“After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Luke 5:27-32 NIV
Jesus’ deliberate choice of unsavoury characters to join His group of close followers seems to cut across the very nature of who He was. He was, in His earthly sojourn, the Son of God, adopting the role of subordinate to His Father in His humanity. He was sent by the Father to live in submission and obedience to His will, to reveal the true nature of the Father, to rescue mankind from the penalty and ravages of sin, and to restore the human race to God’s favour and intended plan for His human family.
Psalm 2 is quite clear…
“I will proclaim the Lord’s decree: He said to me, “You are my son; today I have become your father.”
Psalms 2:7 NIV
“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire— but my ears you have opened— burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require. Then I said, “Here I am, I have come— it is written about me in the scroll. I desire to do your will, my God; your law is within my heart.””
Psalms 40:6-8 NIV
Jesus’ first choice of disciples was from a group of fishermen. Why not students of the rabbis who were eligible for discipleship? These should have been His most obvious choice. His call to the fishermen, after the miraculous haul of fish, “Follow me!” received an instantaneous response. Why was it that these young recruits dropped everything and followed Jesus?
To be a personal disciple of a rabbi recognised to have authority was a privilege of the highest order. This honour was reserved for those who were prepared by following their elementary education with a dedicated study of the Tanach, the Hebrew Scriptures, under the guidance of an authorised rabbi. Instead, Jesus chose relatively uneducated men. Why?
Part of Jesus’ role in Israel was to reveal to His people the true nature of the Father. Imagine trying to undo the rigid ideas of the rabbis, taught to their students, and represented by the religious leaders of His day. How much easier it would be to mold young minds by His teaching and example if their understanding was not already hardened into rigid patterns by years of indoctrination.
Another purpose, in Jesus’ choice of disciples, might have been in keeping with His mission. He expressed His purpose clearly to those who criticised Him for hob-nobbing with ”sinners”.
“Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Luke 5:31-32 NIV
When Jesus was in the company of the religious boffins, He was constantly under attack. Nothing He said or did passed their scrutiny. He was too “nice” for their liking. They preferred the God they had invented who was a rigid stickler for the law with all the petty details added over time by the ancient rabbis.
By contrast, Jesus was comfortable in the company of the people the religious ones dismissed as “outcasts and sinners”, the lawless riff-raff of society who offended their “holiness”. These were the ones who were comfortable with Jesus too, despite His holiness. He neither judged nor condemned them. Instead, He stood for mercy and grace and they responded gratefully with faith and hope.
So, His band of followers grew, hand-picked under the careful leadership of the Father through the Holy Spirit. They began as a mixed bunch of guys who made a living by various means, some by doing day’s hard work, others by extortion or political connections, but nevertheless a disjointed and disconnected group. It was up to Jesus to shape them into loyal followers who understood His mission, adopted His yoke without question, and through love and loyalty, would be ready to pick up the baton and run with it after He had returned to the Father.
Would Jesus ever succeed in this mammoth and seemingly impossible task? From His own lips, we have the answer.
“I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me.”
John 17:6-8 NIV
All of them?
“While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.”
John 17:12 NIV
How did He do it? By the power of His word!
To be continued…