Follow Me: Jesus Calls His First Disciples
A Sunday School teacher once asked children to share ideas on how to catch fish. Then she asked what we needed to do to catch people. One boy answered: "We need to throw them into the ocean!"
Today’s reflection is about the calling of the first disciples in Mark 1:14-20.
All four of them are fishermen.
Mark begins his story with the arrest and imprisonment of John the baptizer (v. 14). Apparently, John was imprisoned because he criticized the immorality of Herod who took the wife of his brother, Philip, while the latter is still alive (Mark 6:17; Matt 14:1).
Then Jesus went into Galilee and started preaching, “The time has come. The Kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (v. 15)
When Jesus started his preaching ministry, he was telling people that now is the time for the Kingdom of God. It was a time when prophets like John who are telling people about the truth and criticizing those in power are being put to jail in order to silence them. It was a time when people were ruled by self-obsessed tyrants like Herod. It was a time when corruption, immorality, and violence were being normalized. It was at this moment in time when Jesus tells people to “repent and believe the good news that the Kingdom of God has come.”
Basically, the expression, repent, means to change one’s mind and turn around. It’s like when you are walking and suddenly you realize that you’re going the wrong way so you need to stop, change direction or turn around.
This call to repent makes sense when Jesus called his first disciples saying, “Come, follow me.” He was calling them to go in a different direction–like walking on an alternative path of life.
When he called them, they immediately responded leaving their nets, boats, and families behind (vv. 16-20). And then Jesus tells them, “I will send you out to fish for people” (v. 17). Again, these are fishermen. It seems that when Jesus called his first disciples he was leading them to a different path which requires them to leave their old way of life in order to do something of greater importance like catching people and bringing them into the Kingdom of God.
Interestingly, the task that Jesus is giving his disciples is not totally different from what they are already doing. Also, when he called them, it was in a time when they were performing their normal routines. Apparently, Jesus calls people out of the ordinary and makes them his co-workers in a greater ministry that will eventually yield tremendous blessing and opportunity (Mark 10:29, 30).
So, who are the disciples in today’s world?
A disciple of Jesus is someone who recognizes that we are living in a time of great uncertainties and troubles. Therefore, they acknowledge that people need to have a change of mind and start going back to follow the will of God.
True disciples are those who are willing to give up their own selfishness and earthly desires for the greater cause of reaching out and bringing people into the Kingdom of God which is characterized by righteousness, holiness, and justice.
The world needs disciples of Jesus who are ready to use their talents, skills, abilities, and resources for the glory of God’s growing Kingdom.
Let us be those disciples that Jesus calls, “Come, follow me.”
Blessing:
Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
