Would You?

19 Jun

Would You?

The question was recently asked, “If you had lived during Jesus’ time, would you have abandoned Him at His trial like His disciples did?” My answer has to be yes. Those men did not have the luxury of hind-sight or the full Bible to clarify and establish the truth of the cross for them. All they understood was that their only hope of rescue from the Roman Empire was being tried and crucifixion was being advocated by the popular opinion of the day. The disciples assumed Jesus’ kingdom an earthly one and they were crushed when their King was killed.

Luke 24 describes the followers of Jesus in mourning after His death. The women brought ointments and spices to the tomb on the third day in order to finish the preparation for Jesus’ burial, which had been interrupted by the stringent restrictions of the Sabbath. Finding the stone rolled away from the tomb, they entered to find it empty. Two men in shining garments, angels, appeared to the baffled women, frightening them. The men asked, “Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen. Remember how He spoke unto you when He was yet in Galilee, saying, ‘The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again’?” (Luke 24:5b-7).

Once reminded of Jesus’ words, the women believed. But when they carried the information to the disciples, they were thought to be telling idle, untrue tales. I imagine the thought of ‘you’re only a woman: what do you know about anything’ might have passed through the mind of someone in the group, because none of them believed any of it. “Then arose Peter, and ran unto the sepulcher. Stooping down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves, and he departed, wondering in himself at that which was come to pass” (Luke 24:12).

The people closest to Jesus did not seem to recognize Him after His resurrection. Mary Magdalene had remained at the tomb weeping when she encountered Jesus, and she thought Him the gardener (John 20:1-18). Two of the disciples had left Jerusalem to walk to Emmaus, almost seven miles away, when Jesus met them and their recognition of Him was withheld so they did not know Him. They thought Him a tourist in town for Passover. They finally recognized Him over lunch, at which point He vanished (Luke 24:13-35). Peter had to be told by John that it was Jesus on the shore calling to them (John 21).

Even after spending so much time with Jesus over the course of three years and hearing Him tell of His upcoming death, burial, and resurrection multiple times (Matt. 17:9, 26:2; Luke 9:22; Mark 14:27-28; et al), the disciples did not remember. Did they simply not believe and so ignored what He had said? Did they practice selective hearing when He spoke of things they didn’t like or didn’t understand? Peter still couldn’t believe it after he saw for himself that the tomb was empty. For some reason his recollection of what Jesus had actually said omitted some very important information.

If these people who were Jesus’ closest friends did not believe He could rise again from the dead, did not believe His pre-determined and prophetically foretold path to or from the cross, and acted out of abject fear when He was arrested and tried, how can I believe that I would have done anything differently? I don’t think anybody would have had the power to stick around, in part because the process of Jesus’ sacrifice included desertion by all, including God the Father (Matt. 27:46). Jesus bore all the consequences of our sins on the cross, including total separation from God, so that we would never have to experience the despair of that separation as the children of God.