20

The Transfiguration

Yeshua takes three of his disciples up a mountain to pray. Suddenly, his face changes, his body is transformed and his clothes become dazzling white light. The prophets Moses and Elijah appear and engage him in conversation. A cloud overshadows them, and a voice says, ‘This is my son, my chosen, listen to him.’ The disciples turn away, terrified, and fall to the ground. Wisely, on their return to civilisation, they choose to keep quiet about what they have seen. Even in those days, one could be locked up for telling tall stories!

(Mark 9:2-10)

19

Ask and you shall receive

‘Ask and it will be given to you; search and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you,’ proclaimed Yeshua. People loved it, and they still do. If all you have to do is ask, then let’s ask for whatever we want – money, fame, youth, new toys, Pacific cruise, why not? Unfortunately for those craving the material things in life, Yeshua was not talking about earthly, but spiritual riches. Hence this oft quoted saying is understood by few – including, one imagines, Howard Hughes and the unfortunate King Midas.

(Matt 7:7-8)

18

Sharp words

Everyone enjoys seeing a bully humiliated and unable to retaliate, and when Yeshua let fly, he let fly! ‘You brood of vipers,’ he exclaimed with a group of Pharisees in his sights, ‘you hypocrites,’ ‘you snakes, how can you escape the sentence of hell?’ How the audience enjoyed his outbursts! (There is no record of what he did for an encore.)

(Matt 12:34, Matt 23: 29-33)

17

The Last Supper

Before being led away to his death, Yeshua shared bread and wine with his disciples and, in an impressive demonstration of clairvoyance, let slip that he knew which of them would betray him. Who would have thought that two thousand years after the event, people the world over would still be breaking bread and sipping wine mimicking a symbolic act intended only for those present at the time? Incredibly some of these people believe the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Yeshua! Yuk!

(Mark 14: 17-25)

16

Washing the disciples’ feet

A demonstration of service and humility that would not go amiss in the boardrooms and corridors of power in every land.

(John 13:4-10)

15

The Prodigal Son

A cautionary tale loved especially by young men who have left home, messed up and crawled home expecting a warm welcome, a good meal and new clothes. A lesson for the elder brother in controlling jealousy too. Poor thing – he thinks he’s missed out, but doesn’t realise he had it all, all the time. Perhaps he should spare a thought for the fatted calf! There are always others worse off than yourself.

(Luke 15:11-32)

14

Love your enemies

Yeshua’s great injunction is admirable but rarely put into practise. ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,’ he said. ‘For if you love only those who love you, what reward do you have?’ So, come on people of the world – and that includes you all you politicians, and religious leaders – shape up!

(Matt 5:44-46)

13

The crucifix: a universal symbol of fellowship

Bit gruesome, this one, and not of Yeshua’s making for he was long dead before the idea caught on. It owes much to the misogynist and religious obsessive Paul of Tarsus who wrote, for example, ‘For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God;’ and, ‘May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.’ Strangely, some are more inspired by Yeshua’s ghastly death than his exemplary life.

(1 Corinthians, 1:18 and Galatians 6:14)

12

The Lord’s Prayer

Two thousand years after being dictated to a massed throng, various translations and mis-translations of the Lord’s Prayer – surely the world’s favourite prayer (even more so than the Prayer of Saint Francis) – are recited by millions on a daily basis. All together now:

‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we have also forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.’

(Matt 6: 9-13)

11

A novel way of paying taxes

Yeshua is reminded that even the Messiah has to pay taxes, so he sends a disciple to the lake and tells him next time he catches a fish, to open its mouth, and he will find a coin sufficient to clear their arrears. (If only it were always so easy!) So if you plan to go fishing when the wife wants you to do some jobs around the house, tell her this! But bear in mind, nowhere does it say Peter took Yeshua’s advice.

(Matt 17: 24-27)

10

Ascending to heaven on a cloud

Acts of the Apostles tells us that forty days after returning from the dead, Yeshua told his disciples that they would soon receive a great power and preach his message to the ends of the earth. Then a cloud took him out of their sight. Two white-robed men then appeared and said that he would one day come in the same way as he went. So if you ever see a man descending on a cloud, that’s him!

Incidentally, Luke’s Gospel says he ascended ‘soon’ after the resurrection. We know that the two accounts were written by the same author – dementia, perhaps?

(Acts 1: 9-11 and Luke, Chapter 24)

9

The Sermon on the Mount

The greatest piece of oratory ever? Even Monty Python were inspired by the birds of the air and the lilies of the field! Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, Churchill’s wartime speeches or Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ don’t even come close.

Original version: Luke 6:20-49

Extended long playing version with sampled bonus material: Matt 5, 6 and 7

8

Casting out demons

Yeshua cast out a host of demons from a madman and sent them into a herd of pigs. The pigs, it is said, stampeded into a lake and drowned. Impressive, but tough on the pigs!

(Mark 5:1-13)

7

The feeding of the five thousand

Five thousand people, starving after a hard day’s hero-worshiping, fed to excess by five loaves and two small fishes. Beat that, Sai Baba! Would be usefully replicated in places like Eritrea, Darfur and the Congo. Where’s G_d when you need it?

(Mark 6: 30-44)

6

Render unto Caesar: a stunning riposte

Everyone enjoys seeing a smart-ass humiliated with a neat reply. In this case, a group of Herodians asked Yeshua a trick question: is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Yeshua knew that if he said yes he would alienate his followers, and if he said no he would be arrested by the Romans. So he took a coin and asked them whose image was on it. ‘Casear’s,’ they replied. Then he told them to give the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to G_d the things that are G_d’s. Game, set and match! How today’s politicians wish they could emulate this stunning riposte!

(Matt 22: 15-22)

5

Throwing the bankers out of the temple

Wouldn’t everyone like to see bankers, currency dealers and speculators get their comeuppance? Well try this: go into the head branch of any bank, open the tills and tip the contents on the floor. Tell the manager his bank is nothing but a den of robbers, then try to leave. See how far you get

(Mark 11:15)

4

Walking on water

Cephas couldn’t do it, but Yeshua could. Even Evel Knievel never managed this – nor Houdini, nor David Blaine – the ultimate stunt for show-offs!

(Matt 14:25-32)

3

Raising Lazarus from the dead

Lazarus had been dead for four days and making quite a stench when Yeshua brought his rotting corpse back to life. Isn’t it amazing that G_d continues to allow such suffering in the world if his son is capable of such feats?

(John 11:1-44)

2

Rising from the dead

There’s plenty of speculation on this one, and no-one except Yeshua really knows the truth. Even so, it’s quite a claim and, amazingly, a quarter of the world’s population believe it!

(See, for example, Matt 28:1-20 and John 20:1-30)

1

Changing water into wine

The ultimate party piece! He did it for his mother (doesn’t everyone want to please their mother?) Amazingly, in surveys eight out of ten said they would rather be able to turn water in to wine than come back from the dead.

(John 2:1-10)

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Balboa Press, 2015. Available through Amazon and other retailers.

Pentecost and Ascension

In 1st Century Palestine (and throughout the Western World), the Earth was believed to be flat. Heaven, where God lived, was above the clouds and hell below ground. So when two of the gospels, ‘Mark’ and ‘Luke’, said that the risen Master was carried up to heaven and placed at the right hand of God,[1] this accorded with the worldview of their readers, as did Acts when the author (the same man who wrote the Gospel of Luke) wrote that the disciples watched as Yeshua was ‘lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.’[2] Interestingly, the other two gospels have nothing to say on the subject.

Now we know there’s nothing unusual about New Testament books contradicting each other, but here something even more remarkable happens: the same author, the man who wrote both ‘Luke’ and Acts, contradicts himself. In ‘Luke’s’ Gospel he says the Ascension happened soon after the post-resurrection appearances, probably the same day; in Acts he says the Christ figure appeared for forty days before a cloud took him away.

Of course, very few people – apart from a handful of nutters willing to disregard 500 years of scientific knowledge – still believe in a three-storey world with hell below and a heaven above. The prospect of a man being physically lifted up into the sky on a cloud is ludicrous now we know the Earth is a globe and there’s only space above the clouds; but, if you are to take Christianity literally and the Bible as factual truth, you are required to believe that this actually happened!

Yeshua’s return

The early Christians believed that their prophet, Yeshua bar Yehosef, would soon return to Earth to establish the Kingdom of God and save those who believed in him from eternal annihilation. Many modern day Christians still believe this and it is regularly expounded from church pulpits on Sundays. Most do not specify a timescale. The Gospel writers clearly thought it would happen in their own time since Yeshua has promised it within a generation.

Most do not feel the need to explain why it has not yet happened, nor do they explain how he will return. If he really is ‘up there’ somewhere, can we expect him to float down on another cloud or strap on a parachute, or what? If so it would be worth seeing!

Pentecost

Two Gospels end with Yeshua’s ascension; ‘Acts of the Apostles’ begins with the events of Pentecost.

At Pentecost, Acts says the disciples were gathered in Jerusalem when a sound came from heaven, tongues of fire rested on each of them and they were filled with the ‘Holy Spirit’. They began to speak in other languages and onlookers thought they were drunk. Cephas (Peter) then delivered a speech aimed only at Jews announcing Yeshua as the Messiah and urging them to repent and be baptised.

Thus began a chapter in the life of the early church in which the disciples (now called ‘apostles’) travelled widely spreading their message, not always to receptive audiences. Resistance among Jews who did not believe in Yeshua as the Messiah grew. There were many reports of riots among sceptical Romans and Jews. Some apostles died horrible deaths; some were executed. But somehow the religion spread, and much of the credit is due to the tent maker, mystic, man of letters, former Pharisee and religious fanatic, Paul of Tarsus.

Whether you believe the Ascension and Pentecost stories are literally true is, of course, a matter for you. But looked at through 21^st Century eyes, there are plenty of reasons to doubt!

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Balboa Press, 2015

[1] Mark 16:19 (in the coda); Luke 24:51

[2] Acts 1:9