On the Eleventh Day of Christmas...
We have arrived at the final two days of Christmas, with today being the eleventh day. The subversive poem made into a song, The Twelve Days of Christmas, has our True Love gifting, “Eleven Pipers Piping.” These pipers symbolize the eleven apostles, who remained loyal and would always take the message of Messiah Jesus to the ends of the earth. This gift is about purpose and mission.
I would argue that this gift is the most paradoxical of all the gifts. We read about and admire the fidelity of the eleven apostles of Jesus, yet we struggle to grasp and embody such fidelity today. In part, because we tend to etherealize these first followers of Jesus, making them beyond or above us. The text tells otherwise. Let’s pick up the immediate reaction of these eleven apostles in hearing of the resurrection of Jesus…
While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see, for a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. Yet for all their joy they were still disbelieving and wondering, and he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. (Luke 24:36-43)
Did you catch the very common and normal reactions of, “doubts arising in their hearts… yet for all their joy they were still disbelieving and wondering?” How… human of them. With the flesh and bone Jesus standing in front of them, who was quite hungry from the grueling work of rising from the grave, they still held doubts and disbelief. Of course, because they were not otherworldly or superhero-like. Much like you and I, they put their tunics on one leg at a time and wet their tunics at the notion of Jesus rising from the dead.
Joy, doubts, and disbelief… all holding hands. We will come to learn that these rather regular people will go to the ends of the earth demonstrating and declaring the good news of Jesus… for all people. Church tradition tells us that all but one, John, will be martyred due to their fidelity to Jesus. And although tradition has John dying of old age, he experienced an immense amount of persecution because he trusted Jesus.
It is within all of the topsy-turvy doubts and dying, that I feel a clear challenge and heart calling. The eleven had their doubts published, forever held up for public viewing. The eleven stood staring into the eyes of, touching the scarred hands and feet of, the resurrected Jesus… and still admitted their disbelief. If we are so bent on applying superpowers to these eleven, maybe those powers should be honesty, transparency, and humility. As one scholar and author writes about it, we modern Christians tend to suffer from the sin of certainty (see Peter Enns’s book The Sin of Certainty). Much of our modern evangelism is done with vicious certainty, wherein we try and intellectually wrestle people into praying words riddled with only sweat-soaked certainty. This is often accompanied by some good ole shaming and guilting that your filthy, despicable sins put Jesus on the cross, which leads to a subtle, or not-so-subtle, threat that if you don’t believe and confess all the right ideas and words, then hell awaits. And apparently, that’s good news.
I would say that a significant part of the issue is found in the dominant use and understanding of the words ‘believe’ and ‘faith.’ In a post-enlightenment age, we tend to hear those words as an intellectual ascent to certainty. The Hebrew word that we translate as both belief and faith, is emunah, which is a pliable and wide-reaching word. The dominant understanding is found within trust, faithfulness, or fidelity. Those all carry far more action and heart than the common use of belief.
It is for this very reason that I try not to get hung up on what people say they believe, or don’t believe. I am far more interested in what it is that their life reveals they trust and hold as their foundation. It’s two pages back in this series, the nine ladies dancing who symbolize the Fruit of the Spirit. People say they believe in God, and yet their life looks nearly identical to someone who says they don’t believe in God.
I believe Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups is the king of candy, yet I don’t put the kind of trust or fidelity behind that statement that would lead me to declare it to the ends of the earth or put my life on the line for it. My Reese’s belief simply says, “to each their own,” or “that’s simply my truth.”
The trust and fidelity of the eleven followers of Jesus found in the Scriptures leaves room for doubt and disbelief. Yet, their trust and fidelity to Jesus will change human history. Their trust will take them to the ends of the world as they know it and will find them resting on the Divine as death befalls them.
Pipers piping that kind of song can change everything, with history as our witness.
