Follow Me

May I speak in the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Some of you may be lucky enough to have had a dramatic conversion experience, a moment in time you can always look back to and say That was the moment Christ called me, and from then on I became a Christian. Like Peter’s at the beginning of Mark’s Gospel, where Jesus calls him as he’s casting a fishing net into the lake, and Jesus says “Follow me”, and immediately he and his brother “left their nets and followed him”. I remember watching a program when I was at school about a gang member in prison who said that when he was at his lowest ebb, in gaol, he had an incredibly strong vision of Jesus holding a gun to his head and telling him he had to mend his ways, or his current way of life would be the death of him. Now that is a strong conversion experience! The Lord uses the language that is familiar to us to draw us to Himself. Even apparently, firearms for rhetorical effect.

I never had such a dramatic conversion experience. I have as it were been a Christian since I was little, and I still remember as a child feeling that absolute dependence on God which children can often feel so strongly, as we’re nearer our creation when we’re children, and so nearer our Creator. And with some bumps in the road, that gentle insistent presence of God in my life just got stronger and deeper.
But the truth is, our life is always one of Jesus continually calling us. For Jesus calls Peter at the beginning on the shores of Galilee; and again when Peter declares him to be the Messiah, God’s Anointed One: “take up your cross daily, and follow me”, Jesus says afterwards; and last Sunday we heard the Risen Lord tell Peter to tend Jesus’ flock, and that Peter would die with his hands outstretched in crucifixion, and then he said again: “Follow me.”

The Peter we heard in our reading from the Book of Acts, in the power of the Holy Spirit raising Tabitha from the dead, is a disciple who wasn’t just called once to follow Jesus, but is someone who is continually being called, growing in discipleship, following Jesus, denying him, following more strongly, and by this point even raising the dead. A glimpse of Easter joy continuing into the world, and a foretaste of the resurrection of the body at the final judgement.

[Bonhoeffer says that] To be called by Jesus, to be a disciple, is to take up our cross daily and to follow him. “Take my yoke upon you,” says Jesus, “and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Our burdens and weariness which would be unbearable without Jesus, become bearable with his yoke—with his wooden cross-beam—to spread the load; our burdens and weariness become bearable under the yoke of Jesus, for he is hitched together with us under it. Under the gentle pressure of this yoke we receive the strength to walk the right path without becoming weary… For Jesus demands nothing from us without giving us the strength to comply…

Where will the call to discipleship lead us, who follow it? What decisions and painful separations will it entail? We must take this question to Him who alone knows the answer. Only Jesus Christ, who bids us follow him, knows where the path will lead. But we know that it will be a path full of mercy beyond measure. For remember Easter: discipleship is joy.

For to be a disciple is to slowly learn to let go of all that pulls our heart away from God. For when we love God above all things, then our attachment to the things of this world is in its right perspective, because it is mediated by the love of God, and it is that that will survive—only selfless love overcomes death…

If anything or anyone annoys you, just let it go, for you will have to let go of it anyway – it is the condition of our passage to the next life. When our life ends and we cross the river of death, we have to abandon everything that drags us down and gets in the way anyway so we might as well start now. As the Indian evangelist Sundar Singh said: “If we do not bear the cross of our Master, we will have to bear the cross of the world, with all its earthly goods. Which cross have you taken up? From my many years’ experience I can unhesitatingly say that the cross bears those who bear the cross.” Turn to Christ, and trust in God, “cast all your anxiety on God, because God cares for you”, and so receive the joy of being a disciple of Jesus, and heirs to the Kingdom of God. For Christ is with us, now, and for ever. Thank the Lord.

Amen.

The Rev’d Michael Aylmer,
St Mary Magdalene Enfield,11/05/2025