“Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan, unto John to be baptized of him.”  What a meeting!  Probably the first in their lives.  It is no marvel that John said, “I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?” But he obeyed Jesus’ bidding, “Suffer it to be so now.”  “So He was baptized of John in Jordan.”  Then followed the prayer of the Son of God; and then “the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him”; and then the voice of the Father, saying, “Thou art my beloved Son:  in Thee I am well pleased.”  Let us remember that voice:  we shall hear it again.

And then for forty days and forty nights Jesus was hidden completely from the face of man, alone on the Mount of Temptation, with wild beasts, until ministering angels come to Him from heaven.

He returned to the region where the Baptist was preaching.  “John seeth Jesus coming to him.”  His eye is turned away from the multitude thronging about him, and is fastened upon Jesus only.  His thought is of Him of whom Isaiah wrote long before—­“He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter.”  Pointing to Jesus he exclaims, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world!”

The Galilean disciples were doubtless present, and were deeply moved by their Master’s exclamation.  Because of their previous training in their homes, and in the wilderness with the prophet, it must have kindled in them deeper emotion than it did in any others of that astonished throng.  But it was to become deeper still.  This was especially true of two of them.

[Illustration:  THE WILDERNESS OF JUDEA From Photograph Page 59]

The next day, probably a Sabbath, was to become a memorable day in the history of the two and of their master.  It was a morning hour.  We think of the three as alone, before the multitudes had gathered, or the day’s ministry of preaching and baptizing had begun.  They walked along the bank of the river communing together of Him whom they had seen the day before.  In the distance John saw the Figure again.  In awe and reverence, and with a fixed gaze, “John was standing, and two of his disciples; and he looked upon Jesus as He walked, and saith, Behold, the Lamb of God!” The exclamation was in part that which they had heard in the presence of the multitude; but that was not enough.  It was as if John had said, “Behold the Messiah for whom our nation has waited so long; Him of whom our Scriptures have told us; Who has been the theme in our homes from childhood; of whom I have been the prophet and herald.  He it is of whom I have taught you, my disciples, as you have followed me in the wilderness until I now can bid you behold Him.  Henceforth follow Him.”

John says that one of the two was Andrew.  There is no doubt that the other was himself.  We shall notice in his writings that he never uses his own name.  This incident is our first definite knowledge of him.  All we have said hitherto is what we think must have been true, judging from circumstances of which we do know, and from his character revealed after this time.