Calvary undermined

The rumours circulating about the teacher from Galilee are controversial. Although the government executed him as a criminal last Friday, there is a school of thought that he was not the criminal theorist that they claimed. {{more}}

For one thing, one of the members of the preliminary inquiry (P.I.) court, a most respected leader from Arimathea, went to the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate as a friend of Jesus/ Yeshua, for the body of the Teacher. He and a colleague personally buried the corpse in a new garden tomb! People are also talking about how senior professionals used to go to Bethany to consult with this “criminal” about the way to God eternal life and blessings.

Furthermore, a group that is close to the Temple leaders, are whispering about some corruption going on in Gods’ Holy Temple affairs. Evidently, the Galilean teacher Jesus/Yeshua spoke openly exposing the temple leaders when he was teaching the people in Jerusalem about God’s way. He called out the leaders and challenged them to return from seeking their own honour and glory, and become humble servants of the Lord God. The insiders wondered how a teacher from Galilee could know so much abou the scandals in God’s House.

Adding to my mysteries, a student movement that had been holding a retreat in the hills in preparation for Passover tells a starting story. While they were meditating on Psalm 189 Yeshua/ Jesus passed them on his way to pray. Though they heard some of his prayer, they didn’t quite understand his desperate sounding supplication, but he spoke to the Lord God as if they were close, as if they were Adam, a new Adam “Dahda” he prayed, “Oh Dahda, Lord God and Deliverer, please release me from this hour; my eyes cannot see the way ahead; the light is dazzling in front of me, and thick clouds of misunderstanding dog my footsteps behind me. That is not how I want to be, Dahda, but I feel your spirit calling me on …..Embrace me Dahda please. I will go your way. I am going, thank you Father.” The students said that when they heard him rise from prayer, their spirits also rose within them and they knew that they had just experienced a true mountain top epiphany. The students have now gone back to their retreat camp to seek guidance in their quest for holiness. It is not easy to grasp the meaning of the story.

To this repartee, the act of crucifying the Galilean, Yeshua, does not seem to have been a matter of justice dispensed. On the other hand, it is more than a scandalous injustice, and shapes up to be an ugly attempt to cover up or a stifle down of a broad and deep life-changing phenomenon. In the words of some Galileans, God’s man Yeshua was opening the movement of liberation and grace for all God’s people; but they don’t know what will happen now that Yeshua is dead.

No body in the tomb

On Monday evening, one of my informants sent me a text message. It said “There is no body in the tomb where they buried Yeshua, it empty.” My mind became unsettled, especially when my informant would not reply to my calls. That night I did not sleep, thinking all kinds of strange thoughts. I knew that I had get on to one of the Galileans in the morning to find out more. It was one called Thomas who spoke to me. “No,” he answered me straight out, “we didn’t thief the Master body.” “So, what happened then,” I asked him. He watched me strangely for a long while and I could see that he had a battle going on inside him. He turned sidewards, not facing me and said: “Some of my sisters and brothers disciples say they have seen Yeshua. He has been raised and is alive, but he is not showing himself to others. I don’t know what to think”, he said weakly. I could see tears gathering in his eyes as he walked away. I stood there shaking.

I am at home now and I know what I have to do. I cannot avoid it; I have to find out more about who Yeshua was and what his work was like. If he could contradict the laws of nature, being killed, yet live again; if he could dismiss the power of the Roman empire that executed him as a criminal, by making nonsense of that judgment; if he could undo the scheme, the authority and the sanction of the High Priest, then this Yeshua from Galilee must be part of something earth-shaking and liberating. What is it? I want to know.

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