week’s saint.
St. Andrew, judging from the Gospel accounts, was originally a fisherman, and then a disciple of St. John the Baptist. But when the Baptist declared, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” Andrew and some of the others decided to go check out Jesus’ digs.
After having spent a little bit of time with Jesus, Andrew ran off to tell his brother Simon that he’d found the Messiah. Simon is important because later on, Jesus calls him the Rock (Petros in Greek), and he goes on to be a great leader in the apostolic band.
During the brief years of Jesus’ ministry, although not of the closest three (the Rock, James, John), he was of the inner four, often coming in lists with the other three.
He also spoke up and pointed out the boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish. He is mentioned once in Acts.
So much for the biblical record.
As my previous post about St. Matthias tells us, there is a document known as The Acts of Andrew and Matthias in which St. Matthias goes to the land of the cannibals, and St. Andrew rescues him from being gormandized. The OE poem Andreas (alluded to here) is about Andrew realising Matthias’ trouble through a dream and his journey there. Jesus is the helmsman of Andrew’s ship and awesomeness ensues. Andrew shows up and preaches to the cannibals then sets Matthias free. More awesomeness follows this.
Following this, I believe that these apostolic fellows go and preach to some barbarians. They show a little caution this time, not wishing to be had for dinner. But the barbarians prove not to be cannibals. Thankfully.
As tradition has it, Aegeates, a pagan proconsul whose wife Andrew converted, was angered by his wife’s Christianity. He accordingly had Andrew crucified in the shape of an X — hence the Saltire on Scotland’s flag.
What do we take from all this? St. Andrew was a man who found the Messiah and wasn’t afraid to bring others to him. He brought his brother. According to the old stories, he brought the good news about the Messiah to the cannibals as well as the people of Greece. We may not all be the Rock — a great public leader — but can we not all be Andrew? I reckon we can.
Classically Christian 