The shores of the Lake of Galilee were one of Jesus’ preferred settings for preaching and teaching the people about the way of the Kingdom of God. Besides the synagogue where he regularly attended every Saturday, as Luke observes (4.16), he chose the lake as a place to connect with his audience.
When Jesus selected his disciples, he used the metaphor of a fisherman to describe the qualities he sought in a good disciple. This image perfectly encapsulated the apostles’ primary mission. They were the ones who would go out and proclaim the imminent arrival of the Kingdom of the Father. Their role was to “catch” citizens and populate this special Kingdom. They had to call out people from their familiar surroundings and guide them to a new land of a new creation.
Living in the familiar environment within our own homes provides a sense of safety and comfort. We invest considerable effort and resources in building our own roofs, which offer us shelter and protection. However, following Jesus requires us to accept the reality that foxes have holes and birds have nests, while sons of men in the new Kingdom will have nowhere to lay their heads. (Luke 9.58)
Jesus has the power to pull us out of our familiar nests and lead us into his Kingdom. As Gregory of Narek beautifully put it, with the hope of eternal life, Jesus draws us out of the tomb of death and towards the peaceful haven of extraordinary life in the Father’s Holy Spirit (Prayer 25.2).
The hope of the Christian is a delicate line that pulls us with immense force from the material aspects of our lives. It requires the yeast of faith, the warmth of love, and kneading to transform us into the fresh and nourishing bread of the new Kingdom.
This line of hope doesn’t simply awaken our curiosity; it’s the umbilical cord that injects the Word of God into our physical nature. It’s the medicine of eternal life that satisfies the innate desire for eternal life that we inherit as the image of God.
A vast expanse of images and perceptions unfolds within our consciousness, assisting us in comprehending and examining our earthly existence not as a confined and fleeting life destined for an eternal afterlife, but as the prenatal development of that eternal life, nurtured by the sacraments of the Church, leading to our birth into the perfect and authentic life of our immortal calling.
We recognize the profound significance of cherishing and nurturing this precious gift bestowed upon us by the Heavenly Father. He has bestowed it upon us, and his love for the creature of his own hands endured until the very end. He has his Only-begotten Son descend, the true embodiment and Word of his own substance, infusing our very nature with the essence of hope, giving meaning to everything within us. He anticipates our cooperation in accepting and nurturing him. He sends his own Spirit to dispel all obscurity and darkness, empowering us as co-creators to complete his creation.
As recorded in John 19.5, “Here is the man.” Faith received through this cord of hope empowers us to perceive our king, whom Pilate presented in the place known as the Pavement, adorned with a crown of thorns and a purple robe, scourged and despised by the crowd who shouted, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!” (John 19.13–15).
