From a Humanist to a Rock!

When God grabs ahold of someone, sometimes the process of change is alittle gradual, with fits and starts. Other times its an amazing change, that completely changes the people it touches. Everyone notices it.
I was at a baptism one time, and the lady being baptized gave perhaps the greatest, most touching compliment that a follower of Jesus could ever give to another. When asked why she wanted to be baptized, she said "Because Jesus is my Lord and savior, and because I saw the difference it made in the life of my son. The change was remarkable. I want to know Jesus like my son knows him!"
This is how it was with the disciples. They got the holy spirit in Acts 2 and it was like a 180 degree change. I sometimes wonder if this is exactly why Jesus picked these people. Because he knew that more than anyone else, these guys were going to be changed men that everyone would see!
Lets look at two of the twelve disciples.
Now, John called himself the beloved disciple. Alot of commentators tend to think that there was some special relationship between the two, and I believe there was as well. However, Im not sure its like many commentators have said, in that Jesus and John were like best buddies. I think its more like John was such a mess, perhaps Jesus extended special grace to him. The "spoiled rich kid, that thought he was entitled to everything." That would be a good analogy for understanding his personality.
Heres why I think that.
John presents himself in his gospel as the disciple whom Jesus loved. But to look at some of the stuff that John did speaks of being self interested in the extreme.
He was one of the brothers called “Sons of Thunder.”, and many think thats because he and his brother were always arguing. "Boarnerges" or “Sons of thunder”, whatever else it might mean, means strength, unexpectedness, and zeal approaching to violence.
He wanted to call fire down from heaven on everyone that opposed him.
He had a home in Jerusalem, and was acquainted with many there.
He and his brother even used their own mother to try to seek the best seat in the kingdom.
We know that his father, Zebedee was a man of considerable wealth from the fact that he had “hired servants”.
Yet after he begins to tell the story of the resurrected messiah he seems a completely different man. Just a cursory read shows that John was changed. Instead of a “Son of Thunder,” he was constant in his never-failing expressions of love. He is known as the “Apostle of Love” – a total cataclysmic change, having met the resurrected messiah, seen the empty tomb with his own eyes and even eaten a meal with him.
When referring to himself in his Gospel he repeatedly calls himself "The disciple whom Jesus Loved."
He writes five books of the New Testament. He is with Peter and James, the Lord's brother, at the interview with Paul recorded in Gal 2, and the three are described as the pillar apostles.
John was changed from a spoiled rich kid who put his own mother up to asking for the best seat, wanting to call fire down on everyone who opposed them, to being a man who spoke constantly about love. A 180 degree shift. This doesnt happen for a lie.
Now lets look at Thomas.
By the way, Thomas is probably my favorite disciple.
When I first heard gene scott that mention thomas went to india I had go and do a bunch of research.
Tradition holds that Thomas was the disciple picked to go to India.
Regarding the apostle Thomas on the Malabar Coast of India (Present day Kerala) we have a very ancient narrative from a manuscript preserved by an old family at Palayur. It literally dates to the SAME time as Thomas's early preaching in and around the malabar coast. Now, only indian scholars have been able, or really cared to examine this letter, but it is known to exist, although is not widely known outside of India. It even holds the names of some of the original families that were converted because of Thomas's preaching. Tradition holds that the waterway on the left is where Thomas baptized the first Indian Christians in that part of India, after arriving there by boat.
It was understood by most of the early church fathers that Thomas went to India Writings regarding Thomas's missionary work include:
3. St. Jerome (342- 420)
"He (Christ) dwelt in all places: with St. Thomas in India, Peter in Rome."
4. St. Gaudentius ( Bishop of Brescia, before 421)
"John at Sebastena, St. Thomas among the Indians, Andrew and Luke at the city of Patras are found to have closed their careers."
5. St. Paulinus of Nola (d. 431)
"Parthia receives Mathew, India St. Thomas, Libya Thaddeus, and Phrygia Philip".
Regarding archeological research in and around India:
We even have Thomas's burial site near Madras and, later his reinternment in Syria.
I can even give you directions to the one in India. To get to the original burial site of Thomas go eight miles from Fort St. George, Six Miles from South west of Santhome-de-Meliyapore (Burial Place of St. Thomas), Two miles from Little Mount, 300 Ft. above sea level. You can even go to google maps and type in st thomas burial site, india and it comes up.
Their are even crosses carved on stone in several locations along the malabar coast, some of which are attributed to Thomas's own hand by unbroken tradition.
We know the origins of Kerala's Christians dates back to 52 AD, when St. Thomas came to the region landing in the port of Cranganore near Cochin. He visited different parts of Kerala and converted local inhabitants including some from the upper sect known as Namboodiri Brahmins. It is also known that St. Thomas established Churches in seven places in Kerala ( Kodungallore, Palayur, Paravur, Kokkamangalam, Niranam, Chayal, Korakkeni, Kollam) and a chappal (half church-"Arappalli") at Thiruvankottu.
The present Christian populations have partially descended from these early groups. As I mentioned earlier we have some of the family names of some of the the very first Christians. They were Paklomattam, Shankarapuri, Kalli, and Kaaliyankavu in the north and Thayyil, Pattamukkil, Manki, and Madathilen in the south. They are popularly referred to as Syrian Christians because of the Syrian Liturgy which they continue to use in church services even to this day. They have also sometimes been called Nazaranis (as in followers of Jesus of Nazarene) or St. Thomas Christians.
Thomas brought along some of the traditions of his hebrew background as well. We can see shades of that even today in the Nazarani worship services. As I mentioned, Syriac (the classical form of Aramaic) liturgy is still used in church services and has been since the early days of Christianity in India. There are even consistent rumors that the Nazrani churches still contain the very earliest manuscripts of the gospels (Considered to have possibly been brought over with Thomas.) written in Aramiac that may be known, though thats unsubstantiated.
We talked a bit ago about Thomas coming with families to the malabar coast., If we are to look at genetic markers for possible ties to semetic people we see, There is Y-DNA, specifically J2 Cohen paternal lineages in many Nazranis even today. Further, the J2 Cohen Modal Haplotype and the R1a1 Levite Modal Haplotype are common genetic signatures that have been found in many of the Nasranis that have been tested as well. I'm not a biologist or genetics expert, but from what I've read that pretty conclusively proves that many of them have a Jewish genetic ancestry that links them specifically to the levite line.
There are even ancient folksongs that mention Thomas, a foreigner coming to the Kerala area and preaching a foreign God.
So why all this about Thomas.
So here we have a mountain of evidence that shows that Thomas the doubter was catastrophically changed and picked to go to the philosophical center of the world at that time. This was where buddism, hinduism, and brahmism all came from. The one who consistently did not believe in Jesus as God incarnate, the one who was willing to follow to the death, but was not willing to call him messiah until he saw the wounds was till the very end an unshackable rock, going to his death, alone, 300 feet up a hillside 8 miles south and west of the present day fort st. george military base.
John, Peter, Thomas, Andrew and the rest of the disciples were catastrophically changed, which is pretty unlikely to happen if they were all believing a lie. To die in a strange land, alone, when recanting your story is all that will get you out of trouble. All the apostles, save John, went to their deaths, enduring horrible martyrdom. Bartholemew was skinned alive with a whip in Armenia. James was beheaded. Peter was crucified upside down at his own request, because he felt unworthy to hang in the same position as his Lord and Savior. You dont do things like that for a lie.
You only do things like if what you believe in is so real, so true so alive, that you talked with him, you ate with him, and he has changed you from the inside out.
We're talking about a Risen savior. One that can be proven as historic. One that you can, like Thomas follow wherever He may lead, knowning that beyond the grave lies an eternity with the creator of the Universe.

Towards a Jesus Theology

All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments...

The man lying on the bed was in his early thirties, but one could scarcely tell that to look upon his frail frame. A victim of homelessness and a prolonged life on the streets, he had seen much more than many
his age would ever see, and his body showed it. Right now he was in a coma and wasn't likely to recover, his body had an air of "worn-out-ness" to it that all homeless people tend to have, but this man more so than any other she had ever seen.
His ruddy pockmarked face showed the obvious signs of daily life under the sun through summer and winter, with sun burn upon sun burn upon sun burn, and with a dull rubbing of a decade of dirt in the pores for good measure. A scar above his chin and a nose like a horse shoe showed that this man had been in at least one serious fight, and probably many more, in his life. Through the hospital gown one could see the subtle tells of scars that crisscrossed his body. They spoke of pavement and air vents as beds, old moth eaten jackets and mildewy cardboard as pillow and blanket.
His chart showed that his body, old and tired, was indeed in the process of giving out. He had not really regained consciousness since coming in 72 hours ago. Sadly, his insides were a victim of a relentless onslaught of drugs and alcohol, of trying to kill the inner pain. His vital organs, despite the doctors best efforts, were one by one shutting down.
He had been dumped on the front steps of the hospital dressed in tattered flannel shirt and jeans crusty from wear, with no drivers license, with no wallet, with no identification, with no-one to vouch for him, and no way of knowing who he was.
As he laid there in silence, and with death soon to come, one of God's unlikely anointed ones stood in his room quietly. She had been through some serious pain of her own, the death of family, friends and the recent divorce of a husband. All within the last two years. From the standpoint of anyone who knew her, she had every right to be angry at the world.
She knew that somewhere there was likely a mother who hadn't seen her son in 10 or more years. She knew that there was a mother that craned her neck wildly when she passed someone that just might look like the son alcohol drugs and life on the street had stolen from her. She knew that there was likely a father who had been so despondent with grief that he may have laid in the street at one point, every muscle on his slightly overweight frame racked with anxiety looking to the heavens for some relief from the crippling terror of not knowing whether your offspring was alive or dead.
As this unlikely angel stood in her scrubs, she walked over and put her hand on his shoulder and said a quiet prayer. She didn't know what to say when she started, but she knew no one else would stand and pray for this man. Words flowed from her lips. A few tears from her eyes, even though she tried as hard as she could to hold them back. Though her words were oh so quiet, her spirit groaned to the Lord of heaven for all of the pain and suffering for this "John Doe" before her, for his family, for his mother and father and for his salvation. She asked the Lord of heaven to forgive this man, and to take away his pain.
In doing so, this humble critical care nurse became another one of Gods quiet emissaries.

And yet, even as we can all agree that this critical care nurse was definitely exhibiting Godly ways in praying over her patient, its not a set of actions that fits neatly into our theological hierarchy sometimes.

The thing that blows me away about Jesus is how unlike the world he is. I know that sounds obvious, but hear me out.
Just look at his birth. He was born in a manager, which despite the somewhat sterilized view that comes to us from children's plays, was really a trough for food for animals. There was likely animal spittle mixed in with the hay that the living God of the Universe was laid in. Ezekiel mentions the standard birth method for the time was to be washed with water, then rubbed with salt, to prevent infection and disease. It would appear from the text that Jesus did not receive any of the standard birth procedure, in that he was born where animals were to be housed.
We sometimes forget the likely social fallout of the virgin birth. Mary was with child, having known no man, not even her husband Joseph. Now, In that culture adultery was a serious offense, punishable by death. Though Mary was obviously not guilty of adultery, I'm sure it didn't seem like it to those around her who knew her. Yet, despite the likely whispers, from the worlds view, Joseph took on the mantle of father, to a son he did not sire, likely to scorn and subtle ridicule from the community he lived in.
As an adult Jesus repeatedly went and ate with sinners and publicans. He repeatedly went to the very lowest in society, Even going so far as to walk forward, touch, and subsequently heal the ultimate outcast of that society, a leper.
As a rabbi and teacher, his full time ministry likely lasted only about 3-5 years. No 40 year careers and world evangelism centers complete with marble floors for this man that was God. His was a different ministry. A ministry of the Father.
Even on the day he died, it was most remarkable because of just how shameful it was. His clothes were stripped from him, an innocent man. He wore a crown of thorns. He was crucified alongside two criminals, his best friends scattering the night before when trouble came round, only now to stand afar off and watch helplessly.
Crucifixion was reserved for those that society thought to make an example of.
Interestingly, that is exactly what happened, just not in the way the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Romans intended.
With all this in mind, lets stop and consider for a second the verse in John.
"I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know the Father. From now on you do know him and you have seen him."
This could be a life verse for me it comes up so much in my day to day thoughts. It literally means that Jesus is the only way to know God. Through this man alone is salvation. If you're reading this its probably nothing new. (If this is something new, please lift you eyes to heaven and say "Lord, Have mercy on me a sinner!" before going any farther!) Lets take and quantify this verse...

If I am to know God, it is through Jesus.

If I am to have wisdom and knowledge of God, it is through his Son, Jesus

If I wish to study God and his attributes, then all I have to do is study is Jesus and his attributes!

In my slightly over rigorous mind, I have pondered how to reconcile all of this. Jesus didn't seem to care about peoples station in life, he seemed to care for people in pain, people who were hurting. He cared most about showing others the Father. He most often showed them the Father by loving them. He wouldn't violate their freewill, but He wasn't afraid to sacrifice his own comfort for others, or to wound them with the truth. He was a servant. He served others. He loved others. He chastised those that made others weights heavy, and would not lift a finger to help.
His burden was light. He told us so.
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart all your mind and all your strength. This is the first and greatest commandment, and the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments."
and yet how often do these verses show up in church creeds, in theological statements of faith? How often do we here this from the pulpit? How often have we said this to ourselves as part of a guiding philosophy of life? How often is this taught in Sunday schools?

In light of the above statements, perhaps we should examine the words and deeds of Jesus more closely.

Let this then, be the introduction in a (hopefully!) ongoing series of articles designed to examine Jesus and his ways during his time on earth in more detail. Call it "Things that Jesus Did" or "Loving like Jesus". The focus will be on discovering how to change our thinking and habits to become more and more like Jesus, so that, in turn, we can become more and more like the Father.

Selah...