This episode of CS is titled – “Transitions”We ended the previous episode with Jesus on the cross just outside the walls of Jerusalem late Friday afternoon. The Jewish leaders & Romans thought that was the last of the enigmatic trouble-maker from Galilee. For that matter, His followers thought that was the end as well.If that HAD BEEN the end of Jesus’ story, how might history have labeled Him?Modern skeptics who consider the resurrection a mythic post-script, added by Jesus’ later followers, cast Jesus as a religious & social reformer; one whose goal was to turn the stiff formalism of 1^st Century Judaism into a more personal & intimate faith in God. These skeptics recast the miracles attributed to Jesus as myths meant to explain the effect of His charismatic personality on others. They contend Jesus didn’t really turn a few fish & loaves into fish sandwiches for thousands; He merely used the generosity of a young boy to provoke the crowd to share with one another. He didn’t really walk on water, He merely came along the shore in a low lying mist. And He didn’t really rise from the dead; His example of love for God and others merely inspired the disciples to follow His example. His MEMORY endured, not His literal person; says the skeptic.So, WAS Jesus merely a reformer? Was His mission just to return Judaism to something Moses would have given a hearty thumbs-up to?While Moses would indeed endorse Jesus, He wasn’t merely one of the many prophets God sent to call people back to Himself. Moses would approve of Jesus because all Moses did pointed to & prepared the way for Jesus. Jesus was the original Former, not a RE--former; He was, the “I AM” Who spoke to Moses from the burning bush & commissioned him to lead Israel out of bondage, into the Promised Land.This becomes clear when we consider the words of Jesus at that last meal He shared with His disciples. When He took the cup to inaugurate the rite of Communion, He said something remarkable. “This is the NEW COVENANT in my blood which is shed for you.” Those young men sitting round that table could not mistake what Jesus meant, for it was something that had been burned into them since childhood. Jesus made claim to the cherished promise of the Prophet Jeremiah who in ch. 31 said,“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord.  But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”Jesus laid claim to that promise, saying He was its fulfillment & what He was about to do in going to the cross would activate the New Covenant. Jesus didn’t come just to reform Judaism or refresh the covenant Moses mediated with Israel. He came to consummate that covenant and initiate a new, based not on the performance of the Mosaic Law, but on abiding faith in Him.Of course, if Jesus had remained in the tomb, He’d be nothing but a miniscule footnote to the history of the 1^st Century, if that! à Just one more in a long parade of Jewish trouble-makers who had a little flurry of popularity among some malcontents. Nothing of consequence would have followed.But His resurrection changed everything. It turned His timid band of followers into men of unquenchable vision & voracious determination. Only the resurrection can account for the dramatic change that took place in those who’d followed Jesus.In writing to the Corinthians some years later, the Apostle Paul said that in His post-resurrection appearances, Jesus was seen by some 500 at one time—not just the original handful of disciples. It was this critical mass of witness that made sure the news of His resurrection wasn’t suppressed by the authorities. And it was the surety Jesus had been dead, then made alive that compelled His followers to remain faithful, even in the face of martyrdom.So, after a brief stint back in their home region of Galilee, the disciples permanently relocated to Jerusalem. It was reasonable that the center of their movement be at the heart of the Jewish world.Though Jesus said His followers would one day come from all over the world, those first believers had a difficult time seeing the Church as anything other than fundamentally Jewish. They met as a large group in the temple courtyard where they listened to the disciples teach on the life & words of Jesus. Because it was the way education was practiced in the 1^st C, it didn't take long until a standard, stock story developed. This oral tradition formed the core of what was used by Matthew, Mark, & to a certain degree by Luke, when they wrote their Gospels. John already knew of those accounts & chose instead to write a story of Jesus that filled in some of the details not included in the official oral tradition.After the large group had listened to the teaching by the apostles, they broke into smaller groups to gather in homes where they shared a meal, prayed, & discussed what they’d just learned.There was little organization to this early movement of Jesus’ followers as they felt their way forward. Despite that lack of organization their faith blossomed & their community became marked by a remarkable love, attractive to others. Their numbers grew.They went by different labels. Some called them Nazarenes, meaning followers of Jesus of Nazareth. Others disparagingly called them "Christians" linking them to Jesus & His humiliating death on a Roman cross. They called themselves simply "People of the Way."The church grew in relative peace for a few years till their numbers became too large for the Jewish ruling Council, the Sanhedrin, to ignore any longer. As the apostles taught about Jesus, they realized a good part of what the Jews had been told their Scriptures meant was wrong. Some of the more bold believers began voicing their criticisms of contemporary Judaism. They ran afoul of the authorities & persecution began. When Stephen, a young Christian leader was executed for blasphemy, it sent a shock wave through Jerusalem. It was now clear Jesus' followers were under an official ban.While the 1^st generation leaders, called “the apostles,” stayed in Jerusalem to tend to the needs of the Church, younger leaders moved to Samaria & Syria where they founded new communities. Churches sprang up in Damascus, Antioch, Egypt & other locales.These new communities, while still primarily Jewish in composition, were made up of Jews more acclimated to the Greco-Roman culture of the Mediterranean world than those in Jerusalem. When word reached the mother church in Jerusalem that new fellowships were springing up in other places, the apostles sent delegates to these new communities to establish a connection. One of the representatives they sent out was an elder named Barnabas. He visited the church in the Syrian capital of Antioch, 3^rd largest city of the Roman Empire, with a population of a half-million. The church there was something new; a mixture of Jewish & Gentile believers. It was at Antioch the followers of Jesus were first called “Christians.”The readiness of Jewish believers at Antioch to welcome Gentiles into their fold shifted the focus of missionary activity from Jerusalem to Antioch. It was at Antioch that one man rose to leadership who would