The Helpers

Every leader needs help but good help is hard to find, even for Jesus, the fearless One.  He chose twelve men.  One was Peter to whom He gave the keys to Heaven [1].  He denied his master three times, although he made up for it afterwards.  Another was Judas who for 30 pieces of silver betrayed his master. Then there was the young and innocent John whom Jesus loved [2], and to whom He gave His mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary [3].  And who can forget doubting Thomas?  He wanted to see and touch the wounds of Christ before he would believe in the Resurrection [4].  As for the rest, not much was written about them [5].  One can speculate that they did not do much because they did not quite know what to do or how to go about doing what they were supposed to do since the conversion of sinners is never easy and turning non-believers into believers in Christ is even more difficult: they could not even convince one of their own, Thomas, to believe that they had witnessed the resurrected Jesus. [6]

Could the Son of God have assembled a better team of helpers?  My guess is no.  If Jesus had picked another dozen, they would likely be no different than the original twelve. Indeed, all twelve of Christ's disciples together form the essence of any man, a lousy helper who can love God one minute and betrays God's love the next, who can be in the presence of God while his faith is weak and who finds living his daily life by being indifferent to and denying God to be easier than by placing God front and center on his mind, on his lips and in his heart, but who God still invites to sit at the Supper Table.



[1]  https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+16:13-20  Heaven probably neither has, nor does it need a security gate.  The keys Peter were given should unlock, metaphorically, all church doors through which the path to Heaven can be found.  The next blog entry defines the church.
[2] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+21%3A20-22
[3] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+19%3A25-27&version=NIV
[4] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+20:24-29
[5] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+20:24-29
[6] If Christ's triumph over death cannot be believed, then the life of Jesus would be ordinary and be forgotten in time. That time has already arrived in the secular society.