From little things, big things grow. From the smallest, humblest beginnings, incredible things can happen. When Jesus started his new movement (what would later be called Christianity), his new project was incredibly fragile and vulnerable. Jesus started out with a small group of apostles: just 12 people, plus a few other supporters like Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, who lived in the village of Bethany with her sister Martha and brother Lazarus. From this incredibly small, and rather pathetic group, grew a movement which spread and changed the entire world.
Love found a way!
I think that when you have something beautiful and life giving, which is based in love, it will spread and have an influence. Love always finds a way. Christianity should have died out. It was a small movement at best, led by a simple carpenter, surrounded by a tiny group of followers, living in the area around Jerusalem which was a backwater of the Roman Empire. The Romans wouldn’t have bothered to conquer it at all, except that it was on the trade route down to Egypt. But as a province it was laughably, hilariously unimportant!
Yet, from here, a carpenter and his group of fishing buddies (as my wife Alison referred to them to other day) changed the world. It shouldn’t have worked. We shouldn’t have a school founded on the principles of Christianity, because Christianity should never have spread across the world and had the influence that it did.
Part of the reason for this was the resurrection of Jesus. Just when the Romans killed Jesus and the new movement was faltering, the resurrection happened. The disciples grew from a small, leaderless group of simple fishermen into a powerful movement which spread across the entire empire and beyond in just a few short years. So, the disciples must have experienced something.
The resurrection was the critical burst of energy which got the movement going. When love is the basis of something good, anything can happen. Jesus used the last supper to give his disciples a way of remembering him. He worked out that they couldn’t afford to forget him. If they remembered him strongly through his special meal (the Eucharist), then he would be there with them and would help them. And if they remembered him, then the new movement, Christianity, would grow from something very small into something significant.
I have a tree which has somehow started to grow out of the stone wall in my garden. It shouldn’t be growing there at all, and yet it is. Life finds a way! You and I can be part of this movement. We should be encouraged by Jesus and his fishing mates starting a new movement, which changed the world. It shouldn’t have been possible, and yet it was. When we take steps to change the world around us, however small those steps are, it will have an impact, and the impact will be bigger than we can possibly imagine.
You and I can change the world. We can change it by being a part of this movement: the Jesus movement, which is based in love. When love is involved, it can change the world.
The Reverend Dr Theo McCall
School Chaplain