Phase II

Luke 9:1-2, 6

It’s been all his action so far. They’ve just been along for the ride. Hanging out, listening, helping, dogging his every step. In the process, they’ve become “the Twelve.”

They were the ones Jesus had chosen from among the others and designated as apostles or “sent ones.” They were commissioned from the time he called them together as a group. Until this point, however, they hadn’t said or done anything on their own, at least nothing Luke recorded. But they had seen and heard enough. Now it was their time to go and do.

Amazing when you think about it. They’d only been with Jesus a little while, a few months perhaps. Not one of them was a trained rabbi or teacher of the religious law. Some were still fairly suspect even – you don’t quickly shake the reputation of a cheating tax collector or a political radical.

Nevertheless, what Jesus does now is really radical. He gives this newly minted crew unbelievable orders and sends them out alone – at least without him.

I doubt they have that much of a grasp on the good news themselves. In fact, I am sure they don’t. Read on and you’ll see that they have quite a few lessons left to learn. But Jesus doesn’t wait until their training is finished to send them out. He simply wants them to go and make use of what he has already shared with them.

And he grants them power and authority to push back the curse of night, to drive out all forces of darkness – note it says all demons, not just certain beginner-level powers of darkness – and to cure diseases. And as they do so, they are to go preaching the kingdom of God.

Okay, sounds pretty impressive. What do they know of driving out demons or healing sick people? Only what they have seen Jesus doing.

What do they know of this kingdom of God? They are not experts in the law, though they’ve lived in a culture saturated with the teachings of the law and the prophets, even if they did miss one or two of the Sabbath gatherings. However, what they did learn in years gone by Jesus has taken and shaken up a bit. Jesus certainly didn’t use the teaching notes of their old rabbi!

They have heard Jesus teaching a lot – to multitudes and to the larger band of his followers, and to them specifically in smaller settings. He has much more to explain to them, but they’ve heard quite a bit already.

They’ve hung on his every word and even if they don’t yet understand everything, they now start to share what they have heard. It is fascinating how much I learn by telling or teaching others. As I begin to share what I’ve heard, the ideas start to shine clearer, make more sense, somehow come to life in my own thought and communication processes.

So it is with the Twelve. As they go out from village to village, they start to repeat what they have learned from Jesus. Someone in the crowd asks a question or challenges one of their statements and they think it over, chew on it a bit, maybe come up with a different way of saying the same thing. Down the road on the way to the next town some fresh insight comes to mind. Over and over they refine their thoughts and presentations.

I wonder if they were afraid or confused. Luke doesn’t say. They certainly were at other times, even when Jesus was with them. This much we know: they went without Jesus from village to village, and everywhere they went, they preached the gospel and they healed people.

Bottom line, they went out demonstrating and declaring the good news. Just they had seen and heard Jesus do.

I ponder that and think.

I don’t have to have it all down perfectly. I just need to go out, demonstrate God’s good news, and explain it – pure and simple.

That is, if I have the same calling as the Twelve had. Do I? Do you?