Who Caused The Fork In The Road To The Cross (part two Continued)

Historically those who were followers of Jesus after His resurrection did suffer a traumatic lasting setback. For them their Messiah had died and nothing had happened. The kingdom they were expecting to arrive at once did not come to past. This is how Luke records it,“On that same daytwo of Jesus’ followers were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking to each other about all the things that had happened. As they talked and discussed, Jesus himself drew near and walked along with them; they saw him, but somehow did not recognize him. Jesus said to them, ‘What are you talking about to each other, as you walk along?’They stood still, with sad faces. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, ‘Are you the only visitor in Jerusalem who doesn’t know the things that have been happening there these last few days?”’… “Our chief priests and rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and he was crucified. And we had hoped that he would be the one who was going to set Israel free! Besides all that, this is now the third day since it happened.” (Luke 24:13-18).

The Followers were scattered because they were without hope but sometime subsequently they seemed to have become convicted that something in the resurrection was in their faviour.Their perspective as to Who Jesus was and what He meant for the way forward for their movement became clear. Though they were not clear as to what happened in the resurrection, they came to understand that His resurrection took place; and that Jesus had been taken away into heaven as “a vindication of His messianic identity.” So He becamethe crucified and risen Lord. Matthew says, “He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead, just as he said would happen. Come; see where his body was lying” (28:6).

Indeed theresurrection story at this point brings a different understanding to the minds of Jesus’ followers. For them Jesus was the Prophet, the Messenger of God Who has risen from the dead. He is the Messiah; and He is the One Who has been vindicated by God by being exalted into heaven as the son of God.

It is believed by most theologians that it was probably in these early days after the death of Jesus that the movement really starts to organize itself around His memory. However, it was also the belief that the earliest form of the movement was still thoroughly a sect within Judaism – A Jewish movement organized by Jewish Messiah. The reasoning was, “They are followers of a Jewish apocalyptic tradition. They were expecting the coming of the kingdom of God on earth. It’s a Jewish movement.”

This earliest forms of the Jesus movement wasalso deemed small sectarian groups, with one based in Jerusalem, one or more in Galilee, as wellwith others spreading throughout the countryside. So, in the earliest days of the Jesus’ groups, one can safely say that there were small pockets of sectarian activity all focused on the identity of Jesus as the Messiah.
Though not a complete list, the New Testament tells us who some of the earliest followers of Jesus were. In Jerusalem there was James, the brother of Jesus, who was the leader of the group for the contemporary age. There was Mary; Peter and some of the other original disciples of Jesus (see Acts 1:13-14).

Among the earliest groups of the Jesus movement is what was called the “wandering charismatic,” this was traveling preachers and prophets, who went around declaring the kingdom of heaven is at hand. They were continuing the bequest of Jesus’ own preaching. They travelledaround without money and no extra clothes. They begged for food. They performed some miracles and healed some sick people (see Luke 10: 1-24; Acts 3:1-10). Even in Paul’s day there were people who came from Judeawho were about preaching and teaching; sometime he had to make clear to them, the Jesus they were proclaiming (see Acts 17:23).

It is at this point that the Jesus movement was considered a sect – “Nonmainstream Religious Group.” Since then there was always tension with their environment; this tension hadalways manifested itselfin a variety of ways – controversies over beliefs and practices; differences in ideas of purity and piety; and chief among them was the manifestation of that tension and the tendency to spread the message around that wouldhave convinced others that the truth is real.