03/31/2013
Pondering the last few days...
You know, for most people the week of Passover and the days of Easter are largely symbolic and ritual. It takes no real effort for us as modern western Christians to "do" Easter, anymore than it takes a great deal of effort to "do" most churchy stuff.
Sure, most get get dressed up a little extra, cook a fancy meal, buy a new suit or a new dress, and break out the spring fashions. The stores start off the spring planting and outdoor season, baseball is but a heartbeat away, and if you care at all about the only two real sports left on earth, hockey is almost over, but road racing has just begun.
I want to put myself in the place of the Disciples.
In the span of only a week, less really... The man that they had literally walked away from their old lives to follow, the man they had come to know as their friend, their mentor, their King, their GOD.... ....Was watched, hunted, conspired against, captured, denied and abandoned, arraigned, convicted, tortured, stabbed with a spear, and hung on a cross till dead .... RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEIR EYES.
AND, it was foretold to them by Christ himself.
Now- to any reasonable mind this is a week of pure mental overload. These followers would have been mentally vacant to a degree that our modern term of PTSD would have been passed days before.
Likely sleep deprived, low on energy because who is going to be able to eat with all this stress, scared out of their own wits, shaken to the very core of what they claim to believe...
To follow all that there comes the claiming of the body, the preparation for burial, the laying into a borrowed tomb. What an unbelievable amount of effort by so few.
Then Christ appears to the disciples several times, further proving the fact that He is the risen savior, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. Even over death.
How on EARTH did they take all this in without collapse ?
To be sure - It was the strength of their character and the will of God that they be cogent and clear in order to bear witness and create the church. No doubt in my mind.
When I think about this time, I try to have an understanding and a depth of belief like the apostles must have had at that time. Of course, there is no way I can put myself there, but I try nonetheless.
I love the peeps, the eggs, and the ham dinner... but the significance of the life, death, and resurrection of my King should not be lost in between.