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Superstition
So much has been written about the death and resurrection of Jesus it almost obscures the singular difficulties it made for the Roman authorities who could, at least in theory, have made short work of the disciples. They were so terrified that they fled. The Romans evidently thought they had scuppered what they regarded as an undesirable cult. It was many years later that Tacitus was driven to record that the pernicious superstition was checked for a short time (by the crucifixion) before it broke out afresh!
'Superstition' seems an odd word to use in this context. The word describes 'an irrational belief'. Given a body of men who were so devastated by the crucifixion that they ran away in panic and shut themselves up in fear of the Jewish and Roman authorities, it would have taken much more than any 'belief', irrational or otherwise, to have restored them to rationality. It is from the appearance of Christ among them that their rationality subsequently became not a belief but a factual faith. That rationality and faith were the mainspring which built Christianity and spread it among Jews and Gentiles alike.
The event, obviously, transformed a group of men who had seen the power of a new kingdom, together with (like a modern party leadership winning an election) the high positions they hoped to obtain in that kingdom snatched from them. They had become in effect outlaws.
They were, instead, given the power of the Spirit which grew within them and with it the new kingdom beyond the world into which they had been born, into a kingdom whose treasured citizens are servants - led by the Spirit of their risen Lord.
The profound question which remained was the question of what was to happen to the world which remained. What the disciples could not know was that the small flame of the Spirit was about to become a great fire, bringing Light to the whole world. The spirit still dwells in every era. It is not for us, I suggest, to seek to use that Spirit but for the Spirit to use us. The least of us may well be the most in the service of the Spirit.
Bob Mclean
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