Today is St. Andrew’s Day. What! You didn’t send your St. Andrew’s Day cards yet. Shame. I’m not joking. You really can buy St. Andrew’s Day cards. It’s a big holiday in Scotland, but somehow hasn’t caught on in the U.S. the way St. Patrick’s Day has. It’s a holiday in Romania also where the big deal is for single women to sleep with a sprig of sweet basil under their pillow hoping for a dream about getting married by New Years Day. (None of my relatives from Romania ever heard of this, but they were Germans, not Romanians.) The only significance St. Andrew’s Day has for Lutherans (and for other liturgical Christians) is that Advent begins on the Sunday closest to St. Andrew’s Day.

So who was St. Andrew anyway? Why, the brother of Peter. That always sounds a little demeaning. Nobody seems to know much about Andrew other than he was Peter’s brother. The Gospel of John gives an interesting insight. Andrew was a follower of John the Baptist who points him towards Jesus. It is Andrew who first brings Peter to meet Jesus.

There’s also something curious. Andrew is a Greek name, not Hebrew or Aramaic. Maybe Andrew was one of those links who brought the Gospel of Jesus to the Greek-speaking gentile world. Indeed, there is a tradition that Andrew preached in the territory north of the Black Sea including the area around Kyiv.

We remember Andrew for bringing people to Jesus. I hope all of us will be remembered for that.

Read John 1:35-42 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne