Follow me

The greatest truths, maybe even the most essential truth, about human life on this planet, the way for us to find our way out of this mess we call a world, is expressed in the briefest possible way. Jesus says, Ἀκολούθει μοι, ‘Follow me,’ and in two words He gives Matthew, and us, the way out of our endless misery. The similarity between the tax collector’s name, מַתִּתְיָהוּ (Matithyahu) in Hebrew, transliterated into Greek as Ματταθίας (Mattathias), and later shortened to Ματθαῖος (Matthaios), and the Greek word for disciple, μαθητής (mathitís), always felt like a clue to me, even an invitation, to place myself where Matthew was when he heard that audacious command, Ἀκολούθει μοι (akolúthi mi), ‘Follow me.’

Nobody but Christ has ever been able to say those words with complete and perfect authority, and yet we do, every day of the year, in season and out of season, we all say in one way or another, ‘Follow me,’ to others, and as always, the results are less than stunning. In fact, it is precisely because we follow anyone but Christ that the world is the way it is, even why the Church is the way it is. The truth is so simple and so obvious that we miss it in our daily lives, so busy building other kingdoms than Christ’s, even though if we only followed His command, ‘Follow me,’ we would find the gates of paradise open to us. We give ourselves pause for forty days before the bright feast of Resurrection to do nothing else.

Therefore, let us run after Him when He says to us, ‘Follow me.’