“And he appointed twelve…to be with him…” (NRSV, Mark 3:14)

Very little is known of St Bartholomew the Apostle, though there is reason to believe that he was the same person as Nathanael who was introduced to Jesus by Philip and who was one of the seven disciples to whom the risen Jesus appeared on the shore of the Lake of Galilee.  The readings for his feast, therefore, are concerned with the Apostles in general.

At an early stage in his ministry Jesus had called the two pairs of brothers, Peter and Andrew, James and John, to be his disciples or pupils, and accompanied by them he toured Galilee, preaching and healing as he went.  By the time he returned to his headquarters at Capernaum he had become a famous public figure, and the focal point for crowds who flocked to him from every quarter.

It was at this juncture that he took a momentous step.  He had by now gathered round him many more disciples and from them he appointed 12 men to be with him (Mark 3:14).  In number they corresponded to the 12 tribes of the People of Israel, for his Twelve were to be the foundation of the new People of God, the Christian Church.

He called them Apostles or envoys because he had chosen them to be his own personal representatives, as he himself was the personal representative of his Heavenly Father (John 17:18 and 20:21; Matthew 10:40).

His immediate purpose in appointing them was “to be with him” and to be sent out to preach, to heal and to exorcise (Mark 3:14,15; Luke 9:1,2; see also Acts 1:21,22).  This was only among the lost sheep of the people of Israel (Matthew 10:6).

But his ultimate purpose extended far beyond the borders of the Holy Land.  As his Father had sent him into the world, so the time would come when he would send them into the world to be his “witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” and to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them” and teaching them to obey all his commandments (NRSV, Acts 1:8; Matthew 28:19,20).

But first he had to prepare the Apostles to undertake this stupendous world role for which he had chosen them, and of which as yet they were utterly unaware.  After an interval he sent them out in pairs on a preaching and healing mission in Galilee.  One never thinks out or understands a subject as thoroughly as when one has to teach it to others, and through their teaching they themselves would deepen their own understanding of what they had learnt from Jesus, besides gaining first hand experience in public speaking.

Before they set out he had solemnly invested them with his own power and authority to cure disease.  When they found how sure and effective that power and authority was, in spite of the physical distance which separated them from him, their own relationship with him must have been deepened immeasurably in its closeness and its confidence (Luke 9:1,2,6).

But their real preparation consisted in “being with him”, getting to know him personally, listening to his teaching, seeing his miracles, being moulded by his influence.  One has to live with people to know them, and they lived with Jesus.

From four of the great prophets of old – Amos, Hosea, Isaiah and Jeremiah – the Apostles had learnt of God’s righteousness, his compassion, his holiness and of the personal communion with him that is possible for the individual soul.  In Jesus Christ the Apostles saw all of these features perfectly, not approximately, expressed.

Thus his integrity was total.  He was not only absolutely true and just in all his dealings, but absolutely true and just in himself, to the entire exclusion of all pretence, all self-seeking, all wavering.  There was in his character a complete unity, wholly free of contradiction or conflict.  It was “woven without seam throughout”.

The Apostles could not have been long with Jesus before they began to discover that, although his moral judgement was unhesitating and unerring, and though his soul was infinitely sensitive to sin, his own conscience was inviolate.  Unlike the saints, whose awareness of their own sinfulness became ever more acute as their realisation of God’s blinding holiness came home to them, Jesus was without any consciousness of personal sin because his will always coincided with the will of his Father.  Jesus was sinless.

This identity of will enabled Jesus to state as the sober, humble truth: “I always do what is pleasing to my Father” (John 8:29), and to ask his opponents, “Which of you convicts me of sin?” (NRSV, John 8:46).

It was because he was free from sin himself that he could forgive the sins of the paralysed man (Mark 2:5).  It was because he needed no forgiveness that he was able on Good Friday to pour out his Blood for many for the forgiveness of sins (Matthew 26:28).

Alongside his integrity and his holiness there went the most profound, continual and all-embracing personal communication with his Father.  Jesus lived consciously at one and the same time in the Presence of his Heavenly Father and in the presence of his fellow human beings.

That is why, although his constant fellowship with his Father – being on a spiritual plane unapproached by others – made him at times remote even to his Apostles, yet his profound understanding of the human heart, which to him was an open book, also made him the most sympathetic and accessible of persons.  “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest”, he said (Matthew 11:28), and the ordinary people came to him with their tears of penitence, with their questions to be answered, their children to be blessed, their sick to be healed, their dead to be raised.

When we look at his life and character as a whole we see that he realised fully and perfectly in his own Person, not only the ideals of the prophets but also those of the Law.  And here we see one aspect of the uniqueness of Jesus.  He, as no one before or since, loved God with all his heart and soul and mind and strength all the time.  And he surpassed the commandment to love one’s neighbour as oneself, for his whole life was a self-renunciation which reached its symbolic and literal culmination on Good Friday when he took up his cross and carried it to Calvary and so willingly paid the cost of his total love for God and his universal love for all mankind.  Thus in him human nature reached its full flowering as God meant human nature to be.

Conspicuous in his character was his compassion, the quality which above all others is truly human and whose lack constitutes inhumanity.  Compassion is a practical thing.  It is not feeling pity for, but taking pity on.  And over and over again we see it emphasised in his teaching and expressed in his life.

The father of the Prodigal Son – “…was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him…” (NRSV, Luke 15:20).  The Good Samaritan – “he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds…” (Luke 10:33,34).

Jesus and the leper – moved with compassion, he stretched out his hand and healed him (Mark 1:41,42).  Jesus and the widow of Nain – “…he had compassion on her…” and took away her tears by bringing her son back to life (Luke 7:13-15).  Jesus and the Five Thousand – “…he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd…” and he taught them, and before they dispersed he fed them with five loaves and two small fishes (Mark 6:34-44).

The same tender compassion found its expression in his way of mixing freely and unpatronisingly with disreputable and outcast people (Mark 2:15), or in the tears which ran down his cheeks as he beheld the proud and sinful city of Jerusalem and contemplated its coming doom (Luke 19:41).

In a word, his nature was such that as he could not help loving his Father, so he could not help loving and caring for his fellow human beings.

Above all the most potent influence on the Apostles was his personality, and that has a depth we can never fathom, a grandeur we can never grasp and a beauty we can never comprehend.  All we can say is that its attractiveness, its gentleness and its indefinable supernatural power left its indelible mark on the Apostles.

When he chose them they were men of integrity, commonsense and strong religious convictions; but they were also self-seeking and prejudiced, unimaginative and slow to learn.  But they had the saving grace of being both sincere and teachable.  And these ordinary men he was able to turn into the Apostles to whose moral courage and spiritual stature we largely owe the Christian Church.

What Jesus was then, that he is now.  Each man and woman in every generation has to discover him for himself and herself; and those who do and yield to his Spirit, find that his teaching and personality and power are no less effective today than they were in the time of the Apostles.