In the spring of the year 33 or 34, on a day in the middle of May, near Jerusalem, over a hundred followers of a small town carpenter turned religious teacher walked up the Mount of Olives toward Bethany, a small village whose name means “house of the poor”. How many were there that day? Either a hundred and twenty or so – or over five hundred.
One amazing thing about this journey was that the teacher had been executed for blasphemy about a month earlier, and the followers were still together. Yet this was not the most amazing thing, for we are familiar with moral teachers whose followers get together to remember the teacher even years after the teachers’ deaths. The amazing thing was that the teacher was there that day, leading them and speaking with them. For Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, had come back from the dead three days after His execution by beating, blood-loss, and crucifixion just outside Jerusalem. A Roman soldier had even stuck a spear in his side – just to make sure Jesus was really dead. His mother was standing there watching.
Mothers, can you imagine the pain Mary felt that day? On Mother’s Day, we are tempted to go down the road of sweet sentimentality for our mothers, but there is a side to motherhood that is not pleasant, not sweet, and not something we like to dwell upon – it is the fear that sometimes children die before their mother dies, and, as old Simeon told Mary when she presented the week-old Jesus at the great Temple in Jerusalem - “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
That Friday in Jerusalem when Jesus was executed, the day had come for Mary’s soul to be pierced. The strong, robust man who had worked with Joseph, who had walked hundreds of miles over the last few years across the rough paths of Palestine could barely stand as they put him on the cross. A few hours later, he was dead, and Mary was stricken with grief on that Friday afternoon.
Early Sunday morning, Mary had gone with other women to the tomb to wash and coat Jesus’ body with embalming spices. But Jesus wasn’t there. Imagine the grief, the horror, the anger Mary had that day! Someone had clearly stolen her precious son’s body! We know how the story ends, but Mary did not yet know. Her son’s body had been taken away!
But over the next few hours, new details came to Mary. Several people reported seeing Jesus alive. Finally that evening, Jesus appeared to ten of the disciples. And Mary’s grief turned to joy. And He appeared multiple times over the next forty days.
The group of followers heard from Jesus. He spoke in a clear, loud voice that was heard by most. Several remembered what He said, and twenty or thirty years later told an educated traveler named Lucian or Lucas or Luke wrote down what Jesus said:
“This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
After this speech, Jesus led them to Bethany, and then rose up to heaven in plain sight.
And so many people around the world say, “Right. SURE!”
After all, we who sit in the 21st Century are familiar with charismatic leaders who bring people together for this cause or that cause. We have seen the cult leaders who bring together dozens or even hundreds of people and brainwash them into believing in their movement. We are sick of the people who write books and make videos promoting this or that idea, all for the sake of making money. Yes, we’ve seen the leaders.
And when those leaders die, their movement continues for ten or even twenty years, as the lieutenants continue the teaching. But the task becomes too difficult, the life the lieutenants have becomes too easy, and the movement begins to die as the lieutenants settle into an easy retirement funded by their book and speaking royalties, like the Beverly Hillbillies settled into their new Hollywood mansion funded by the oil discovered on Jed Clampett’s land.
Do you remember the Beverly Hillbillies? We remember Granny, who held to mountain ways, Jethro Bodine, who was truly gullible, Ellie May, who loved animals. And there was Jed, the father who wasn’t quite as dumb as the sharp banker and his friends thought.
Something different happened with this movement started by Jesus. It didn’t die. Something happened that led people who did not personally see the Risen Jesus to believe, to change their lives, to follow Jesus.
It is one thing, you see, to study and read about the life of a teacher like Jesus. It is one thing to hear about the miracles and sayings of the great man. It is one thing to learn the stories of a Socrates told by a Plato, the sayings of a Buddha told by a disciple, the speeches of a Martin Luther King Jr. But it is something else to become possessed by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Jesus movement did not take off and grow just because people heard the story of the Resurrection and naively believed it. There is a tendency among us, the sophisticated people of the 21st Century to look at the people of 2000 years ago as easily misled, as idiots, as a bunch of country Jethro Bodines easily tricked up by someone with a bit of “big city” knowledge.
But the people of 2000 years ago invented concrete. They knew advanced farming techniques like grafting. The Romans ruled a country that was the physical size of America. They built roads that have survived to this day in usable condition – unlike some of our roads. They extracted a purple dye from a type of clam. They built massive stadiums that are essentially designed like our modern football stadiums – yet the Coliseum in Rome also had the ability to be flooded for ship to ship combat. Water was brought into fountains from over 30 miles away. No, the people of 2000 years ago were not idiots.
And so, when the story of the Resurrection was told, there were skeptics, just like today. Yet some of these skeptics were overcome when the twelve apostles stood as a group and gave testimony to what they had witnessed and experienced and lived through. Twelve men testifying, in a society that determined truth by the testimony of 2 or 3 men. Twelve men testified that the truth was that Jesus had lived, claimed to be God’s Son, died, and then came back to life. And behind them were another 500 who had seen the Risen Christ.
But as the years went on, as the distance from Jerusalem grew, as the number of disciples testifying together dropped from twelve to a half-dozen, to a couple, to perhaps a single man walking alone a thousand miles from Jerusalem…This testimony was challenged more and more often. The Book of Acts is full of the Testimony of these men – Peter, Stephen, Philip, Paul.
But still the movement grew.
And the movement grew, not just because of the testimony of these men – and increasingly, groups of women – but because these men and women were different.
Con artists are smooth talkers, they have a good story, they can point to proofs for their stories, but con artists usually walk away wealthier than they arrive. The men and women who talked about Jesus were different. While they might accept food for the journey, they gave so much more than they received, for they gave peace, tranquility, and joy. The listeners sensed the sincerity of the Jesus speakers. For you see, they had someone walking along with them – the Holy Spirit of God.
And how did they receive the Holy Spirit?
The Book of Acts is clear about this. Simple water baptism was not enough, for there were many people who were practicing the repent-and-be-cleansed-from-sin baptism that John the Baptist had begun. As the apostles traveled, they ran into people who had received this baptism. But the Holy Spirit was not present with many of these people. The apostles had to lay on hands and pray for the Holy Spirit to come onto the people – and then, the Holy Spirit possessed them.
It wasn’t always this way – a Roman household received the Holy Spirit just through Peter’s preaching before they received water baptism – but this was the normal way – water baptism and then the laying on of hands and prayer to transmit the Holy Spirit.
For you see, it is not just the knowledge of the Gospel of Christ that changes people. It is not just the knowledge of God’s love, the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, His death and Resurrection that changes people. It is the reception of the Holy Spirit of God, the recognition that the Holy Spirit is walking beside us, speaking to us, and our choice to carefully listen to what the Spirit is saying, our choice to allow God’s Spirit to possess us, our deep understanding that we don’t have the wisdom to make good choices, but God does have that wisdom which God gives to us through the still, small voice of the Spirit which makes the difference in our lives.
We have to let go of what the world has taught us, and turn around to our true Father, who is God.
We have to surrender as Mary did to the Holy Spirit, that a new life will flow from us, an eternal life, a joyous life, one that can go through all sorts of hardship, even death, and still proclaim one morning, as Jesus did that Easter morning: “Rejoice!”
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