The apostles had hardly had time to sit down to eat a regular meal since the miraculous beginning of the church in Jerusalem. Shortly after selecting the men to be in charge of feeding widows and needy people we got together for dinner. We met in the house that John was sharing with Mary the mother of Jesus. All 12 apostles came including me. Matthias. I was chosen to take Judas's place because I was a witness of the works and teachings of Jesus from the beginning. James the brother of Jesus was also invited as were Mary Magdalene, Susanna and several other women who had followed Jesus.
Among other things, we celebrated the Lord's supper while we were together for the meal. We had done this many times with new disciples, but this reminder of the final meal before the cross was very moving for all of us. As we ate the bread and drank the wine we all trembled at the memory of his crucifixion. This made me feel more like one of the apostles than anything else we had done. After we had eaten we sat around sipping wine and sharing memories. As we sat there John raised a question.
“I would like to know what each of you think was the greatest miracle Jesus ever performed.” Different ones of us raised different things Jesus had done. All of them were astounding. Several of us thought what Mary Magdalene suggested had to top them all. After her brother's death they had waited for days hoping Jesus would come. Everyone in the room knew Jesus had intentionally waited until after Lazarus died to set off for Judea. She told how they had washed his lifeless body and how they had mourned with the whole town of Bethany as they laid him in the tumb. And the feeling in the room reflected the sorrow in Mary's heart until Jesus came and called Lazarus fourth out of the grave.
James did not exactly say he thought what he remembered was the greatest miracle, but he told about Jesus raising the daughter of Jairus the synagogue ruler in Capernaum. And Peter told the story of Jesus's transfiguration and of the appearance of Moses and Elijah on the mountain. I had never heard this story and if we had voted that night I would have said it sounded greatest to me.
John said, “I agree that all of these are very stirring. And I think in some ways each of them may have been the greatest miracle our Lord performed. But Jesus told the Pharisees and chief priests the final, and possibly the most significant sign of his ministry.” We looked around at one another trying to remember what Jesus had said.
John continued, “All of us were thrilled when Jesus rode the donkey colt that had never been ridden into the city for that final Passover. That wild donkey’s submission to Jesus was very like mine. If Jesus were not working in my life, I could never be submissive to him. And it seemed the whole city submitted to Jesus on that day. He marched into the temple, overturned the tables of the money changers and drove out the sheep and oxen and the sellers of all those things. He reclaimed the temple and the city in the authority of righteousness.
“It was not until the crowds thinned a little that the Pharisees and the elders of the people got up the gumption to stand before Jesus. They demanded that he tell them what sign he would show to claim such authority in the city of our fathers. Jesus answered them something that I am only beginning to understand.
“He said, ‘Destroy this Temple and I will raise it up again in three days.’ Do any of you know what Jesus meant by those words that puzzled us as much as they did the priests and Pharisees?”
Thomas answered quickly. “He was not referring to the Temple of stone in the city. He was talking about the Temple of his own body where God the Father dwelt.”
John said, He was telling us then that the resurrection of his body was the final sign of who he was and of his authority on Earth to the end of the age.”
This story was based on the account found in John 2:13-22.
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