Mark 3:14-15
Being
“with” someone in high school has a certain meaning. It usually meant that the
two of you were a couple. It often meant that you spent time together, walking
the halls, hanging out during and after school. In my day it meant holding
hands and kissing. Unfortunately, today it can mean a lot more than these
physical connections. The connection meant you were getting to know each other,
your likes and dislikes, personalities, priorities, preferences. It was usually
fun.
Jesus
has pulled aside many of those who were following Him. We know there are crowds
of people. He has had to develop containment strategies in order to continue
doing what is most important. And now He goes up on a mountainside and narrows
the group of His closest followers. He whittles it down to twelve men.
We
know from some of the other books of the New Testament that there were others,
not part of the Twelve, who also traveled with Jesus continually. There were
women who were a vital part of Jesus’ ministry and of the ministry of the Early
Church. Without their support the ministry would have been much more difficult.
They played an absolutely vital role.
Twelve
are selected to be with Him and to be sent out to preach. They start an
apprenticeship program from which they graduate on Pentecost. They begin to
learn what it means to be with Him, and then when they are filled with the Holy
Spirit they experience His presence in a new even fuller way.
Jesus
calls them to be His consistent companions. Other people come and go from His
presence, but they remain. Crowds gather and disperse. Others are close and
then drift away, sometimes because discipleship demands too much from them. In
the process they learned what Jesus believed about life, God, people,
relationships, eternity, and the interplay of all of these things and more.
They became the video cameras of their day. They witnessed His miracles and
became the ones who passed along the reality of those events to the next
generations.
They
were also sent out as Jesus’ representatives. They were given what to say, but
also power to say it. They healed people and cast out demons. They began to do
what Jesus had been doing. Jesus didn’t want demons telling everyone who He
was. He wanted the Twelve to do that.
Jesus
calls us, empowers us, gives us what to say, and sends us out with power to do
what He calls us to do. The Twelve are the first batch of disciples. We follow
in a long line of those Jesus calls to be with Him and to preach.