Apprenticeship is a lost art in our world today. Walking with and following a master of a trade has been exchanged for the business of education. Peter and Andrew were fishermen. They had both most likely apprenticed under a master fisherman learning the skills and techniques to make a living from fishing. James and John were most likely still in some stage of apprenticeship mending nets in the boat and working for their father. While they are at work Jesus comes to them and calls them to a new apprenticeship: “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men” (Mark 1:17). Immediately they drop what they are doing and follow him. This apprenticeship to which Jesus calls these four men - and the rest of the twelve - is not a new career, but a new way of life. Jesus, the way and the life, is calling them to follow him to be disciples of the Way and the Life.
In following Jesus, they see the example he gives them. What does it mean to be trained in the Way and the Life? What does it mean to be a disciple? After walking with Jesus for three years, he sits with them in the upper room and washes their feet. After washing their feet, he tells them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you” (John 13:12-15). He gives the example of servant leadership cloaked in love. To reemphasize this, he states a few verses later, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). The Master exemplifies for his apprentices the Way and the Life.
When the time comes for the apprentices to become masters, the Master tells them, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:18-20). Like a normal apprenticeship, the Master gives authority to the apprentices to ply the trade, but unlike a normal apprenticeship, the Master will always be with his apprentices. Therefore, in this greatest of all trades—making disciples of the Way and the Life—the apprentices can go forth with the confidence of the Master because He is always with them.
This trade is what we are all apprenticed to as Christians, and given to ply in all the world as the Church. The New Testament writers wrote of this trade, this teaching in terms of examples and imitation of the Master. Paul tells us, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” (1 Cor. 11:1) Teaching is not only or even primarily with words, but rather by imitation of the Master as an example of discipleship. In this Epiphany season we remember when Christ, Emmanuel, was revealed to all the world. He came to save us through his life, death, and resurrection. But in his life he also set forth an example for us to follow as apprentices, as disciples in order that we may have life and lead others to the Way and the Life. We must be disciples to make disciples.