Unfathomable: Follow Me

There have been many happenings in my personal life over the past eight months that, before they occurred, I would have said were impossible to happen in my life. They were simply unfathomable and inconceivable. They would never happen in my life.

Similarly, there have been many happenings in our shared life together over the past four months that, before they occurred, many of us would have said were impossible. Things like that would never happen here, or now, or with or towards us.

And yet, in both cases, the impossible has happened.

The disciples, as we read today, also shared in the experience of impossible realities. So close to the unfathomable happenings of Holy Week that occurred just a few weeks ago, more truly impossible things happened:

Jesus was raised from the dead.

And then he disappeared.

As a result, the disciples were confused and mercurial. Unsurprisingly, without Jesus’ daily instruction, they returned to their old patterns of work and purpose. Perhaps miraculously, they managed to hang together in the midst of their despair. But without an awareness of Jesus’ daily presence in their lives, they were very much lost.

It was in their lostness, in their state of complete incomprehensibility and what-the-heck-is-going-on, that Jesus revealed himself to them and began to lead them towards a new future. 

Jesus first reassured the disciples of his very real presence with them; then he grounded them once again in the power of relationship, forgiveness, and love; and then he shed light on how things would be moving forward.

I wish I could say to you of Wisdom’s Dwelling, that Jesus gave them the most powerful and positive motivational speech of all time. I wish I could tell you that he encouraged them to look towards all the good and glorious things that were yet to come. I wish I could tell you that he told them about you, about me, about all of us on The Way in 2025.

But, no. That is not what Jesus shared during this moment of recollection with the disciples.

Instead, Jesus told Peter that in the future, “you will be led where you do not want to go.

Jesus too, and perhaps most of all, shares the inconceivable with us.

And somehow, Jesus' invitation remained, “Follow me.”

Despite the seemingly impossible realities of your actual life, despite the previously inconceivable occurrences of our shared life together, and despite the unfathomable truths that Jesus shares with us, will you follow him?

Despite all the upended expectations of life, will you declare, along with the apostles later in Acts, “We must obey God rather than men.” And then do so?

Unfathomably, Jesus says, “Follow me.”

Today's Readings