I knew we were doomed. I said so. When Jesus went back to Judea, to Bethany to comfort Mary and Martha, I said we would go and die with him. And, yes, he did raise Lazarus from the dead; but he had raised others. That was not the point.
We believed. We saw the miracles. We heard him preach. He was the Messiah. But then he talked about getting captured by the Sanhedrin and the Romans. The others seemed not to hear. They didn’t listen: they kept talking about who would be the greatest in the new Kingdom. But there wasn’t going to be a new Kingdom. I tried to tell them. Going back to Judea was to go to our death. Jerusalem, the Sanhedrin, they were plotting our demise. I said so. They just would not listen.
There’s so much I did not understand. Judas? Why? Was he trying to save himself? He seemed to understand what going back to Jerusalem meant. Even so, why did he…? Then there was “The Kingdom”. What was this Kingdom of God? Sometimes Jesus said things that sounded like it was already here. But The Kingdom? Here right now? But I saw no evidence of that! After Lazarus rose from his grave Judas asked me about it, about how there would be a new Kingdom. “How will he raise us from our graves if he’s crucified with us?” There was no answer. That was the point.
James and John kept talking about who would be the greatest in the Kingdom. His answer? The bread and the wine were his body and blood? Washing our feet? How was that an answer? We were to be servants? What was he doing?
The Temple Guards came. They took him, they took Jesus. He didn’t offer any resistance. Someone said “run” … so I ran.
But there was nowhere to run. Why I went back to that room I do not know. It certainly wasn’t the safest place. However, except for Gethsemane, it was the last place we were with him. It was safer than Gethsemane, safer than the road. Some of us were there. John and Peter were missing. I tried to sleep.
We all had stood far back in the crowd, away from each other, so they wouldn’t recognize us together. He just hung there. The angels never came. But the Centurion said he was the Son of God. Why did he say that?
One of the Temple Guards walked straight toward me, looking directly at me. I wanted to run. Instead I stood, paralyzed. He walked past me, like he didn’t see me. Thank God I couldn’t run.
Back in the room I collapsed, exhausted. I guess I slept through the Sabbath and much of Sunday. When I woke up, Cliopas was jabbering about seeing Jesus. I thought, “That’s insane” and grabbed my things and left.
Andrew found me late Friday just before sunset. I went back with him, I couldn’t keep hiding. His babbling about seeing Jesus was irrational, but I knew I could get a decent meal and some sleep, so I went with him.
When Jesus appeared I nearly fainted. I said, “My Lord and my God!”
Not that I really understood. We went to Galilee. Peter said something about going fishing. I went along, still wondering about the Kingdom. We all were wondering. We caught some fish…okay, we caught a lot of fish…well, Jesus provided us with a very large catch. It financed us for a long time. But still no Kingdom.
Then he called us to the mountain. And we watched as he rose into the sky. Angels talked to us. I thought “…that’s it?” He said we should wait in Jerusalem for an Advocate, someone he called the Holy Spirit. So we waited in that same room.
The Fire came. We were “baptized” with Holy Fire. We spoke in other languages. We were filled with unimaginable joy. Peter led us outside. We were still speaking in foreign languages and everyone heard us in his own native language. A crowd gathered. He began to preach to them. I listened to him and wondered.
Later, I was sitting on the roof watching the sunset. Suddenly I understood. It wasn’t that The Messiah would toss out the Romans; instead, the Kingdom was in our hearts. The Messiah tosses the Romans and Greeks and Sanhedrin out of our hearts. Then he becomes king in our hearts. That makes us citizens of the Kingdom. So, as the last rays of sunshine dropped below the horizon the first rays of the Kingdom burst brightly into my heart. And I fully understood my exclamation, the words I said when I first saw him resurrected: My Lord and my God!