”You Follow Me!”( Mark 1:16-20)

Peter remembers. He was a fisherman with no higher goal than to provide for the needs of his family by doing what he knew to do, fish. But the memory now of Jesus passing alongside the Sea of Galilee is so vivid that he pauses and sees again the scene as if it is happening in the present. Mark is listening, waiting, wanting to capture in writing the words and emotions of Peter as he recounts the the three and a half years that he spent with Jesus. In the book of Mark we see the story of Jesus through Peter’s eyes.

“‘Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.’ And immediately they left their nets and followed him” (Mark 1:17,18). Immediately the choice was made, and the course of Peter’s life changed. Jesus had come with the message that the time was fulfilled, and the kingdom of God was at hand. Then Jesus took note of a lowly fisherman and invited him to have a place in the kingdom. Jesus issued this invitation not to the proud and haughty religious rulers but to a fisherman on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

Peter remembers with awe how he himself was there when Jesus received honor and glory from God the father. Peter is silent for moment, and in his memory he hears again the voice of the “Majestic Glory: This is My beloved Son. I take delight in Him” (2 Peter 1:17)! With a voice husky with emotion Peter shares this memory with Mark and marvels again, as he has marveled so many times before, that Jesus the Son of God exalted a humble fisherman by the invitation to follow him.

Peter shares how for three and a half years he followed Jesus. He told Mark how he had walked away from his nets and his fishing with the bold assurance that the kingdom would come and that Jesus himself was the Messiah. But something happened that he hadn’t expected. Jesus was arrested and taken to the high priest. Still, Peter had followed Him there. With an aching heart Peter told Mark how, while Jesus was being mocked and spit at, Peter warmed himself by a charcoal fire. He was confronted again by the  feelings of confusion he had had about what happened. This was not what he had expected when he began to follow Jesus. Nothing was happening the way he had envisioned it, and Peter humbly shared with Mark how in his confusion and fear he had denied Jesus three times.

In the book of John it is recorded how after Jesus’ death and resurrection Jesus met Peter again on the shore when Peter been fishing. This time the invitation to follow Jesus didn’t include being a fisher of men but instead a command to feed and tend Jesus’ sheep. Jesus told Peter to follow Him after He told Peter by what kind of death he would glorify God. Peter didn’t immediately respond this time as he had to the first invitation to follow Jesus. This time he looked around at John and asked, “What about him?” Jesus responded by saying to Peter that what He planned for John was not Peter’s affair. And then Jesus said again, “You follow me” (John 21:21)! And Peter followed.