Ignominious, that’s what it was. Jesus’ death, that is – despicable, humiliating, disgraceful, shameful, degrading, dishonorable. And the disciples watched it all like a waking nightmare in a type of paralyzed horror beyond anything they’d ever experienced. But Jesus’ return from the grave, that was something else! It staggered their imaginations, and they found themselves relentlessly pulled forward day after day after day. Emotions were flattened. Words were muted.
Wouldn’t it be so cool to know what they thought about him each time Jesus showed up to spend time with them during those forty bonus days? I mean, wouldn’t they have had new eyes for him? Like, what else are you able to do? What more wonderful things are hidden within your grasp? Your Kingdom, how much more amazing is it? What nuggets have you been saying all along that we haven’t caught? Maybe there’s a slowly growing picture in their minds of the Kingdom tapestry Jesus has been weaving since the beginning. If so, it would be little wonder to them Jesus wasn’t frightened or worried or intimidated. He could rebuke Satan with Scripture, dismissing him and sending him packing. The wind and waves bowed down in silent worship before him! Food multiplied in astronomical quantity at his touch. Agitated water became a solid footpath with just a word from him.
It needs to be mentioned that no word or movement from heaven had been heard or felt for four hundred years! Nothing since the prophet Malachi. That yawning silence weighed heavily. But God doesn’t work within a timeline (Chronos) like we do, but according to the ‘fullness of time’ (Kairos). We pitiful time-encased critters are rarely satisfied with the latter. For an expectant mother, forty weeks is an eternity. For someone fasting, forty days feels like a death sentence. For a test-taking student, forty minutes isn’t enough. For a stressed-out motorist, a red light lasting forty seconds is forever. And four hundred years, well, that’s unthinkable.
Twenty centuries later, we see that Jesus’ coming was the inbreaking of the Kingdom of Heaven. A fullness of time in God’s economy had manifested in a newborn, born in obscurity, hailed only by a host of angels in the night sky. For thirty years, this little boy unobtrusively grew to be a man, then briefly became a cultural lightning rod, dying to fulfill his Kingdom purpose, defeating sin and the grave, setting his people free and putting Satan on final notice. 100% hindsight. Well, except for the 100% part. The freedom that is now ours, the eternal life in Jesus that is now ours, the release from the talons of sin that is now ours, that part we live out as a partial reality, a still-hoped-for reality, an almost too-good-to-be-true reality. And Jesus lovingly asks us, ‘What part of 100% do you, my dearest disciples, still not understand?’ Looking forward to seeing all you dear, ‘still learning’ saints tomorrow, 10 AM, 3 PM UK, 4 PM ES. PD
ps It’s always my prayer that these worship sets, though imperfect substitutes for live worship (for now) may grab your hearts the way they do mine as I put them together for us each week. PD
