Twelve Names on a Mountain: Mark 3:13-19

Jesus climbed away from the crowds, up the mountainside where the noise faded and the air thinned. He called the ones he wanted—not the most qualified, not the most educated, not the most connected. He called them, and they came.

Twelve men stood before him on that mountain, the number deliberate as prophecy. Twelve tribes of Israel, now twelve apostles for a new beginning. He gave them authority to preach and power to drive out demons. He made them into something new.

Simon—the fisherman who spoke before he thought, who would sink and rise and deny and weep. Jesus called him Peter, "Rock," and only time would tell if the name was prophecy or irony.

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who had abandoned their father in a boat for this. Jesus called them Boanerges—Sons of Thunder—perhaps for their tempers, perhaps for their ambition, perhaps for the storm they carried inside them.

Andrew, Peter's quieter brother. Philip and Bartholomew. Matthew the tax collector, standing now beside Simon the Zealot—a man who collected for Rome next to a man who would have killed for Israel's freedom. What conversations they must have had on the road.

Thomas. James son of Alphaeus. Thaddaeus.

And Judas Iscariot.

Mark mentions it without flinching: "who betrayed him." Even here, at the beginning, the shadow falls. One of these twelve would hand Jesus over to his death. Jesus knew—he always knew—and he called him anyway.

Twelve men who would change the world. Twelve men who would fail him spectacularly before they finally understood. Twelve names on a mountain, and history pivoting beneath their feet.