So I’m starting a new series. I know where I want to start, but quite frankly have no idea where this thing is going to end up. I want to explore what does it look like to be a follower of Jesus. I’m basically going to start going through the gospel Mark. We’ll be looking at the “Follow Me” passages and then basically anything that I think bears on the question of what it means to follow Jesus today. After that we may go on to explore John or Luke. I’m not really sure. It’s kind of an open ended series. So here goes…
After a brief introduction to Jesus through the forerunner, John the Baptizer, and a very short (1 verse) description of the temptation of Jesus (Mark 1:12), Jesus begins proclaiming the good news that the kingdom of God “has come near” (v. 15, NIV), inviting people to “repent and believe.”
Then we find him walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee where he calls Simon and Andrew. It is presumably an ordinary day. They were at work. They were doing what they did every work day. They were fishing (“for they were fisherman” – v. 16, ESV).
“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (v. 17)
I’ve always been struck by the next line in the narrative: “And immediately they left their nets and followed him.” Even more so the reaction of James and John: “and they left their father 
Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him” (v. 20). Seriously! Peter just drops the net in his hand, right there, picks up and follows this itinerant Rabbi who just came to town! And James and John, they just walk away, in the middle of their shift at the family business – ‘Bye Dad!” Really?
Is this what Jesus requires of me? To quit my job and start going from town to podunk town, doing OJT with this Rabbi? What was it about Jesus that drew these men? Was it the fervent Messianic expectancy running rampant in first century Palestine? I doubt that these four men were particularly religious. These were working class guys, hard working guys. Was it because they’d already been influenced by John the Baptist’s ministry?
Was it because God called them? Why do I follow Jesus today (whether I do it well or not is another question, but clearly there is something about this 1st century Rabbi that has drawn me to Him). Something about him caused me to spent $30,000 of my own money to study His Life and teachings (and the world religious system that is built around Him). Why do you follow Him (comment below)? Why have I gotten up early every Sunday morning for the last 24 years to gather, celebrate, pray with other like-minded followers of this crazed eyed Rabbi, when I could have slept in or watched the football game like any sane-minded, normal person would.
Could it be that God has called me? Has He called you? Called us to do what? The words of Jesus echo across the millennia:
“Follow Me!”
It’s the most important thing we can do as Jesus’ people. Follow Jesus! Let me say that again: “Follow Jesus!!” Who cares what your political party affiliation is. Are you following Jesus? Any idiot can make a profession of faith, respond to an altar call, pray a sinner’s prayer of repentance, or the sign that page in the back of the Gideon’s Bible. Are you following Jesus?
Well lets do it. Take this journey with me. First stop, Capernaum! Jump on board, let’s follow the disciples as they follow Jesus through this “good news” account, kata markon (as the ancient inscription title of this book reads) – “According to Mark” (a close friend, and ministry associate of Simon Peter). What better way to figure this puzzle out than to see it through their eyes, what it must have been like to follow Jesus from small town to village and on to the next: proclaiming this thing that the Master called “the Kingdom of God,” ministering to people right where they were, seeing Jesus do crazy miracles, and then give these working stiffs ‘authority over evil spirits’ (6:7), to do the same kind of miracles and healing that Jesus did.
I have no idea where this thing is going… join me anyway!
Until next week, my friends – Follow Jesus!
Brad, my own understanding of “discipleship” has morphed over the years. To be honest, when I was younger I thought discipleship meant something like taking a class where you learn about how to read the bible and pray, how to witness to your unsaved friends, how to tithe and volunteer in church, and how to manage impure thoughts by memorizing scripture. Jesus’ invitation into discipleship (especially in Mark!) is “Follow Me.” I’m glad you’re doing the series. Following Jesus is what it’s all about, and what we need to be working through together. Looking forward to following along, and following Jesus more and more. Following Jesus and Discipleship = the same thing!
Well here goes the third try. You have chosen an extremely transcendental topic, and the basis of our faith. What does it mean to follow Christ crisscrosses throughout the gospels and is the bedrock of the epistles. To limit ourselves to a single gospel viewpoint would be to confine ourselves to a kind of tunnel vision of such an I mportant theme.
What does it mean to follow Jesus? Well I believe we are called from the instant of conception, and perhaps before.
Like Adam and Eve before us each and every one of us are created to follow Him. But we in His infinite wisdom and love have been given free will. The second most important gift after the gift of Himself. Unfortunately we do not make good use of this gift. When we do not use this gift properly we like He and his chosen people are forced into the desert. This is, what for lack of a better word will call our “pre-calling”. It is there like He that we are tested.
It is here that I find it necessary to depart from the gospel of Mark because of it’s lack of detail as to what occurred in the desert. Luke shows how Christ dealt with the three great temptations we all must face in our own personal deserts: bread, power (prestige and personal glory) and being our own personal gods. Many if not most of us never get past this point and live our whole and entire life in our own personal deserts.
But through the grace of God and the sacrifice of His son on the cross those of us who have His blessing are led to His resurrection. It is from His resurrection that He calls us over and over again. Because of His infinite mercy He calls us anew after each fall. And if we recognize our faults and repent of our sins from the depth of our hearts and souls, then our ears are opened like the deaf in the gospels and we begin to here His call progressively louder and clearer. It is our blessing that He is infinitely patient and loving, and never stops trying insistently to call each and every one of us. Well here goes the third try. You have chosen an extremely transcendental topic, and the basis of our faith. What does it mean to follow Christ crisscrosses throughout the gospels and is the bedrock of the epistles. To limit ourselves to a single gospel viewpoint would be to confine ourselves to a kind of tunnel vision of such a important theme.
What does it mean to follow Jesus? Well I believe we are called from the instant of conception, and perhaps before.
Like Adam and Eve before us each and every one of us are created to follow Him. But we in His infinite wisdom and love He gave us free will. The second most important gift after the gift of Himself. Unfortunately we do not make good use of this gift. When we do not use this gift properly we like He and his chosen people are forced into the desert. This is, what for lack of a better word will call our “pre-calling”. It is there like He theft we are tested.
It is here that I find it necessary to depart from the gospel of Mark because of it’s lack of detail as to what occurred in the desert. Luke shows how Christ dealt with the three great temptations we all must face in our own personal deserts: bread, power (prestige and personal glory) and being our own personal gods. Many if not most of us never get past this point and live our whole and entire life in our own personal deserts.
But through the grace of God and the sacrifice of His son on the cross those of us who have His blessing are led to His resurrection. It is from His resurrection that He call us over and over again. Because of His infinite mercy He calls us anew after each fall. And if we recognize our faults and repent of our sins from the depth of our hearts and souls, then our ears are opened like the deaf in the gospels and we begin to here His call progressively louder and clearer. It is our blessing that He is infinitely patient and loving, and never stops trying insistently to call each and every one of us.
We all have different important and necessary gifts the building of the kingdom. We are not all apostles, as the church grew the twelve discovered this. They found that they could not do everything, so by the gift of the Holy Spirit the deaconate was born. The body of Christ, so well described by Paul needs all of its part to function properly.
After my journey through the desert and innumerable falling and getting up again(or should I say being lifted up again) it has been revealed to e that I am a prayer warrior. Now my quandary is how to reconcile the with my earthly responsibilities. So, what do I do I pray about it.
That is how I follow Christ.
We all have different important and necessary gifts for the building of the kingdom. We are not all apostles, as the church grew the twelve discovered this. They found that they could not do everything, so by the gift of the Holy Spirit the deaconate was born. The body of Christ, so well described by Paul needs all of its part to function properly.
After my journey through the desert and innumerable falling and getting up again(or should I say being lifted up again) it has been revealed to me that I am a prayer warrior.
Now my quandary is how to reconcile this with my earthly responsibilities. So, what do I do I pray about it.
That is how I follow Christ.
As I say in the post, I think it’s the most important ting we can do as Christians – Follow Jesus! And yeah, I think you’re right, we need to begin to think of discipleship and following Jesus as synonyms.
Yeah. I may go on to continue this series with Luke or John. But for now I’m just trying to go through Mark on its own terms, with all of its high speed/fast action and low detail. Shalom, my brother!
Well I kinda missed the boat on the second installment, except for the fact that Peter’s mother immediately got up and served upon being healed. The rest I will store away in my heart as Mary did with so many thing that she did not understand. The time will come when I need this understanding and it will come.
What does become clear to me is that, as Paul so beautifully puts it in the one body many parts extended metaphor, is that we each have an important part to play, and we need descerment to identify it. A preacher, a theologian and a missionary are no more important than the fund raiser, the doner and the secretary. All have an important role to play in the building of the earthly kingdom.
The secret is to identify what it is and freely put yourself in His loving arms and accept His mercy. It s especially important to be open to the stirrings of the Holy Spirit who speaks to us in prayer and scripture.
Here is a concrete personal example. For sometime now I have had this crazy idea in my head, so crazy that one of my community brother tod me (after the fact) that it could only have come from God. But the worldly impossibility of it ever coming to pass made me put it on a shelf and laugh at my self for ever having even considered it. Then a series of events stretched out over a long period of time seemed to show me that maybe it perhaps wasn’t such a crazy idea after all. Then two Sondays ago at mass the readings (Agnes 2:18-24, Ps 126:1-6, Heb 2:9-11 and Mk 10:2-16) hit me like a bolt of lightning. So, that same night I went to my (ex)wife’s house and asked her if she would be willing to reconcile with me. She said, among other things that I won’t mention now, that she had been thinking the same thing for some tome, and seemed ate end to the idea, but unwilling to commit. Since then we have had some intimate honest conversation through which we have begun get closer to one another. Basically the message here is one must have or put one’s own house in order before going out to preach the gospel. Charity starts at home.
Well life has gotten in the way and I have not been able to follow the whole series, but this last one seems to suffer from over-contextualization and over-simplification. In my humble opinion and according to my understanding blasphemy is conscience knowing rejection of Christ, his teachings and/or the workings of the Holy Spirit in one’s life. This is my take on what the scribes, Pharisees etc. did. Inspite of the physical evidence and verbal arguments they refused to see the truth. There is no one blinder than he who refuses to see. Pope Francis resently declared that (paraphrased) using God’s name to justify violence is blasphemy. But this is only true for those who have Christ in their lives and know and understand his teaching (me not Pope Francis) which is an extremely select group of which the scribes and Pharisees are not members. Here is where God’s infinite mercy enters into play. Mercy before judgement!