Weekly Reflection 

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On Friday of this week, we read MARK 3:13-21 

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“At that time, Jesus went up on the mountain, and called to him those whom he desired; and they came to him. And he appointed twelve, to be with him, and to be sent out to preach and have authority to cast out demons…” 

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In this passage, we see Christ sending out his disciples to preach, to spread the word about Jesus Christ to all the corners Judaea. Before sending them out, He calls them to Him on a mountain, where He commissions them to do this, giving them the authority to preach, and the power to heal and cast out demons. 

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This is not, however, Christ’s first interaction with his disciples. The disciples are first called in Mark chapter 1, and they follow Him from then on. So, why does Christ leave his disciples, climb a mountain, then call them to Him in order to send them out to preach? Would it not have been simpler to assemble the disciples where they were already gathered, for in the previous verse they had gone together to a lake, and send them from there? 

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Paradise itself was on a mountain: “Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden and from there it separated into four heads” (Genesis 2:10), if a river flows out of it, it must be of higher elevation. Mountains are, then, a place of Theophany, a place where humans meet God. It was to a mountain that Abraham took Isaac, it was on a mountain that Moses received the tablets of the Law, it was on a mountain that the Prophet Elias witnessed God in the stillness. It was on a mountain that Christ was Transfigured before His disciples, and it was on a mountain, the hill of Golgotha, that Christ was crucified. 

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By calling His disciples to Him on a mountain, Christ offers them a moment of theophany, or rather reinforces that every moment they spend with Him is a moment of theophany. Bringing the disciples to the mountain shows too, that the disciples are called in the tradition of Moses and the prophets, Christianity is not a departure from the Old Testament, but a continuation and a fulfillment of it. We often misunderstand the word fulfillment, since we use it to mean end, when a contract is fulfilled, for example, it is over. Fulfillment in this context, however, means to fill up. Christ fills up and perfects the Old Testament. 

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We too have the chance to accompany the disciples up the mountain to Christ every time we enter the Church, because the Church is Paradise. In the Divine Liturgy we experience our own moment of theophany, our own direct experience of God. We must, however, also accompany the disciples into the world and there preach and heal, showing forth the faith to the whole world.