Ever wondered how bystanders must have felt about Jesus and his company of friends? They must’ve thought he was cultivating a bunch of cronies, people who’d ride on his fame and enjoy the benefits of his impending political success.

After all, if he was the one sent by God to topple the Roman Empire and end the horrendous oppression, he would soon emerge to be the new political ruler of Israel. If this was the case, wouldn’t these friends eventually be the ones to occupy the crucial governmental places once their new king established his new cabinet?

Well, yes… this was how they eventually occupied the positions of greatness bequeathed to them:

Matthew -
suffered martyrdom by being slain with a sword at the distant city of Ethiopia.

John -
put in a caldron of boiling oil, but escaped death in a miraculous manner, and was afterward exiled to the remote island of Patmos. Eventually died in a prison.

Peter -
crucified at Rome with his head downward.

James the Greater -
beheaded at Jerusalem.

James the Less -
thrown from a lofty pinnacle of the temple, and beaten to death with a fuller's club.

Bartholomew -
flayed alive.

Andrew -
bound to a cross, from which he preached to his persecutors until he died.

Thomas -
run through the body with a lance at Coromandel in the East Indies.

Jude -
pierced with arrows until he died.

Philip -
crucified.

Simon the Zealot -
murdered by a mob in Persia.

Matthias -
first crushed with rocks and then beheaded.

Sometimes when we see a company of friends journeying together towards the coming of God’s Kingdom in the world, all we seem to see is joy and much laughter. Because of the commitment they have towards one another and the love they share, we perceive them to be recipients of unjust privileges. We think they’re exalting their positions of chosenness and forming a fraternity of nepotists, hungry for the proclamation of social power.

But as each one of these considers the cost of journeying with a bunch of friends who’re serious about their participation in God’s dream for the coming of the Kingdom, there’s an unspoken price which he must pay for the choice he has made. This price and its accompanying sacrifices often go unnoticed and are understood only by those who walk alongside him and suffer the same curse of chosenness.

Chosenness may seem like a privilege. But those who’ve been chosen to walk this journey would swear that it would’ve been much easier to live in ignorant bliss, and that they often wonder if they might not have preferred the less turbulent path.