Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.

• Luke 10:1-4

In those days Peter stood up among the believers (a group numbering about a hundred and twenty) and said, “Brothers and sisters, the Scripture had to be fulfilled in which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through David concerning Judas, who served as guide for those who arrested Jesus. He was one of our number and shared in our ministry.”

• Acts 1:15-17

I used to be a numbers guy.  Now I make mistakes writing transactions into the checkbook.  When my wife did that, a month where everything came out correctly was a once or twice in a lifetime event, but now I make enough mistakes to barely be over 50% during the year.  I might forget a debit.  I might mistake a six for a five and I am off by a penny, or ten dollars.  When I applied for “affordable health” I went a few months without insurance while they investigated me for defrauding the federal government.  I had changed a five to a six in my birth date and due to my poor eyesight, I hit send without correcting the mistake.  All the mistake caused is me going without prescription refills and doctor visits for a few months.  It cost no one else anything.  But our nonaffordable health care added people to the government payroll that saw fraud instead of seeing a typo.  And they hired a bunch of investigators who quickly saw it was a typo.  Allegedly.

But I am starting off by digressing, notice the numbers in the Scriptures above.  There were about 120 disciples in the upper room when Peter suggested that they needed one more in the inner circle to make it Twelve.  Peter was quoting scripture.  He was not wrong, but from four gospels, you never heard a mention of either name that was picked.  Then a throw of the dice went to Matthias.  But maybe the other guy and Matthias were among the 72 in Luke 10.

And I could have quoted all the mentions through the gospels about the women that did a lot for the others.  The list of names seems to change all the time.  I got the bright idea of trying to count the women named Mary in the gospels and it gave me a headache.  Who went to the tomb that first Easter morning.  Mary Magdalene, sure, but then there was a Mary, mother of someone, and the world famous “other Mary.”

“Hello, everyone, I am the ‘other Mary.’” She might say, but no one listens.

The point that I have read in other places, one being Oswald Chambers, is that in the time of Jesus, very few of the true believers that were following Jesus everywhere are even mentioned as part of a number.

Have you noticed that other than Peter, the other disciples say something in the synoptic gospels and the text says, “A disciple”.  John makes up for it in that almost half are credited with saying something.  Were Simon the Zealot and the other Judas mute?

You wonder what it would take to get a speaking part!

But that is the point, isn’t it?

Jesus is the primary character.  If too many other people had speaking parts or it mentioned, “Fred, the disciple of Jesus, got water from the well so that Jesus could wash the feet of the twelve…”  But wait a minute.  We think Jesus just washed the feet of the twelve.  Was it all 120?

When I reach Heaven’s Gate.  I would explode with excitement to hear God say, “Welcome, good and faithful servant.”  I never want to hear “Depart from me, I never knew you.”

And in what way are each of us good and faithful servants?  We are to become more and more the type of servant God wants us to be so that we glorify Him and let His love and likeness shine in this world.

If they see us, we did it wrong.

So, why be bummed when we become an extra in a movie about our own life?

If we let Jesus shine to all around us, we can walk up to Simon the Zealot and the other Judas and say, “Wow, you are special just getting your name in the credits, but I kind of patterned my life after you.  That is, once I figured it out.”

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.