Psalm 62:6-8 For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in God. Abba God alone is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold, so that I shall not be shaken. In God is my safety and my honor; God is my strong rock and my refuge.

Introduction

There are voices that will turn your head no matter where you are, no matter how old you are, and no matter how long it’s been since you heard that voice. You hear it, you know it, and you look in its direction eager to see the one who spoke. What makes your head turn and your body fill with warmth, and turn? Love. A voice that caused fear would make you stop for sure, but not in the same way. You wouldn’t turn with eagerness but freeze out of fright or send you running to hide. But the voice of Love is different. Even if this voice were to be frustrated with you, there would be the unyielding synthesis with love that would soothingly resonate with our nervous systems reminding us—even here and now—we are safe with this one who speaks.

The one who bore you into the world can have the voice loaded with this substance of love. We all know the voice of this one who carried us, whose voice was the auditory backdrop as we came into existence. The voice of the children we bear into the world can also carry this substance of love. No matter how many changes they go through, how deep their voices get, or how infrequently you hear them as they drift into their own adult lives, you know it—in the cacophony of the crowd, you can locate it. Their mature voices carrying those same idiosyncrasies and inflections they had when they were no higher than your knee.

Apart from these two specific relationships, others participate in this special distinction of being a voice that stops you where you are—no matter when and no matter what. Dear friends spanning eras of life and lovers here with you or from a different era can speak to you now and you would feel the weight of the substance of love that is the marrow of their words. Humans know when they are loved by the voice of love targeting their heart, mind, soul, and body. It’s to love that our ears harken and our head turns, it’s love that sends our feet to follow this voice.

Mark 1:14-20

And then when Jesus was passing by the sea of Galilee he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting nets in the sea, for they were fishing. And he said to them, “Come behind me, and I will make you become fishers of people!” And Immediately, leaving their nets they followed him. (Mark 1:16-18)[1]

Mark begins this story telling us that after John was handed over (by some unnamed person), Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God and saying, “The time has been completed and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news,” (vv. 14-15). What John started, Jesus took up[2] and ushered in a new era of fulfillment of God’s promises made known in the exhortations to “change the inner person”/repent and believe the good news of God (v. 15).[3] It is here, amid proclaiming God’s good news and the inauguration of a new era, according to Mark, where Jesus begins his public activity.[4]

And how does Jesus inaugurate this public activity? Neither with pomp and circumstance nor with displays of power and might but with meager, human words summoning humble people out from the fringes unto the light of God.[5] From the edge of the sea of Galilee and from a dingy floating in water, Jesus summoned the lowly into the majesty of the liberating presence of God. And what happens when Jesus called out, “Come behind me!”? Those who were called go. There’s no time lag between the call and the response of the (now) disciples; there was no arguing, waffling, hemming and hawing…they just went (immediately!).[6] They heard Jesus summon them, and they dropped their nets and followed after him without any delay. They obey the call of God for no other reason than just because; they simply follow.[7]

As simple as Jesus’s summons, so was the disciples’ response. No grand gestures, no cleaning up, no getting right with God first…they heard and they went. All four summoned fishermen—Simon/Peter,[8] Andrew, Jacob, and John—radically departed what they knew, what was comfortable, and what was familiar to follow Jesus and receive a brand-new beginning filled with what would become uncomfortable, unknown, and strange.[9] In following when Jesus called, they were guided into a new beginning that started and will end with love. When Jesus called these humble men, Love beckoned them into the light of God by the divine voice of Love, which is none other than the divine Spirit, hovering over the deep eagerly seeking and summoning the beloved out of the deep.

Conclusion

I don’t know about you, but this story gets me every time I read it. I mean, they just followed!?!? Isn’t that beyond comprehension. I’m left with a lurking question: would I go? Would I follow this man who summoned me to come follow him? Suspending for a moment my 21^st century mind, my “stranger danger,” my engrained fear of sinister, windowless vans and the large quantities of candy harbored behind those doors, would I follow Jesus? Would I give up everything and follow after this one proclaiming the kingdom of God come? Would I, could I recognize the voice of divine love summoning me out of the chaos and the deep?

To be a disciple of Christ starts with hearing, hearing the divine summons, the divine call of God to you, Jesus calling your name, the Spirit luring your heart toward this one who is the “Son of God” (Mark 1:1). To be a disciple of Christ is to hear and (immediately) follow, even if it means leaving everything behind that once defined you but no longer can because you’ve heard God’s voice in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit,[10] because you’ve heard the voice of love and can never unhear it.

Beloved, God calls you—day and night—summoning you unto God’s self, eager to bathe you in the love filling that loving, divine voice echoing throughout the halls of time, calling for you. I pray you hear the call of God in Christ, and that you drop your nets and follow this voice of love. For here, in this love is life and light, here is God, and here is your rest and comfort. No longer striving in the way of the world, desperate to fill an empty void to validate yourself or feel loved, here in the summons and in following you find the entirety of God, the very one who spoke the cosmos into existence and who now speaks to you, whispering to every fiber of your being: Beloved.

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[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted.

[2] R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC, eds. I. Howard Marshall and Donald A. Hagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 90. “The role of the forerunner is over; the time of fulfillment has come.”

[3] France, Mark, 93. “With the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, therefore, a new era of fulfillment has begun, and it calls for response from God’s people. That response is summed up in the twin imperatives μετανοῖτε καὶ πιστεύετε.”

[4] William C. Placher, Mark, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 31.

[5] France, Mark, 94. “The kingdom of God comes not with fanfare but trough the gradual gathering of a group of insignificant people in an unnoticed corner of provincial Galilee.”

[6] Placer, Mark, 36. “No discussion or explanation, no packing, no good-byes to family and friends.”

[7] Placer, Mark, 36. “Because it is Jesus who calls, they obey. Nor do they understand any particular content to that obedience other than simply following….”

[8] France, Mark, 95. “Mark will consistently refer to the first named disciple as Σίμων until he formally introduces the name Πέτρος as given to him by Jesus (3:16); thereafter he will consistently use Πέτρος…”

[9] France, Mark, 98. “The use of ἀπέρχομαι, rather than the simple ἕρχομαι as in 8:34, adds to the sense of radical departure and a new beginning.”

[10] Placer, Mark, 35. “John’s arrest is a signal: after the prologue the director is opening the curtain on the first scene.” Mathetes, “It was a rare enough word that Mark’s first readers/listeners would have had to learn its meaning by what followed. Being a disciple of Jesus, it emerges, means receiving his call, physically following him (and thereby giving up job, home, and normal ties to family), and risking the suffering that may ensue.”