Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world

Christian Meditations – A Chris Hansen Column

February 11, 2008

You met Chris, now you can read more of his work:

Courage Of The Ancient Ones

*****Part 1.

                    by

                     Chris Hansen

Author of:

“Secret of the Psalms,”

Amazingly accurate prophecies about Jesus written centuries in advance.

“Revelation Revisited,”

John is under arrest by the Roman empire.  While he is in exile, he gets the surprise of his life!  The glorified Jesus shows up!  John’s story is redramatized for today’s audience who may not be familiar with the Bible.

“Grandfather’s Journal.”

A touching illustrated book for children and adults.  A young boy who is terrified of death and bored with church reads his grandfather’s last journal entries.  The boy discovers the sweet hope that the resurrection of Jesus provides.  The boy learns to “Smile on the inside too.”

www.xlibris.com and local bookstores and 1-888-795-4274

This series of short stories looks back at some very courageous Christians.  These Christians were far more than mere footnotes in church history.  They were real people with incredible courage in the face of unspeakable brutality!  This kind of courage needs to be remembered and emulated.  This kind of brutality, though unspeakable, needs to be spoken.  They were and still are our brothers and our sisters in Christ.  They are a great cloud of witnesses who surround us and encourage us to finish our race.  May their great courage be ours too.  May God help us to be heroes too.  The world still needs heroes like them.  These stories are based on historical records left to us by Eusebius.  Where appropriate a certain amount of imagination is used.  Even so, the basic facts are definitely nonfiction!

                                                James Who Died In Prayer

This first story is about James the half brother of Jesus.  James had a remarkable transformation in his life.  At first, James did not appreciate living in the shadow of his famous brother.  In fact, Jesus embarrassed him.  Some adored his brother.  Some hated Him!  Some, like James, thought his brother was mad!  What would transform James from sneering sarcasm to adoration and worship?  What would transform him from someone who could almost wish for the death of his embarrassing brother, into someone who would be willing to die for Him?  The death of his brother was brutal beyond words!  However, the resurrection of his brother left him speechless!  Had he been so wrong about his peculiar brother all these years?  This is the setting of James, a truly remarkable story.

It really was true.  Jesus stirred things up wherever He went.  James simply did not know just what to think of his peculiar brother.  The crowds and the controversy were growing every day.  Jesus couldn’t even attend a regular Sabbath service at synagogue without stirring up trouble!

During one such service, the teachers of the Law were watching Jesus closely to see if He would heal on the Holy Sabbath.  The Pharisees were huddled together and talking among themselves.  They said things like this to one another:  “Are there not six days on which Jesus can do his work?  Must he violate our Holy day too?  He has no regard for our sacred traditions!  You see that man with the shriveled hand?  No doubt Jesus will heal him today and make it look as though we are the ones who are violating some law of God!”  And the talk went on like that.  …

During a quiet moment in the service, Jesus did the very thing the Pharisees feared!  He disrupted the service!  Suddenly, Jesus stood up and looked around at the religious teachers, and then He looked right at the man whose hand had obviously not been used for many years-perhaps even from birth.  Through long years of disuse, his hand had become a mere shell of what it once was-or should have been.  Everyone looked at Jesus and He in turn looked back at them.  His eyes glistened with anger as he turned His gaze upon the man in question.  “Stand up!” Jesus ordered, “Right here in front of everyone!”  The man stood up as he was ordered to do.  After all, Jesus was a Rabbi too, though a bit unorthodox.  The man looked a little nervous.  What was Jesus going to do?  Was He actually going to heal him?  The man had heard so many stories about the powers Jesus was said to possess.  The man cared little that the Sabbath might be violated!  He might actually be able to use his hand!  He might be able to work just like all the other men and earn a living.  It would be nice not to be pitied or accused of some terrible sin.  It would be nice to work with pride just like the others. 

Suddenly, the voice of Jesus jolted the man out of his thoughts.  “Tell me!  Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do well?  Or is it even more lawful to do evil?  Is it lawful on the Sabbath to save life?  Or is it more lawful to kill!  (Mark 3:4)  You hypocrites!  Even you have enough sense to save the life of a sheep on the Sabbath!  If it falls into a pit you would lift it out on the Sabbath!  Well then, is not a man worth more than a sheep?  Should I not restore him on the Sabbath?”  (Matthew 12:11-12.)  Everyone stared back in silence.  If they said anything at all, they would be accused of treating an animal with more respect than a man made in the image of God!  On the other hand, if they agreed with Him, they would be admitting they were wrong!  So they just sat in sullen silence and seething hatred! 

Then Jesus said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.”  As the man did so, the hand miraculously changed its shape as they looked on!  No one could deny that they had seen a genuine miracle!  The Pharisees quietly left the synagogue and went off to plot how they might kill this trouble maker.  They muttered among themselves, “We know how he does these miracles!  Satan has possessed him!  Satan is using these signs to lead all the people astray!  How dare he accuse us of blaspheming the Holy Spirit of God!  He is the sinner, and he dares to accuse us of blasphemy!  He must die before he leads the people

astray!”  Jesus and the Pharisees were headed for a collision!  Either Jesus was the very devil incarnate or He was Messiah come to save Israel!  If the Pharisees guessed wrong, they would be guilty of an eternal sin!  They would be headed for hell!  On the other hand, if the Pharisees were right, Jesus was something evil from hell!  Was Jesus leading the people astray!  Or had God’s long awaited kingdom come at last!

James was thinking about all this.  James thought to himself, “Can’t Jesus just be like the rest of us?  Must he offend the elders?  Can’t he heal and do good without disrupting everything!”  Something else flashed into his mind.  James remembered another embarrassing episode in the life of his peculiar brother:

On one particular day, Jesus was surrounded by a crowd of people so thick that he and his disciples couldn’t even sit down to have a meal together.  James and the other relatives heard about all this and tried to make their way through the crowd.  Relatives said things like: “Now this has gone far enough!  He’s lost his mind!  Maybe the teachers are right.  Maybe he really does have an evil spirit.  We’d better go get him so he doesn’t get in any more trouble!  Isn’t it obvious he can’t take care of himself?”

Sure enough, when the relatives got close enough, they heard the Pharisees discussing the very same things!  “We know how he does these miracles!” they sneered.  “Is it not by the prince of demons?  He deceives the people by supposedly casting out demons.”  James thought, “Of course this brother of mine won’t listen to reason!  He’ll find some way to make the Pharisees look foolish!”  Jesus did just that.  Jesus interrupted James’ thoughts: 

“Satan is at war with himself!  First he possesses people, and then he frees them!  Then you admit that Satan’s kingdom is fighting against itself!  How can it hope to stand?  Even you must realize that in order for God’s kingdom to come, Satan must be conquered first.  Even you admit that Satan is being conquered.  Surely even you know that Satan’s end has come!  In order to rob a strong man’s house, don’t you have to conquer the strong man first?  Isn’t that what I am doing?  If I am casting out demons by evil power, then how do your own followers do the very same thing!  All manner of sins will be forgiven, I tell you, but not this one!  You are blaspheming the Holy Spirit!  As long as you do this, you can never be forgiven!  How could you ever put your faith in me and be saved as long as you believe that I am of the devil?  You constantly demand more signs and more miracles!  And then when you see them, you blaspheme the Holy Spirit and say that I have a devil!  You adulteress generation!  You will get no signs except this one!  As the prophet Jonah was three days and nights within a huge sea creature, in the same way, you will see the Son of Man three days and nights within the earth.  Jonah preached to Nineveh and they repented of their sin!  They will stand up in the Day of Judgment and testify against you because you will not repent of your sin!”  (Matthew 12:22-42 & Mark 3:20-30.)

With many other words such as these, Jesus rebuked his critics.  The crowds were so thick that his relatives couldn’t get close to him.  People were hanging on his every word.  The relatives sent a message through the crowd, “Could you please tell the Rabbi that his family would like to see him!”  His own family!  Surely Messiah would do them the courtesy of seeing them! 

Finally, James and the other relatives managed to find a spot just outside the door.  The word was passed from person to person that Jesus’ relatives were outside.  James overheard Jesus say, “Who are my relatives?  Who is my mother?  Who are my brothers?”  James was furious!  He thought, he wouldn’t even acknowledge his own relatives!  Jesus continued: “Here is my mother, and my sister, and my brother!  Whoever does God’s will is my mother, my sister, and my brother!”  (Mark 3:31-35.)  James was nearly beside himself with anger!  Of course, only those who follow that crazy teacher are doing God’s will!  We try to take charge of him, James thought, and he dares to accuse us of not doing God’s will!  Who can deal with such a man!

James had nearly resigned himself to the thought that he and his crazy brother were irreconcilable.  This didn’t prevent James from expressing to his brother just how he felt.  Perhaps he could talk some sense into this Rabbi gone mad!  Perhaps not.  At least he could let Jesus know that not everyone had gone crazy with him!  James and the other brothers began to criticize him on one particular feast day-the Feast of Tabernacles.  They said, “Now Jesus, we know why you have stayed away from Jerusalem.  You are hiding out in Galilee.  You know there are Jewish leaders in Jerusalem who want to kill you.  Now Jesus, you also know that you have many followers in Jerusalem.  They expect you to go celebrate the Feast with them!  You turned water into wine in Galilee.  Why don’t you go to Jerusalem and show them some of your miracles!  Why are you hiding out here!  You’re Messiah aren’t you?  Well then, go show yourself to the world!  You tell a woman in Samaria all about yourself!  Well then, go to Jerusalem too!  Or are you afraid?  Surely Messiah fears nothing!”  (John 7:1-10 & John 4:1-46.)

Jesus scolded his brothers, gently but firmly.  “You do not understand, do you?  Everything has its time.  What you say is true enough, but the right time has not yet come.  You are impatient.  Any time is the right time for you!  You don’t understand why the world hates me.  How could you understand?  After all, the world does not hate you.  That’s because you belong to this world.  I don’t.  I have been sent to testify against the world.  I have been sent to tell the world just how evil it is!  If you are so anxious to go to the Feast, well then, go!  My time has not come yet.”  Once again, James boiled with anger!  He thought, “Does he have to make even the Feast of Tabernacles a thing of controversy!”  Something else went through his mind.  James thought, he even makes circumcision a thing of controversy!  Jesus had said to the crowds at the Feast, when he finally did arrive, “I do a miracle on Sabbath and you seek to kill me because you think I have a demon!  Even you break Sabbath to circumcise a child on the eighth day!  You don’t want to break the law of circumcision, so you break Sabbath instead!  Why can’t I heal on Sabbath?” (John 7:19-24.) “Oh that brother of mine!” James thought.  James just couldn’t bring himself to understand his brother!