Jesus said to his disciples: “Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold I am sending the promise of my Father you upon; but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”
(Luke 24.45-49)
Sequestered in an orphanage by his parents when he was a small boy as a means to protect him from Gestapo soldiers, Shlomo Breznitz knew fear at an early age. Surrounded by the ever-present threat of discovery by German soldiers, he also endured the torment of classmates who found him to be an easy target for their aggression.
In his memoir entitled Memory Fields, Breznitz writes poignantly of this fear that plagued him every day. Describing the ordeal, he writes, “The way back from school was always full of danger. There were several boys in my class who competed to see who could make my life most miserable, and the icy snow provided them with many opportunities.”
Explaining, he writes, “They could throw heavy ice balls at me, or simply push them inside the back of my shirt. Fresh snow was less menacing, since its novelty provided a distraction, and they often found other games to play. Going to school was also complicated, but if I timed it so that I arrived at the very last moment, they could not do much. Frustrated in this fashion, they would still manage to threaten me with what awaited me during recess, or, better still, after school.”
Describing one particular day when he was on his way back to the orphanage, he writes, “That day wasn’t too bad coming back from school; there were numerous passersby not far from the school, and I could mingle with them for some protection. That worked well until I was a few blocks away from the orphanage, at which point I started to run.”
He continues, “Two of the gang pursued me, but I did not see them anymore after I turned the corner. Obviously, they had found something more interesting to do. Finally I could relax, and it was then that my hunger began to assert itself. It was a familiar feeling, and there was little I could do about it. My belt was already at its last notch, actively pressing my stomach.”
While fear is an emotion most every human being feels at some time or another, some more than others, depending on circumstances and conditions, Breznitz is particularly able to describe the desperation and despair that so often accompany the sensation of fear, paralysis and suffocation twisting their twin bodies around a person like a pair of venomous cobra snakes.
After the humiliation and crucifixion of Rabbi Jesus, his disciples knew that kind of fear, barricading themselves behind locked doors and hiding in darkened rooms to escape from the henchmen who had put to death their leader. Like Breznitz trying to escape from the gang of bullies that turned his days into nightmares, they tried to put as much distance between themselves and these murderers as they could, feeling like prey for pouncing panthers hot on their trail.
That reality makes all the more problematic an instruction that the Risen Lord tells these disciples when he makes his third appearance to them in this selection from the Gospel of Luke that we hear today as we commemorate his departure from earth to heaven, commonly known to us as the Feast of the Ascension that is celebrated on the Sunday that follows the Thursday that marks the actual day.
Before his return to his Father in heaven, he gives them several directives, such as now being his witnesses in the world, a logical and sensible thing to say upon his departure, but one directive stands out as illogical and nonsensible. It is this: “Stay in the city.” The directive is counter-intuitive, considering what has transpired in Jerusalem. It is what the disciples fear the most, staying in the same place where Rabbi Jesus was nailed to a cross, taunted by drunk and jeering crowds of onlookers, and suffered torment for the last hours of his earthly life.
The likelihood of experiencing the same end haunts their every hour, these fearful men moving stealthily through the streets, looking over their shoulders for signs of the soldiers, and racing to their safe room, a hiding place that could not promise absolute safety in the face of the perils that seemed only footsteps away from them. And yet, their Lord and leader tells them to stay in the city, the opposite of what they want to do and what they should do.
Biblical commentators do not make much of this directive, more often choosing to focus on the seemingly more important order to be a witness to the ways and life of Rabbi Jesus. And those that give mention to the directive see it simply as part of the evangelist’s interest in Jerusalem, the center of Judaism and the final destination of this part of the gospel.
And no one can argue that point, Luke clearly interested in geography and particularly focused on Jerusalem in this first volume of his gospel. In the sequel, known to us as Acts of the Apostles, Luke has the disciples slowly and steadily move out of Jerusalem, preaching the message of Rabbi Jesus to the four corners of the globe, with Rome now as the destination, since it is the symbolic center of the world, at least in these times.
But in explaining away the Risen Lord’s command to his disciples to stay in the city simply as part of Luke’s thematic purposes eclipses and erases the astounding requirement that the command makes of these frightened followers of Rabbi Jesus, something we should not overlook or underemphasize. He is, to use an anachronism, even if apropos, ordering them into the lion’s den.
So, why in the world does he tell them to stay in the city, surely knowing their fears and their concerns for their own safety? For the same reason that he did not avoid going to Jerusalem, although he knew what awaited him within the city limits, predicting early in this gospel that the “Son of Man must suffer many things, be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life” (9.22).
If they are to follow him, then they must stay in Jerusalem, at least for a while, facing their fears and standing in the streets, refusing to cower in the face of opposition and not running for cover at the threat of danger. If his message is worth living for, then it also must be worth dying for. And, as Rabbi Jesus showed them visibly and powerfully, there are worse things than dying, like living a meaningless life of selfishness and emptiness.
And with his resurrection from the tomb, he also showed them that there is life on the other side of death, whether that death is dying to self in a hundred different ways or dying on a cross in a heroic moment of self-giving. If they were to become convincing and authentic witnesses of his way of living in the world, then they could not allow their fears to have the upper hand, however realistic and gigantic these fears were.
Rabbi Jesus had shown them by his own lived experience that his message of generosity, humility, and community faced the strong headwinds of the world, a world dedicated to their opposites–greed, pride, and war. They simply could not be his followers if they feared the opposition of the world. It was a given that the world would not welcome the ways of goodness, truth, and justice.
Hence, his command to stay in the city, in this way walking the path he walked, faithful to the ways of the Most High God, refusing to bend or break when the powerful of the world reject their witness or their way of life. Threat, trial, tribulation are inevitable and unavoidable for the faithful follower of Rabbi Jesus because there is a mutation in the human genome that repeats itself in every generation, manifested in selfishness, waywardness, and blindness to what is right, true, and good.
For the follower who does not allow fear to compromise fidelity to the ways of Rabbi Jesus, there is then the possibility of passing on to others another option, another way, another life that is a world apart from the ways of the powerful, the privileged, and the positioned, a way that is the way of God, who designed and desired the world to be a place of love, not hatred, a place of unity, not disunity, a place of generosity, not selfishness.
Knowing the weakness we all carry within us, filled as we are with fears, and a desire to stay huddled in our safe rooms, away from the threats and dangers that present themselves to those who stand against the ways of the world, Rabbi Jesus promises us his abiding presence to strengthen us in our resolve, his spirit within our hearts to move us even in the face of danger, his power to provide us with the ways and means to walk in the world as true witnesses of his life and his words.
With the Spirit as our helper and our guide, we can overcome our fears, relying less on weak selves and more on its strength, providing us with faith to carry into the city the ways of Rabbi Jesus, whatever the cost, however many our hesitations. We do not walk alone, but always in the company of the Spirit of the Most High God, who works with us as we work for God.
In his book, Stride Toward Freedom, Dr. King tells of his own fears in the face of the opposition and persecution he and his fellow marchers endured at the hands of those who held tight to their power and to their prejudices. He described the night he got out of bed, unable to sleep because of his fears, ready to give it all up, telling himself it simply wasn’t worth it. He described that moment in this way:
“In this state of exhaustion, when my courage had all but gone, I decided to take my problem to God. With my head in my hands, I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud. The words I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory, ‘I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But now I am afraid. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter.’”
He continued, “‘I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I’ve come to the point where I can’t face it alone.’ At that moment, I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced him before. It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying, ‘Stand up for righteousness, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever.’”
He then says, “Almost at once my fears began to go. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything.” His words reiterate and reinforce the words of Rabbi Jesus to his followers before his return to his Father in heaven when he said to them, “Stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” It is the same command that he now tells us. Stay in the city. Stay in the fight. Fear nothing. The Spirit stays with you.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 