In 1994, my wife and I went to Israel where we visited the sites believed to be where Jesus was crucified, entombed and later ascended into heaven. We were reminded that most of the physical evidence and details of what happened at the crucifixion and resurrection had been destroyed when Jerusalem was burned and leveled by conflicts with the Romans and others over the years. So my head was filled with questions as we toured those sites, questions which will never have answers.
Jesus Christ, however, was the ultimate servant leader. A servant leader is one who looks after the needs of other people, leads by example, and teaches others to also become servant leaders. It is an enabling form of leadership. Jesus’ disciples continued to tell the story and teach others. Since then, 80 generations of Christian servant leaders have increased the number of followers of Jesus to more than 2 billion, a third of the population of the earth.
Jesus once told his disciples that the kingdom of God was like a tiny mustard seed that would someday become an enormous shrub. While we can no longer prove or disprove details of what happened in Jerusalem at that time, we can rejoice in the fact that the resurrection was the seed of the kingdom of God that has grown into a beautiful civilization in the 21st century. With the aid of science these Christians have been leaders in the care of the ill and underprivileged and that has resulted in improvement in the quality of life for all people.
In addition, today Bible scholars, noting the stains on its history due to a judgmental emphasis, are beginning to reveal an even more loving and open Christianity that has always been there in the background.
Robert C. Frank
Author of Christ’s Team
