Rev Gav

How do we grasp who Jesus is?

Mark 1.14–20

Apologies for being a bit late with this week’s Insight and podcast. It was Remembrance weekend and I spent last week, as my own expression of worship, recording and producing a version of When I Survey the Wondrous Cross. I also produced two videos for our local parish worship in which I magically teleported from my local church building to the cathedral. Who said being a priest was boring?

Anyway, the anchor for this week’s message is the passage from Mark Chapter 1 where Simon and Andrew leave their nets, and James and John leave both their boats and their dad, to follow Jesus. Why did they drop everything and follow Jesus? Well, the answer was because of who Jesus was. But before I come back to the Bible passage, it being the time of Remembrance, I would like to focus again on a heroic, self-sacrificial story from the Second World War. You can read more about this story in my message called Why is Remembrance important?

In 1940, convoys were crossing the Atlantic Ocean and on one occasion there was a convoy of 38 ships. This convoy was protected by just one ship, The Jervis Bay. Now, the Jervis Bay was a small passenger ship that had been converted by adding four six-inch guns to each side, and there was only one experienced naval officer onboard, and that was Captain Fegen. During the escort, one of Germany’s heavy cruisers, a battleship, appeared on the horizon — the Admiral Scheer — and it was heading straight for the convoy. What happened next was extraordinary. Captain Fegen issued a command, and the Jervis Bay steamed straight for the battleship, with the only gun that could face forward blasting away. It was a suicide mission, and the idea was that the Admiral Scheer would be pre-occupied with the Jervis Bay and this would give the convoy time to escape. The Admiral Scheer had triple 11-inch guns and as soon as the Jervis Bay was within range it was hit and eventually sank, with only 61 of the 254 men on board surviving. However, the plan worked, and 34 of the 38 ships in the convoy made safe passage.

It is worth thinking about those 254 men on board the Jervis Bay. When Captain Fegen addressed his crew, they knew this would be a suicide mission, yet they unwaveringly followed his command. The question is why? Well, they certainly believed in the bigger cause, that good triumphs over evil, that they were involved in something collective and more important than their own personal lives, however, it was also because of who Captain Fegen was.

Captain Edward Fegen entered the Royal Navy at age 12 years old, his father was a Vice-Admiral, and his first posting was on HMS Dreadnaught, the most famous battleship of its era. During the first world war Fegen served on battleships and had won a Silver Sea Gallantry Medal for his participation in a daring and dangerous rescue. Captain Fegen was a venerated, respected, and honoured naval captain. Yes, the crew of the Jervis Bay went into battle because of their commitment to the cause, but it was because of their captain, Edward Fegen, that they followed. It was because of who he was.

In church we sometimes sing the hymn, ‘Because of who you are’:

Because of who you are I give You glory
Because of who you are I give You praise
Because of who you are I will lift my voice and say
Lord, I worship you because of who you are

In the same way that the crew followed Captain Fegen and put their trust in him, the disciples, Simon and Andrew, and James and John, followed Jesus because of who he was.

“Jesus was a rabbi — the top of the ladder in terms of itinerant preachers and teachers. To become a rabbi you had to excel as an apprentice to your own rabbi, and in first century Palestine, you would jump at the chance to be the apprentice of a rabbi for there was no greater honour. It took years of study and learning to even stand a chance of being chosen, and then you would have to undergo the most rigorous selection process imaginable. Finally, once you had been chosen to be an apprentice, you understudied your rabbi for years, hoping that one day, you too would make the grade and become a rabbi, therefore you can see why two fishermen who had not previously ‘made the grade’ would unhesitatingly leave their nets behind. It would be the equivalent of Bill Gates walking into a downtown High School and asking a sixteen year old if they wanted to be his apprentice and have an all-expenses paid, full scholarship to his own private business school. Put it this way, you wouldn’t go home and think about it!” (Rev Gav, What barriers prevent us from coming to Jesus?)

If I am honest, sometimes us pastors get disheartened when there is a general apathy in the community towards faith, or when people who have been Christians for years and years appear to have no depth to their relationship with Jesus, yet I wonder if us priests need to paint a better picture of who Jesus is. For if we truly grasped who Jesus is, we would drop everything and follow, and our lives would forever change for the better.

The worship song, ‘Because of who you are’ goes on to list three names for God: the God who provides, the God who is victorious, and the God who is the Prince of Peace. Jesus appeared in person to those first disciples, but Christ says to you, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” (John 20:29), therefore, if you are struggling to trust and believe in Jesus — to grasp who Jesus Christ is — then spend time dwelling on these three aspects of God’s character.

1. The glorious and majestic Jesus is the Lord of all creation who holds all things together, and gives you the very breath you breathe.
2. Jesus is the Lord over life and death, and holds the keys to life in all its fulness now and forever.
3. Jesus can give you what you need in the here and now — that for which your soul longs — inner peace.

Therefore, put your trust in God and lean deeper into Jesus. Like Simon, Andrew, James, and John, recognise who Jesus is, be ready to drop everything, and follow.

Amen.