TWO thousand years ago, it was a sleepy fishing village that changed the world. With time on my hands, I walked along the road and found it led to the sea shore. I stood and watched the sea and then as time stood still, I saw the village. Like a sleeping crocodile it stretched into the waves. The lights that came from the little mud and brick houses were dim and flickering. I walked towards the hamlet, a little sleeping village that lay tucked back in time. And then I saw Him, walking towards the fishing boat. “It’s the carpenter’s son,” shouted the fishermen inside. “Follow me,” said the carpenter’s son.
The bearded, swarthy leader called Peter got out of the boat, his brother Andrew along with him and followed the carpenter’s son. I looked at the sleeping fishing village, as I got back to the present, the lights were dim from inside the homes but on them fell like giant flood lights, the glimmering lights of a glamorous city. I turned my eyes at the city that never slept, where fortunes were made and millions were lost overnight. Where rich young kids drove cars that put the Fords and Cadillacs of America to shame. Where billboards showed seductive stars baring all and promising to bare more in blockbusters where they had been paid more than what the whole village in the shadows made in a hundred years.
And then I went back in time again and watched the Man. His glance took in another boat and his kindly eyes lit when he saw the brothers. “James and John,” he shouted, “follow me.” They followed him, and in the boat the father of the two, named Zebedee watched open mouthed his sons, leave and go away. The swarthy, burly, bearded man, looked at the carpenter’s son as he left the sea and walked towards arrogant city lights. “What fish,” he asked himself, “is there for me to catch in such suave, sophisticated urban sprawl?”
His brother Andrew with a worried frown also stared at the neon lit world ahead and shook his head confused whether to pull an impetuous brother and run back to their familiar wet wooden planks that floated so easily on the sea and which they knew they could manage, but this! The carpenter’s son looked at his motley crew. He pointed to the vile city that lay ahead. “Fish,” he shouted with joy. “Fish away!”
It was from a sleepy village from the shores of Galilee where Master Jesus, a carpenter’s son, gathered plain fishermen to become fishers of men in the cities and countries and towns of the world. I stood with awe and stared at the little fishing village that lay like a sleeping crocodile. The Master took the shyest, most unsophisticated, crude fishermen, who really wanted nothing to do with rich city folk and changed the world forever. And as I came back in time from Galilee, I heard the carpenter’s son, the Messiah say, looking joyously at me, “Fish away..!”
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