The Fisherman Read Free

how, but . . . well . . . he knows about you. And, Simon, he wants to meet with you.”

2

    â€œMe? He knows about me? What do you mean he knows about me? What did you tell him? What did he say?”
    Little brothers can be so irritating sometimes. That day Andrew proved to be at his irritating best. He was obviously enjoying this.
    â€œI didn’t tell him anything, Simon. I never even mentioned your name. But I’m telling you, somehow he knows about you. The last thing he said before we parted was that I should see if I could get that big brother of mine to come back with me next time. I was so shocked I just turned around and stared at him. I didn’t say a word. Then he smiled and waved good-bye. I know I should have asked him how he knew about you, and where he’d met you, and why he wanted you to come back with me.
    â€œBut, Simon, it doesn’t work that way with him. I mean, he is the most approachable person I’ve ever met in my life, but at the same time when you talk with him, you realize there are things he just knows, and at the time it seems natural that he knows, and it isn’t until later on that you find yourself looking back and wondering how he knew what he knew. Oh, Simon, I can’t explain it. You just have to come meet him and see for yourself.”
    Do you see what I mean about little brothers? I kept quizzing Andrew about who said what when, and how he thought Jesus gained all this knowledge about me, but the little runt kept saying he didn’t know and I would just have to go ask Jesus myself. He knew exactly how to bait me. In the end there was nothing to do but to go with him.
    We walked in silence on the way back to where Andrew last saw Jesus. Andrew was silent by temperament, and my own mind was busy creating a mental image of the man I was about to meet. I know what you’re thinking. You have read the accounts of my history with the Master. You know about our first conversation together. You know about the events that would follow. You know about his teaching, his miraculous works, about his death and what happened afterwards. It’s natural for you to assume that I must’ve been filled with excitement in anticipation of meeting this man who would change the history of the human race forever.
    But you are wrong. Andrew and I walked along that day with no premonition of what was to be. Apart from the testimonial from my little brother and the rather strange words of endorsement from the Prophet John, I knew nothing about this Jesus. He had not yet begun his public teaching. He had not performed a public miracle; there was nothing to convince me he was anything other than just the latest in an endless stream of self-appointed messiahs who inflict themselves upon our nation. To be honest, my first meeting with the Master was motivated by nothing more than a mild curiosity and a fervent desire to free my earnest, obviously misguided little brother from his messianic obsessions and get him back to work.
    In my mind I pictured the man I was about to meet. I was certain I knew his type. There would be lots of charisma, lots of smiles and heartiness, great eye contact, and very likely a warm embrace for each and every one of his devoted followers. I was grudgingly forced to admit to the positive impact of his first contact with my little brother, but this claim to supernatural knowledge about me sounded more like some sort of trick than divine revelation.
    The greatest events in my life have always taken me by surprise. They have been thrust upon me, unannounced and unanticipated. That initial meeting with the Master was such an event.
    My first sight of him shattered my preconceived concept of the man I came to meet. There were no throngs of people around him, no thousands kneeling in adoration, no urgent multitudes seeking his wisdom and guidance. There was certainly no halo hovering over his head, no Shekinah glory, no radiant glow about