Our Master Yahshua : Dreamer
They had lots of problems. The homeless poor were everywhere.
Diseases that they had never known before ravaged the nation.
The stench of all the sick beggars in the city streets was
enough to knock a person over. It seemed like they were
cursed, forgotten by God. A few affluent religious leaders
were saying that it was all because of sin, but nobody seemed
to have any real solutions.
So what did they need with an idealist? What good did it
do for some uneducated visionary to come along saying, “Blessed
are you who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed
are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.” Why hold
out to people the promise of heaven on earth when it seemed
the government was trying to make life hell with all its
oppressive regulations? Surely no one would listen to this
man.
But strangely enough, people did listen. They traveled for
miles just to see him. Maybe they just needed a little hope.
Maybe it didn’t matter that he didn’t have any
money to hand out or any social reform programs to propose
to the government. Maybe there weren’t any solutions,
and all that they could expect was a fantasy of love and
peace that would get their minds off of their problems for
a little while.
The more popular he got, the more rumors circulated about
him. They said that he was a healer, a miracle worker. They
said that he was a zealot, advocating a new former of government.
They said that he was a liar, calling people to abandon
their religion and follow him.
Eventually, he caused such a stir that some of the leaders
began to be concerned. There might be riots. There might
be government reprisals. A lot of decent lawabiding citizens
might get hurt. All his talk about a government based on
love might just be a front for an attempted political takeover,
one that would surely end in disaster. Something needed
to be done, so they did it.
They found someone to betray him, seized him in the middle
of the night, and brought him to trial. Evidence was scanty
and conflicting. His own testimony seemed to be that of
a mere dreamer. “My kingdom is not of this world,”
he said. “If it were, my followers would be fighting
to deliver me.”
The judge handed down a bizarre verdict, simultaneously
declaring the prisoner innocent and condemning him to death.
After a torturous sixhourlong execution, his brutally disfigured
body was laid in the grave. To the thinking of most, both
the dreamer and the dream were gone forever.
Seven weeks slipped past, just as inconspicuously as his
followers who had deserted him on the night of his arrest.
Nothing was seen or heard of his cause.
Then suddenly, vividly they reappeared. Cleareyed and articulate,
full of peace as well as passion, these disciples testified
to the goodness and innocence of their Master, as well as
the guilt of the nation and its leaders for putting him
to death. But they weren’t calling for blood. They
were calling for repentance and forgiveness. They were saying
that their Master’s death was enough blood to be shed
— enough to pay for the guilt of the whole world.
They were also saying that he wasn’t dead anymore.
They had seen him alive. He had gone up into the heavens
to sit on the throne of the universe. He had given them
his very own spirit to live in them and cause them to be
just like him.
The result of their sincere, impassioned testimony was electrifying.
Thousands cried out in desperation to be released from their
guilt. They were each plunged into water as a sign of their
cleansing and proclaimed to be new creatures with a new
life, the life of a disciple of Yahshua, their slain and
resurrected king.
The form that this new life took was even more electrifying.
Every disciple was so concerned for the welfare of his brothers
that he sacrificed his own time, his own goals, even his
own possessions to meet their needs. The result was that
in a nation where homelessness and poverty abounded, there
were no rich or poor among these disciples, and each one
had a home where he was loved and cared for. The words of
the “dreamer” had come true: the poor and hungry
were blessed. A new social order had begun on the earth.
History records this enthusiastic communal life of 2,000
years ago as a shortlived phenomenon. Before the end of
the first century A.D. it had given way to factions and
compromises. Roughly two centuries later it had been transformed
into the state religion of the Emperor Constantine, bearing
little resemblance to the vibrant community that had obeyed
the commands of the Master. Nothing, it seemed, was left
of the dream but a written account, carefully preserved
by a religion that makes much of this man’s death
and resurrection but attaches little importance to his vision
and teachings.
But the validity of the dream never passed away. A new social
order where there are no rich or poor, where such divisions
are abolished by love, is still the goal of this resurrected
king who sits on the throne of the universe. His words of
2000 years ago still stir us today: “Do not be afraid,
little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give
you the kingdom.”
These words are true. God has gladly chosen today to give
us this new social order, a kingdom which is not of this
world, but which is beginning once again to be expressed
in the midst of this world. It is a kingdom based on love,
on the sacrifice of our Master Yahshua’s life to pay
for our guilt, on the outpouring of his spirit in our hearts
so that we can love as he loved us.
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