The Mission of the Apostles

Continuing with Fouard's Life of Christ:

Chapter VII: The Mission of the Apostles; Death of the Precursor.

The Mission of the Apostles

Matt. xiii. 54-58, ix. 35-38, x. 5-42; Mark vi. 1-11; Luke ix. 1-6.

Left when Jesus left the mansion of Jaïrus it was in order to undertake a new mission through Galilee.  It was the third (and it was to be the last) of those journeyings of his during which He preached in every little hamlet of that land.  First of all, this time, He wended His way up two His old home in Nazareth, and on the Sabbath began to preach in the synagogue; but He met with as cold reception as on a former occasion a year ago; the Nazarenes were as hard and dull to the words of their fellow-townsman as they were before.

"How does he come by his wisdom and his power?" they kept on saying.  "Is not this the carpenter?  Is not his mother called Mary, his brothers James and Joseph, Simon and Jude?  And are not his sisters all here amongst us?" And they were scandalised at Him, — were shocked at His presumption!

The phlegmatic bigotry and coarseness were well understood by Jesus; nevertheless on this particular day it would seem to have even surpassed His expectations; for Saint Mark tells us He "was astonished thereat," as though He would indicate how entire and hopeless the incredulity was by the use of this striking expression, which sounds strangely enough when used in reference to God.  The Lord grieved over their blindness, and, comparing the contemptuousness of the Nazarenes with the docility of their brethren in Galilee, He repeated what He had said of them once before,

"A Prophet is not without honour save in his own country, and in his own home, and in his own family."

This was perforce the divine Wayfarer’s farewell to that ungrateful city, where his boyhood and early manhood had been passed; now all He could do here was to heal some few of their sick folk by laying His hands upon them; then He departed from the mountain valley, never more to return.

"He went through the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, and curing every sickness and all infirmities." The dwellers in these lands touched His heart with a great pity, — they lived so far from Jerusalem and in the very midst of Pagans, "lying uncared for and spent with fatigue," panting for breath " like a flock of sheep attacked by wolves, "who have no shepherds to lead them." However, they were all ready to receive the Good News; for Jesus, speaking of them to the Apostles, called them the rich and plentiful harvest, which only waits the coming of the reapers.

"The harvest is great," He said; "but there are few workmen. Therefore beseech the Master to send workmen into His harvest."

Christ's exhortation to the Apostles. J-J Tissot.

The Twelve Apostles were to be the first to enter these fields, which had been made ripe for the coming of their Lord.  Some time before Jesus had finished His own wanderings through the length and breadth of Galilee He called them about Him, "gave them strength and dominion over all devils, with the power of healing diseases, and sent them out, two by two, to preach the Kingdom of God and to restore health to the weak." Before entrusting them with so lofty and August a commission He laid down the simple and severe duties of their Ministry.

For the present He wished to send them, "not to the Samaritans, nor to the Gentiles, but rather to the lost sheep of Israel." All the burden of their message was to be this "announcement that the Kingdom of Heaven is close at hand," confirming the glad tidings by miracles performed in the name of their Christ.

"Heal the sick, raise the dead to life, cleanse the lepers, drive out devils; freely you have received, freely give."

A holy indifference to earthly cares was to be the peculiar feature of their ministry; they might not make any preparations, but must be ready at all times to set out, in whatever circumstances they might chance to be, taking neither gold not silver in the belt, nor victuals in their wallet, having neither a change of raiment nor travelling-shoes in the place of the sandals they ordinarily wore; it would even be useless for them to get themselves a staff for the journey.  Having arrived in a town, their first care must be to seek out some hospitable household, which they were to accost with that ancient greeting, "Peace be to this house!" This peace of theirs should precede them and abide upon the inmates, if they proved worthy of it; if otherwise, the heavenly gift would rather return and rest upon the Heralds of the Good News.  Should they be rejected and repulsed, they were merely to shake the dust from off their shoes without the dwelling, thereby proclaiming that they were not chargeable with the judgment, more terrible than that of Sodom and Gomorrah, which should one day befall its misguided occupants.

Up to this point the Lord had been speaking to the Twelve concerning their present mission only; but now, as though He would explain the duties of the Apostolic Ministry more generally, He began by marking out its two principal characteristics.

"Be prudent as serpents, simple as doves.  Mark how I am sending you forth like sheep in the midst of wolves."

Just at this moment (according to tradition of the first century) Peter interrupted His Master.

"But if it happen," said he, " that the wolves devour the sheep?"

"When the lamb is dead," replied the Lord, "it no longer fears the wolf. Even so fear not those who can only kill the body and have no power over the soul.  But rather fear that which can send both soul and body down to Gehenna."

Then the Master forewarned them that they would be dragged before the judgment-seats, flogged in the synagogue; while still in the face of the magistrates of Judaea, as in the presence of the praetors of Rome, they were to bear testimony, even to the shedding of their blood for His sake; but that during all their tortures the Holy Spirit would be with them and would make answer for them.  Yet the Lord did not command them to go out to seek such impending peril; rather, on the contrary, He exhorted them "to fly from one town to the other," and to persevere in the faith; for in the very truth "they should not complete their tale of wanderings through all the cities of Israel ere yet the Son of Man would manifest Himself on His return."

The future, then, had only gloomy things in store for the Apostles; therefore, in order to strengthen and inflame their courage, Jesus reminded them of the obstacles which opposed His own Mission.

Like Him, they must become calm and fearless; the heavenly Father "Who numbereth even the hairs of their head, Who let's not the little sparrow fall from the skies upon the earth without having care thereof," their Almighty Father would be with them, "would acknowledge those as His own children whom His Son claimed as His disciples, and would reject all such as He disowned."

Then He added that He had come to cast a drawn sword upon the earth; that very soon they should see their fathers and their children in league with the world, and eager to deliver them up to death.  In the midst of raging war and of unbridled passions He bade them remain steadfast, "publishing upon the housetops that which the Master had spoken in their ear," preferring Jesus above all whatsoever they held most dear and glorious, "losing their life to find it again" in Heaven, in a word, they were " to take up their cross and follow Him."

After this mystical allusion, by which He foretold His Crucifixion, the Lord uttered only words of loving consolation and splendid promise.  He told His Apostles that they should stand in His stead in the eyes of the world; "that to receive them as Ambassadors of God —— would be to receive the Christ, would indeed be to entertain God Himself and to merit the rewards laid up for the just and the Prophets."

Then with one hand pointing to the poor folk and little children, who crowded about Him now as always, He concluded with those touching words: ——

"Whosoever shall give butter cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink, as unto one of My disciples, I say to you that indeed he shall not lose his reward."

Such were the instructions with which Jesus prepared this College of the Twelve.  It may be that all were not delivered on this particular occasion, and that, following his usual custom, Saint Matthew has here collected counsels which were actually uttered at various times.  But whether Jesus spoke the whole discourse before this one audience, or whether the Evangelist, divinely inspired, has connected maxims scattered through many lessons of the Master, nonetheless Saint Matthew's work stands as a finished and complete model for every Apostle of the evangelical Ministry; and indeed, though every priest of the Lord Christ be not bound by the letter of these instructions, it does behove all to be quickened by their spirit.  Truly everyone is not bidden to press forward to the prize of the martyr’s crown, yet all must follow the Master in the paths of sacrifice; the Lord God does not demand of each one of us a complete renunciation of all things, for He Himself has declared that "every workman is worthy of his meat;" and yet, in proportion as zeal in the hearts of His Apostles burns higher, and the holy blame waxes purer and whiter, by so much the more joyously do they strip themselves of everything in the race unto their high calling which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  St. Paul converted the nations of the earth while he himself toiled at tent-making for his day’s bread; Saint Francis Xavier took with him nothing but a cross of wood wherewith he went forth to conquer the eastern world.

Obedient to the commands they then received, the Apostles departed, going two buy two.  Without doubt the intimate friends and the brothers would bear each other company in the sacred comradeship.  Peter of course would associate himself with Andrew; those to whom He had called "Sons of the Thunderbolt" would forthwith start out together, with all their characteristic impetuosity; Philip would join the Bartholomew, whose two lives had been heretofore so closely linked together; then would come Thomas and Matthew; while the two cousins of Jesus, James and Jude, would naturally be companions; and finally, it was probably Simon's sad and unenviable fortune to have for his fellow-labourer in the harvest Judas.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam