Today we read in the Gospel of Mark about the calling of the disciples and their response to that calling. This is far from being about an ability for spontaneous actions: apparently, these four already knew Jesus. That is how John 1:35-51 can be understood. After all, we ourselves are not reading these lines for the first time. What is surprising here is something else: how briefly the evangelist speaks about it. Indeed, calling and conversion are only the very beginning of the way. The words and deeds of Jesus, the disciples' wavering and denial, and the joy of the Resurrection will be described in much greater detail. On the other hand, without this episode there would have been no whole Gospel. What would have happened if no one had followed Jesus?

In our time Christ's action in this world continues. And the disciples without whom nothing would have happened are, this time, us. Therefore today it is so important for us to realize once again that the Lord has called us to follow Him and to find in ourselves the courage to climb out of the boat and follow after Him.

Mark describes the calling of the apostles sparingly, concisely, in a few words. He called - they went. Other evangelists mention certain details in some cases, give dialogues that unfolded between Jesus and His future disciples. Dialogues, of course, did take place, because to call means to make oneself heard and answered, and here dialogue is impossible to avoid; here words must certainly be spoken. For Mark, however, they are not important. He sees the main thing: that response to the Savior's call which in the end and in essence could be reduced to one thing alone, to the fact that the one called leaves everything and follows the One who called. This is the main thing, and everything else is only the embodiment, the expression of the main thing, an embodiment necessary insofar as we live not only in eternity, but also in time.

The main thing lies in the relationships that bind the disciples to Jesus, just as they bind us, if of course we are Christians not only in name. In essence, these relationships are completely impossible to express, just as it is impossible, for example, to express the experience of one's own existence, what is sometimes called pure self-consciousness. Just as pure self-consciousness can be experienced but is completely impossible to express in words, so it is impossible to express a true relationship in words; it is no accident that poets of all times and peoples have maintained that for true, deep love, for example, it is completely impossible to find adequate words that would express it.

This, however, does not mean that love or another deep and authentic experience is in principle inexpressible. They are expressed and embodied perfectly well, but not at the level of abstract description; rather, in the context of those same relationships, at the level of interaction between people who love one another. So too true relationships of disciple and teacher are indescribable, but fully expressible in the context of the interaction that becomes for them a kind of outer covering, just as shared life in marriage for spouses who love one another becomes the outer covering of their love.

In this case, however, the evangelist pays very little attention to the covering; he is interested in the essence of the matter. He called - they went. Nothing more can be told here; the rest is hidden inside this "went." The story becomes a hint, a hint at what cannot be expressed in words but what everyone can experience as the reality of his own life when a meeting with Christ takes place in it. The very meeting without which there is no Christianity.

The Savior's earthly ministry begins with the descent of the Spirit of God, followed by the testing in the wilderness, described in more detail by other evangelists, and by the ministry itself, the testimony to the Kingdom. Mark describes all this briefly and concisely. What, then, is before us: a unique feature of Jesus' ministry as Messiah, or a universal spiritual algorithm of some kind, insofar as one can speak of algorithms at all when speaking about spiritual life? Or perhaps both? Of course, Christ's path is unique. But on the other hand, Jesus was not born a human being in order to have nothing in common with us, including in matters of spiritual life. We will not have the same tests that awaited Him in the wilderness, although something similar may certainly await us too: the devil is not as inventive as people sometimes think. But in any case we will have to testify to the Kingdom, provided we are Christians in more than name. And the descent of the Spirit of God will also certainly become part of our spiritual life, provided, of course, that we do not remain forever, spiritually speaking, children who have taken the first step toward the Kingdom and then stopped barely over the threshold. But how all this will happen remains an open question. Sometimes similar or identical spiritual processes take very different forms under different external conditions. Each person has his own, and there is no point in imitating someone else's spiritual life. In any case it is useless, and almost always it brings only harm. Not to mention that, in the case of the Messiah, such efforts look, among other things, simply ridiculous. Jesus did not come into our world so that we would imitate His life, nor did He come in order to force each of us to go through the same path He went through. After all, none of us is capable of that; one would have to be free from sin. Jesus came into the world in order to give us the Kingdom, to everyone who wants to enter it. And also in order to help us get there. Of course, the path into the Kingdom is no less difficult than the path of righteousness in pre-Christian times. It is just as impossible to walk it without God's help as it was impossible to walk the path of righteousness without His help. But on the path into the Kingdom there is an obstacle that is in principle insurmountable for the human person: the sinfulness of fallen human nature. And if along the path of righteousness a person is still able, with God's help, somehow to walk, then each of us can only be carried into the Kingdom in someone's arms. The whole earthly path of Jesus was needed precisely so that afterward He could carry each of us into the Kingdom in His arms. Of course, this by no means implies that there will be no tests in our life or that we will not need the help of the Spirit of God. After all, it will not work to travel the entire way in the Messiah's arms, and life in the Kingdom requires the ability to walk. But He will help us overcome what is insurmountable for us. Otherwise we would have to forget about the Kingdom. Forever.