Luke 6: 12-16 | Jacopo Bellini | Jesus picks the Twelve Apostles

Luke 6: 12-16   Jesus picks the Twelve Apostles

The Twelve Apostles,  Drawing by Jacopo Bellini (1400-1470),  Drawn circa 1440-1470, Lead pencil and brown wash on paper © British Museum, London, nr 1855,0811.87 Jesus went out into the hills to pray; and he spent the whole night in prayer to God. When day came he summoned his disciples and picked out twelve of them; he called them ‘apostles’: Simon whom he called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot who became a traitor.   READ MORE     Reflection on the Old Master Drawing Jesus, soon after starting His ministry, realised that His own human voice could not physically reach everyone. His voice would not reach all the villages, all the towns, all the regions. So he knew he had to appoint and train some people to actively help Him and involve them very closely during His three year ministry. So our Gospel reading of today is the start of a new organisation which would serve the Kingdom of God under Jesus and for Jesus. This is the beginning of the Christian Church in its simplest and purest form. The twelve men Jesus chose were going to be his ‘support’ team; they were going to be apprentices, travel companions, witnesses, healers, baptisers, preachers, teachers, some writers, martyrs, etc… We can see that the decision to chose these twelve apostles was an enormously important decision. How does Jesus take this decision? In prayer! The reading of today starts off with Jesus praying…. A whole night. He sought guidance and counsel from His Father before picking His twelve disciples. Because of who Jesus was we could easily think that He didn’t need to pray for any length of time about anything, but that is clearly not the case… The drawing by Jacopo Bellini we are looking at reflects this ‘formation’ of the early Church;  where Jesus shaped His Church by drawing in the twelve apostles; we see the artist here equally at work, drawing, forming, shaping a composition. By the 1430’s Bellini became Venice’s most celebrated painter, where he introduced the principles of Florentine early Renaissance to the city. We see the twelve apostles depicted in a barrel vaulted passage. Usually the twelve apostles are always drawn or painted with Jesus in their midst, but this is a rare drawing where only the apostles themselves take centre stage… The drawing reminds us that we too are called to be disciples and be Jesus’ apprentices, travel companions, witnesses, healers, baptisers, preachers, teachers, etc… by Patrick van der Vorst