What You Need to Know About the Invitation to “Follow Me”
Mark 1:16-20 says: Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.
WARNING! If a guy you’ve never met, or someone you’ve known for twenty minutes, or a casual acquaintance tells you to leave everything and follow him, don’t do it.
I’ve been pastor in the northeast Ohio area for about twelve years now, and pastor in Akron for about nine years. Akron and its suburbs have a little less than a million people. I know a lot of people in Akron, but there are still many, many people that I don’t know and have never met.
The region of Galilee spanned an area about fifty miles north to south and twenty-five miles east to west. Scholars estimate the number of people living in that area was around 350,000 at the time of Jesus, but a majority of those people were slaves, and only about 100,000 were Jews. 100,000 is a lot of people, but that number is spread over a good distance.
Where is all of this going? Simon, Andrew, James, and John almost certainly knew Jesus as more than a casual acquaintance. Growing up in that region almost all of His life, the smaller number of Jews throughout the closer region, combined with topography and travel routes, and that Jesus would have gained attention because of His baptism, all lead us to believe that those early disciples did not drop and follow Jesus out of nowhere.
I believe this strengthens what Jesus did. From a simple reading of Scripture, we can get the sense that when Jesus called those disciples and they dropped everything to follow Him, Zebedee and those who were with them were left wondering what just happened. But there was probably an understanding that Jesus was special and this was a great opportunity for those men to learn the faith from a trusted, religious teacher. James and John may have even received Zebedee’s blessing to follow Jesus. Jesus’ “stealing away” of his sons did not seem to be a problem for Zebedee’s wife later on, when she would come to Jesus and ask for her sons to sit, one on His left and the other on His right, in His Kingdom.
Jesus was willing to teach them; they were willing to learn. They called Him “rabbi” as a sign of respect and honor.
And so the learning process began for them. We can take heart that following comes from a trust built by a life of honor and example. These men may not have understood what they were fully committing to, but Jesus had already, through His early life, demonstrated that following Him was going to be worth it.
Today, the Holy Spirit passes on that relationship of righteousness to each of us. When we proclaim His holy life as the model to follow, the things God has done in us help to build that same trust that Jesus used in gathering that special group of men to take His message to the ends of the earth.
The question is: does your life encourage others to want to listen and learn about our Lord from you? Would parents, friends, relatives of those around you give their blessing for someone they know to follow you as led to Christ? It is never too late to pursue the path that overemphasizes the way of Jesus.
May we continue to share in the known and unknown of what it means to follow Jesus and encourage others to do the same. Amen.
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