GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
MARK 1:17
Becoming
Some things take more time than others. The professor in several of my medieval history classes specialized in medieval architecture. In fact, he wrote a biography of a medieval master mason who, in modern terms, would be a general contractor. So in one class we read about the construction of a cathedral. In medieval terms, a “cathedral” was a bishop’s church—an important building because it had the “cathedra,” the seat upon which a bishop sat, so it was the principal church of a diocese. The construction of the building we studied took over one hundred years.
St. Mark wrote, “And as he was going along beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a round net in the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, ‘Come after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.’” (1:16-17) Only Mark used the word “to become.” Peter, who likely related this story to Mark, remembered that word, “to become.”
It is probable that Peter and Andrew, who had been John the Baptist’s disciples, had talked with Jesus, been in the audience as he taught, seen his miracles, and Jesus may have even stayed in Peter’s house in Capernaum, which was now the center of Jesus’ work. Jesus, then, likely knew that these hardworking fishermen were not the finished product; they had to “become” fishers of men. There would be months, years of training. There would be promising advances and some setbacks. They would learn to proclaim his message, but flee when opposition arose.
The word “nanosecond,” one billionth of a second, is used today. In a vacuum, light travels 11.8 inches in a nanosecond. My computer is now operating with a clock cycle measured in nanoseconds. When I press a key, it takes about one nanosecond for the signal to travel from the keypress to the CPU. My morning coffee is now heated in 90 seconds; boy, am I impatient if it takes any longer. “Hurry, hurry, hurry” is the catch phrase today.
Building a cathedral may take less than one hundred years today, but it’s still a long process. I can heat coffee in 90 seconds, but it still takes 3 to 4 years for a newly planted coffee tree to produce the first bean. Jesus told Simon and Andrew that he would make them to “become” fishers of men, disciples. It would be a process taking at least a couple years—a long process then and a long process today. Discipleship is still a “becoming” process; there are no nanosecond disciples.
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