And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” They immediately left their nets and followed Him. Going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him. Matthew 4:18–22
When Jesus selected the twelve it was an unusual cast to say the least. He selected two sets of brothers who worked in a partnership in the Galilean fishing industry (Luke 5:10). He chose a tax collector named Matthew (Matthew 9:9) and a zealot named Simon (Luke 6:15), which must have made for some interesting conversation given the fact that zealots passionately hated tax collectors. He even chose a man that He knew would betray Him in the end (John 6:64). Many of the disciples are known to us only by name, and only about half of them have any speaking role at all in the gospel narratives. Each of these men seems to have come after Jesus in response to this simple invitation: “Follow Me.”
There were many who followed Jesus in addition to the twelve. Just after Jesus called the first handful of apostles, Matthew records that “great multitudes followed Him––from Galilee, and from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan” (Matthew 4:25). Even after the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus set forth a radically different concept of righteousness that many still find puzzling and offensive to this day, “great multitudes followed Him” (Matthew 8:1). His followers even included some from the ranks of those who would become His most ardent opponents. Matthew tells that a certain scribe came and said to Jesus, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go” (v 19).
Far from fanning the flames of His early popularity, Jesus made sure that His would-be disciples understood up front what it would take to follow Him. “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head” (Matthew 8:20). When one man told Him that he would follow Him after his father’s funeral, Jesus’ reply seems callous: “Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead” (v 21). How fitting that Jesus’ maiden voyage across the Galilee with His disciples be a stormy one (vv 23–27)! The twelve needed to know that their lives would not be “smooth sailing,” but that they would always be safe as long as the Master was with them.
When we choose to follow Jesus, He will lead us––like the good shepherd (John 10)––“beside the still waters” (Psalms 23:2) and “in the paths of righteousness” (v 3). He will also lead us, however, “through the valley of the shadow of death” (v 4), but even in the dark valleys we needn’t fear any kind of evil as long as we have the assurance that the Lord is with us and as long as we realize that it is through the valleys that we must go if we ever hope to reach the table lands that the Shepherd has prepared for us (v 5).
Will you follow Jesus on stormy days as well as the sunny ones? Will you follow Him when it is unpopular, or will you take your cue from the multitudes that come and go? Will you follow Him “at a distance” the way Peter did when the end was uncertain (Matthew 26:58). When the storm came up on that first voyage, abandoning the Master was not an option (there was nowhere else to go), but opportunities for flight would be abundant in the future. Jesus lets us know up front to expect storms in life, but He also gives us the assurance that we are always safe as long as we will hear His gentle voice and follow where He leads.