This is the time of fulfillment.
We have the advantage of hindsight where we can look back and see how the life of Jesus fulfilled the promises of God to his prophets and kings, to his holy men and women throughout the ages. But we may rightly wonder what people thought of this when they heard it at the time. Why, for instance, were Simon and Andrew, James and John, all so quick to leave all and follow him?
Jesus had not yet told them that the Spirit of the Lord was upon him to proclaim a year of the Lord's favor and the day of vindication by their God (see Isaiah 61:2). But John the Baptist had pointed out Jesus as both the lamb of God (see John 1:29), and one so mighty that he was not worthy to untie his sandals (see John 1:27). But what would this mean, this mighty and exulted lamb? It seems that Jesus was a paradox from day one.
One thing is certain, the fulfillment that he proclaimed called the first to be changed before they themselves could be fulfilled.
The kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent, and believe in the gospel.
Maybe they sensed a chance in Jesus to be what they were meant to be, a people whose whole lives were defined by worship of the Holy One of Israel, whose right worship was acceptable to God. How could this be for a nation whose tribes were scattered, whose leaders were conquered, whose people were marked by sin and imperfection?
The situation at the time of Jesus seemed almost irredeemable from a human way of thinking. Maybe a military conquest? But the logistics didn't add up in the favor of Israel. Maybe if they were first sanctified, if they repented, if their worship was once again acceptable, would not God conquer any foe that opposed them? Perhaps they were thinking along these lines. A pure offering of lambs once helped free Israel from the grasp of Egypt. Perhaps a new and mighty lamb could set them free in their own day. The Lord had, it turns out, promised something very much like that.
"However, the days are coming,"" declares the Lord, "when it will no longer be said, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt,’" (see Jeremiah 16:14).
But if they were hoping for a new exodus what would they have made of what Jesus said to them?
Jesus said to them,
“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Fishermen? Of course we do also see in this the genius of Jesus relating his call to something that already characterized the lives of these men. Yet there was more to it, something that made it fit in with the unfolding expectations of the restoration of Israel.
But now I will send for many fishermen,” declares the Lord, “and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill and from the crevices of the rocks (see Jeremiah 16:16).
Jesus would later go on to compare the Kingdom to a net that catches fish of many kinds. But this too was already part of an earlier vision of fulfillment.
Fishermen will stand beside the sea. From Engedi to Eneglaim it will be a place for the spreading of nets. Its fish will be of very many kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea (see Ezekiel 47:10).
Fishermen were not necessarily a good match to fight Roman armies. But fishers of men were exactly what was needed if the goal was to reunite all of the lost, scattered, tribes of Israel. And if there was to be a new exodus from their subjugation then perhaps a mighty lamb was, some how, the right one to lead it.
It doesn't seem likely that Simon and Andrew or James and John could have spelled all of this out or quoted all of the passages in question. But they had probably heard them. And in Jesus they saw enough to recognize the confluence of many different currents of prophecy coming together in one fulfillment. And these, of course, were just the beginning. It is no wonder that Saint Paul wrote that all of the promises of God found their 'yes' in Jesus (see Second Corinthians 1:20).
Their expectations of fulfillment were not quite accurate even after the resurrection, after they might have realized that the ultimate enemies, sin and death, were different from those they first imagined. They still asked, "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" (see Acts 1:6). It took the power of Pentecost to finally align their hearts and minds with God's designs for fulfillment. We're very much like them in that we still tend interpret the fulfillment Jesus promised according to how we ourselves would like to see it. But Jesus has greater plans than we can imagine. He unleashed the age of the Spirit and the Church where fishermen are still sent forth, and where the offering of the lamb of God is still the source and summit of healing, power, and growth (see Catechism of the Catholic Church 1324). The world is still in need, just as was Nineveh, of a call to repentance. And like Nineveh, the world may well surprise us by responding. That is, it may if we actually go out and make the call.
“Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed, “
when the people of Nineveh believed God;
they proclaimed a fast
and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth.
Today is still the time of fulfillment. There need no longer be anything that prevents us from making our lives and our world holy offerings to God.
For he says, “In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation (see Second Corinthians 6:2).
Do we long for fulfillment? It is found in the lamb of God, for he contains within himself all sweetness. To that end we repent and let ourselves be changed so that we ourselves can be part of the offering to God, from the rising of the sun to its setting, of the whole world, of all of the lost and scattered children of God. We act as fishermen to bring in the fish of many kinds that are still not a part of that offering. No wonder, then, that Saint Paul felt pressed for time. It was this fulfillment that he desired, for which he worked and sacrificed.
I tell you, brothers and sisters, the time is running out.
The world, the way we used to see it, the ways it used to promise fulfillment, is passing away. Let us invest in the fulfillment that will last forever. Let us hear and obey the call of Jesus and set to ourselves to the task that awaits us. We too are called to be fishers of men.
Good and upright is the LORD;
thus he shows sinners the way.
He guides the humble to justice
and teaches the humble his way.
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