CONSIDER THIS: So You Think These Guys Could Actually Pull It Off?

The “These Guys” in the headline above are the original 11 disciples of Jesus Christ during His three-year ministry here on Earth, and the “It” is overcoming a highly disciplined guard unit of the Roman Legion, stealing His dead body and hiding it, then claiming He had been resurrected from the dead.

That would be a tall order for any dozen guys, but I contend that the more we know about this particular 11, the taller the challenge becomes. There is more than enough evidence in the Gospels to suggest the disciples were incapable of successfully organizing much at all.

That evidence conveniently consists of things we learn about the disciples prior to the final visit to Jerusalem that resulted in Jesus’ arrest, trial, conviction, scourging, crucifixion and burial in a rich man’s tomb, and what we learn during those crucial final days and the immediate aftermath.

Before the End at Jerusalem:

We see several illustrations in the Gospels of occasions when the disciples just plain didn’t “get” Jesus, even though they had themselves witnessed Him performing multiple miracles.

At Matthew 8:23-27, for example, Jesus and the disciples set out in a boat on the Sea of Galilee late in the day. After darkness settled in, a violent storm arose, but Jesus was asleep.

As the waves crashed into the boat with increasing ferocity and threatening to swamp the craft, the disciples despaired, thinking they were about to die. They woke Jesus, crying out “Lord, save us. We’re going to die!” Jesus got up, rebuked the storm and calmed the sea.

“The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the sea obey Him,” Matthew tells us. Remember, these same guys in the previous days had watched as Jesus healed many who were sick and dying.

Then there was the feeding of 5,000, as described by Mark at 6: 30-44. Late in the day after a huge crowd had assembled hoping to hear Jesus speak and see Him heal people, the disciples went to Him:

“This place is a wilderness and it is already late. Send them away, so they can go into the surrounding villages buy themselves something to eat.”

Jesus replied, telling them they should give the crowd food. Sounding exasperated, the disciples replied, “Should we go and buy 200 Denarii worth of bread and give them something to eat?”

You probably know the rest of the story: Jesus asked them how much bread they had and they answered “five, and two fish.” With those five loaves and two fish, Jesus then multiplied the food and miraculously fed the 5,000. Having already seen Jesus perform so many miracles, why didn’t they expect Him to perform another one by feeding the multitude?

Then there is argument that broke out among the disciples at the Last Supper about who among them would be greatest when Jesus brought His Kingdom to completion on Earth, as we are told by Luke at 22:24-27.

“Then a dispute also arose among them about who should be considered the greatest. But He said to them, ‘The kings of the Gentiles dominate them and those who have authority over them are called benefactors.

“But it must not be like that among you. On the contrary, whoever is greatest among you must become like the youngest and whoever leads like the one serving.” As so often is the case for all of us, the disciples had it exactly backwards.

And Then The Crisis Came:

There are several key points from the arrest of Jesus to after His burial in which we see the disciples showing themselves to be utterly unequal to the occasion, physically exhausted, paralyzed by fear and abandoning their Lord in His greatest time of crisis.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus went to pray, being “deeply distressed and horrified” because, Mark tells us at 14:32-42, Jesus knew what was about to happen to Him, asked the disciples to “sit here while I pray.”

But three times Jesus finds the disciples sleeping. “Couldn’t you stay awake an hour,” He asked Peter. After He found them sleeping a second time, Mark explains that the disciples “did not know what to say to Him.”

The third time Jesus found them sleeping, He declared to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The time has come. Look, the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let’s go! See, my betrayer is near.”

When Judas arrived with a mob armed with clubs and swords, he gave Jesus the kiss of betrayal, and He was arrested. Peter cuts off the ear of a slave, and Jesus reattaches it, then asks the mob why they had not arrested Him during the day while He taught publicly in the Temple.

“Then they all deserted Him and ran away,” Mark tells us of the disciples.

From the descriptions of all four Gospels of the crucifixion, it is clear none of the disciples are present on the scene except “the disciple Jesus loved,” John. Matthew writes at 27:55-56 that, “Many women who had followed Jesus from Galilee and ministered to Him were there, looking on from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.”

In addition, John at 19:25-27, identifies Jesus’ mother, Mary, Mary, “the wife of Clopas,” and Mary Magadalene as present at the crucifixion. John must also have been there because Jesus directed him to care for His mother after His death. There is no evidence any of the other disciples were present.

On the third day, the women found the tomb empty and hurried back to tell the disciples, who were probably hiding somewhere nearby, perhaps in Jerusalem or on the outskirts. When they told the disciples what they had found, Luke reports at 24:11, “But these words seemed like nonsense to them, and they did not believe the women.”

Jesus had told them repeatedly before His arrest, trial, crucifixion and burial that on the third day He would be resurrected. And they had witnessed Him healing the sick, calming the storm, feeding the thousands, and raising Lazarus from the dead.

Yet, despite all that they had seen, they didn’t believe the women when they told them Jesus’ tomb was empty. They had to go and see for themselves. And even then, it took multiple encounters in the days thereafter with the Risen Jesus before they all believed.

Now, with all of this evidence of the disciples’ internal rivalry, lack of understanding and genuine cowardice, is it reasonable to conclude they somehow got themselves together within hours of Jesus’ death, came up with a plan to overcome the elite unit of Roman soldiers guarding the tomb, stole the body and hid it where it could never be found, then deceived the whole world the lie about resurrection?

This becomes even less plausible when it is remembered that all but one of the 11 disciples died horrendous deaths, claiming that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead, they had witnessed Him alive. None of them ever recanted.

Yes, men and women of other faiths, most notably certain Muslims, willingly go to their deaths thinking they are serving their deity. But none of them die for something they know to be a lie.

The transformation of the disciples from cowards to men of unparalleled courage and conscience — who “turned the world upside down” — is most logically accounted for by the literal resurrection of Jesus.

As Paul the Apostle would later say, after his own encounter with the resurrected Jesus, if Christ be not resurrected, Christians are the most foolish people on Earth.

What do you say?