Written by Ana Teresa Vivas, volunteer for Iron Rose Sister Ministries in Canada
At the risk of emphasizing the obvious, I'm going to repeat the title of this blog post: "Men and Women Who Followed in Jesus' Footsteps" and emphasize the highlighted phrase because I want to focus on it.
In the gospels, we can learn the names of the apostles— the twelve closest followers of Jesus. Additionally, we can learn something of their lives and their example as imitators of Him. But there were also other men and women who followed Jesus, if not so closely or from the beginning of His ministry, but still with the same great love and commitment to Him and His work.
We cannot identify them all specifically because there were multitudes who followed Jesus, although many also abandoned Him (Jn 6:66), but we will not talk about these today.
Let's look at this short list:
Luke 19:1-9, Zacchaeus
John 4:46-53, King's Officer
Mark 15:40-41, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James the younger and Joseph, and Salome
Matthew 12:15, A crowd
Soon afterward Jesus began a tour of the nearby towns and villages, preaching and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom of God. He took his twelve disciples with him, along with some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases. Among them were Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons; Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s business manager; Susanna; and many others who were contributing from their own resources to support Jesus and his disciples. (Lk 8:1-3, NLT)
These are people, just like you and me, who believed in Jesus. We don't know in detail about their lives as disciples. We only know of their encounters with Him, and we can see their examples of commitment.
Look at the example of the women mentioned in Luke 8:1-3. It impresses me to think of myself in the place of one of them and imagine walking after Jesus two centuries ago. No way! I have so many questions for them, such as what it was like being a woman and living within their culture. And what about the issue of female grooming? They were very confident about who to follow and why. That alone explains their investment of energy, time, and money in Jesus and His evangelistic campaign.
With these people, we can identify and "chew on” what a follower of Jesus looks like and how I can represent that in the 21st century.
Someone who follows in the footsteps of Jesus is willing to change their values (Zacchaeus), is not afraid of threats (Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward), and risks their position (the king's official).
There are many more examples of men and women following Jesus in the gospels, and from all of them, if we stop for a few minutes, we can learn something if we look closely— if we get into that "movie" of the life of Jesus.
Who is a follower then? From the examples that we can find in the four books that narrate Jesus' life, we can conclude that these are some of the characteristics of His followers: they are willing to change their lives, to invest their monetary gains in the work of Jesus, to invest energy and time, and to sacrifice comforts. These are some of the ways those early disciples showed their commitment and set an example of how to follow the Lord.
What other ways can you identify that they were fully engaged? What other things did they sacrifice? How do you see yourself as a follower of Jesus?
Add your answers to these questions in the comments or make any other observations based on the topic of this blog post.
I encourage you and me to look to Jesus 24/7, 365 days a year, and get from Him the motivation to be His faithful followers.