Revolution for One

Dave Brisbin | 7.1.18 When did Christianity actually begin? It would be easy to say at Jesus’ birth, baptism, ministry, Easter. But was Christianity as we know it present during Jesus’ life? Even Easter was a “silent” event. It happened while Jesus’ followers were sleeping or at least staring at the ceiling that night. Afterwards, they didn’t recognize him when they first saw him, and it took some time for them to come to terms with their new reality. One scholar maintains that Christianity began the moment Jesus’ first followers recognized the full impact of his resurrection—fully realized what it meant that he was alive. That was certainly the moment or series of moments after which they moved out in a new boldness and began revolutionizing the Roman world. But before that revolution could take place, each faithful follower, in the period between Easter and Pentecost, had an experience nothing short of an interior revolution—a radical overthrowing of his or her previous concept of reality. It was an interior micro revolution that preceded the exterior macro revolution to come. But can we also move in reverse? Can we look at the details of a macro revolution to see how they mirror and map the personal revolutions we all need to engage in order to grow along Jesus’ Way? Approaching July 4, looking again at the words of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson’s words bring key concepts to bear that are true for all revolutions, national and personal, and can help us discern when we’re getting close to our own interior revolt, when to act, when not to act, and when we’ve let the moment pass.