St Matthias, apostle

Behold 

and 

tend 

this 

vine, 

preserve 

what 

your 

right 

hand 

has 

planted 

Psalm 80:14

St Matthias was chosen by lot to be one of the 12 apostles after Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Jesus. Two names were proposed: Matthias and Barsabas also called Justus. The requirements were that it be someone who had been with Jesus from his baptism through the Ascension, to be a witness to the resurrection. They prayed and the lot fell to Matthias. The 2009 Forward Day by Day said: “Did God influence the outcome? Perhaps. But I believe that He doesn’t need to, because God uses whatever we offer to His own needs.”  Very little is known of Matthias after (or before!) his election, except that there is agreement that he was martyred (hence the double edged axe.) Justus simply disappears, as do most of us, into a daily, anonymous  following of Jesus. In the Kingdom, there are not the known and the forgotten, the called and the passed over, the important and the unimportant.  We are all called to be witnesses to the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead, to God’s very real victory over very real evil and death. Jesus did not raise Himself from the dead, and neither do we.  We are all called to live in the Light of the Resurrection and to tend the vine which God has planted And one day I hope to hear  the story of Justus too.