A sermon based on Luke 12:49-53

Who was Jesus and what was he really like? I fear that we have created a flannel graph Jesus. What I mean by that is that we have described Jesus in a way that is attractive to children. “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” This is true and it is good that we make Jesus accessible to children. We want them to know that he is their friend.

The problem is that as we grow up, we are afraid to let that portrait of Jesus develop. He is still meek and mild, petting sheep and holding babies. This is a problem because Jesus is much more than this.

The truth is that Jesus actually did and said things that make us uncomfortable. This is why we are going through the Gospel of Luke. We want to get Jesus right, even if it shakes up our understanding of Jesus.

This passage is one of those sayings that make us uncomfortable. And there are enough connections with other things that Jesus said, that we cannot easily ignore these words.

Especially at Christmas, we speak of Jesus as the Prince of Peace. Many would identify Jesus with peace. Followers of Jesus long for peace.However, Jesus says, “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.” (Luke 12:51)

What do we do with this? There are two tendencies. One is to simply ignore it. The other is to misinterpret it. Some during the Crusades looked at this passage as support for using the sword to spread Christianity and to kill heretics and unbelievers. That is completely taking this passage out of context.

Jesus makes it painfully clear what he is talking about. Jesus is speaking specifically within the context of family. It could easily be generalized to close friendships as the focus is on relationships.

This is what Jesus is saying. If we are serious about following Jesus, a very likely result will be conflict with those who are close to us. Basically, he is saying that there is a cost to following Jesus.

Could he really mean that? If we had any doubt, then we could fast forward a couple of chapters to this lovely verse: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26) That’s worse than the verse about the sword!

In case you are wondering if you are really supposed to hate your family, Matthew provides and interpretation of this saying of Jesus. “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:37) What Jesus is saying that we must love Jesus so much, in fact so much more than our natural family, that our love for family is hate by comparison.

How could Jesus really ask us to do such a thing? He can because he practiced what he preached. Jesus had a human family, including a mother and brothers and sisters. It is likely that Joseph was dead by the time of Jesus’ public ministry.

While we would like to think that his family fully supported his ministry, that was not the case. We read this: “Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.” (Mark 3:

A sermon based on John 20:24-31 and preached at Queen Street Baptist Church.

There is no lack of bad news for us these days. We have a regular diet of crimes, wars and terrorism. There is so much of it that it takes a lot to shock us anymore.

I recently came across one news story that did shock me, although it had nothing to do with violence. A BBC survey revealed that one in four people who identify as Christian do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus? While that number goes down significantly for Christians who are active in church, there should be no Christians denying the resurrection. I remember a number of years ago that the top leader of a major Canadian denomination stated that he did not believe in the resurrection of Jesus. There is a problem with this.

You may think that I’m being a bit strict on this. The truth is that I’m comfortable with a lot of variety within the Christian faith. I don’t care what you think about the age of the earth, the extent of Noah’s flood or how the world will end. I do care about what you think about the resurrection of Jesus.

The resurrection of Jesus is essential to Christianity. The Apostle Paul said this: “And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” (1 Corinthians 15:14) I sometimes get asked what it would take for me to give up my faith. There is one thing: If there was proof that Jesus did not rise from the dead.

Having said that, I also will admit that it can be difficult to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. This is not something we see every day. I remember numerous conversations with my father who would say, “Once dead, always dead.” There are some people who hear the story of Jesus rising from the dead and are immediately filled with faith. There are others who are more skeptical, such as myself, who need some evidence. It is okay to have questions about this. The point is to follow the evidence where it leads.

We are going to look at this by examining the story of Thomas.

First I need to point out that the Bible does not describe Thomas as “Doubting” Thomas. Also, the Gospel of Matthew indicates that Thomas was not the only apostle who doubted. We need to be fair to Thomas.

Here is the story. Jesus had been crucified and buried. Then on the third day, some people began to claim that they had seen Jesus alive. The risen Jesus appeared to ten of the apostles. Judas had committed suicide and Thomas was absent. When Thomas heard that Jesus had appeared to the other apostles, he had trouble believing it.

It is not that Thomas was without faith. Earlier, when Jesus had brought Lazarus back to life, Thomas knew that the Jerusalem area was dangerous for Jesus and his followers. It was Thomas who spoke up that they should go, even if it meant they all would die.

So why did Thomas have trouble believing in the resurrection? It’s not that he disbelieved in miracles. The problem was that there was a set Jewish belief in the resurrection. The resurrection would happen on the last day, what the Old Testament called the Day of the Lord. Thomas believed Jesus would be raised, but he assumed it would happen when everyone else was raised. It was the timing of Jesus’ resurrection that was the problem.

What I want you to see is that Jesus did not rebuke Thomas. Rather Jesus provided fo

A sermon based on Mark 11:1-11 and preached at Queen Street Baptist Church.

Did you know that you know some Hebrew? If you have ever used the words amen or hallelujah, you are using some Hebrew. They are the words for truth and praise the Lord. Even oy is a Hebrew word for woe. You know more Hebrew than you thought. The word Hosanna is another one and that is going to be our focus today.

Before looking at what Hosanna means, let’s take a moment to think about why we have some Hebrew in the New Testament in the first place. The New Testament was originally written in Greek but here and there we have words in Hebrew or the related Aramaic. The New Testament writers could have easily translated the words into Greek but for some reason they choose certain words to transliterate, that is to keep the Hebrew word but write it in Greek characters. I suspect that these were words that had significant meaning and that by keeping the Hebrew, they are highlighting the importance of it. It is ancient way of bolding and underlining a word so that we don’t just pass over it.

So what does Hosanna mean? Hosanna is really “hosia na” and it means “please save.” It is a phrase that is found in Psalm 118:25, which is one of the psalms that was being sung as Jesus was entering into Jerusalem. Why transliterate this word? I think there are two reasons. One is that this is a primal prayer for many people. I suspect quite a few people, religious and non-religious, have looked up to heaven and asked for help. Another reason is that while the words Hosanna and Jesus look very different to us, they are formed from the same Hebrew root, and that is the word for save. The name Jesus, or more accurately, Yeshua, means the Lord saves. There is not just a linguistic link between Jesus and salvation, there is a theological link.

Even if you have absolutely no interest in Hebrew roots and origins, I strongly suspect that there is something in your life that you desperately want help for. I hope to demonstrate that Jesus is the one in who we can find hope.

I want you to use your imagination. Think about that original Palm Sunday two thousand years ago. People are streaming into Jerusalem for the Passover celebrations. Some of these Jews would have known about Jesus and many would not have. Those that were aware of Jesus would have recognized that there was something special. He was a teacher with authority. He was not afraid of the religious leaders, the Herods or the Romans. Many people had claimed that he had performed miracles. What they did know was that people looked to him as a leader and if the crowds would follow anyone, it would be Jesus.

With that in mind, as the crowds were singing Hosanna, please save, what were they meaning by those words? What are the chances that in their minds they were hoping that Jesus would die on a cross to provide atonement for their sins? While we may think of that as the way Jesus saves, it is unlikely that is what they were thinking of.

The Jews who were there that day, whether they knew Jesus or not, had much more immediate ideas of the kind of salvation they needed. They wanted someone who would be able to throw off the Roman yoke, someone who would bring political and military freedom to Israel, someone who would lead them to victory the way King David did one thousand years before.

I wonder how disappointed they were. Not only did Jesus not start a rebellion, the whole event was rather anti-climatic.

A sermon based on Psalm 139 and preached at Queen Street Baptist Church.

There are certain Psalms that stand out because of their beautiful language and the depth of their reflection. Psalm 23 is one, Psalm 121 that we looked at last week is another. Near the top of the list would be Psalm 139. If you grew up in the church, you will likely find parts (but not all) of this Psalm familiar. I’m sure if you went to our local Christian bookstore, you would find numerous pieces of Christian art that would include one or more verses from Psalm 139.

This is not surprising as there are some powerful images in this Psalm that have impacted Christians throughout the generation. However, we may find that there is more to this Psalm than we think. There are ideas here that are important but which may make us feel uncomfortable.

One of the ways that the Psalms in general get a point across is to repeat an idea multiple times in different forms. Psalm 139 is no exception. The Psalm begins with the idea of knowing us. In addition to the word ‘know,’ David also speaks of searching, perceiving, discerning and being familiar. In many ways this is the key to the entire Psalm, God’s full knowledge of who we are.

Every once in a while, we hear stories of celebrities trying to do something normal such as going to a restaurant, going for a jog or just playing with their children. They dress down, wear a ball cap and some sun glasses and hope nobody will recognize who they are. But usually, some photographer will recognize them and reveal their true identity.

God is far more capable than any photographer. He knows us inside and out. We might try to hide parts of who we are to acquaintances or even friends and families. We all have our secrets. It might be things we have done or said or it might be just our private thoughts and doubts. No matter what it is, God knows us. We are completely transparent to God.

Related to God knowing us is the idea of not being able to escape from or to hide from God. Why would anyone try to hide from God? We find it in the first few chapters of the Bible. Adam and Eve sinned and so they tried to hide from God because of their shame. Sometimes when we stumble into sin, we might try to hide from God. There is the temptation to stay away from church or to avoid Christian fellowship. The truth is that we cannot escape God. I don’t say that with the intention to frighten you, that God’s judgment will come upon you for the bad thing you did. Rather, as I see in this Psalm, it is in the context of God’s love. No matter what we do, God will pursue us. Francis Thompson wrote a poem called the Hound of Heaven. It begins like this:

I FLED Him, down the nights and down the days;

A sermon based on Psalm 121 and preached at Queen Street Baptist Church.

I love the Psalms. What I appreciate about them is that they wrestle with what it means to trust God in real life. There is no pretend or make-believe when it comes to the challenges of life. The Psalmist presents reality in what is sometimes uncomfortable honesty.

When it comes to the Psalms, one of my favourites is Psalm 121. I must confess that this Psalm is very personal to me. About fifteen years ago, I sat in my parents’ home in Merritton at the bedside of my dad perhaps twelve hours before his death. He was in a morphine-induced daze after a long struggle with health issues. I didn’t know what to say to him and so I turned to the Scriptures. I read to him Psalm 121. I read that Psalm for him, but I also read it for myself. It was not just my dad that needed God in that moment, it was me as well. I can never read this Psalm without thinking of that day.

I continue to turn to Psalm 121 because I believe it both challenges us and comforts us in our most difficult of circumstances. We are going to do something very simple: we are going to look at what we need to do and what we can expect God to do.

Sometimes we ignore the little notes that appear before the Psalm but we shouldn’t. This is called a song of ascents. What does that mean? Psalms 120-134 are all songs of ascents. These are the Psalms that would be chanted by the Hebrew people in Jerusalem as they made their way up to worship. And when I say “up,” I mean that literally. They would make their way up the temple mount to the one place where they were allowed to worship.

This is important because we should imagine that upward journey when they would sing the words, “I lift my eyes to the hills.” They would be doing exactly that as they were singing the words.

Hills and mountains are closely associated with God in the Bible. Thinking specifically about the time before David, who is thought to have written this Psalm, it was on a mountain that Moses met God in the burning bush, on a mountain where he received the Law, and on a mountain where first the tabernacle and then in the time of David’s son Solomon, the temple was built. This theme continues well past the time of David, including the New Testament and some of the experiences of Jesus.

But it was not just the God of Israel that was associated with hills and mountains. Throughout the Old Testament, there are references to the high places. Both Canaanites, the people who lived in the land before the Israelites, and the Israelites would go up a mountain or a hill, set up an altar and offer a sacrifice to a false god. In the Old Testament, the kings are often judged by what they did with the high places, whether they worshiped there, left them alone or tore them down.

When the Psalmist talks about looking to the hills and reflecting on the source of help, this is a challenge to decide which god we will trust. We can trust the true God, the creator God, the one who is not just on the mountain, but the one who created the mountains. Or we can choose to worship a false god.

You might think this is not very relevant. You don’t feel the temptation to go up the Niagara escarpment to set up an altar to worship and idol of stone or wood. But the truth is that there are many other things that we rely on instead of God. Let me give you a few examples fro

A sermon based on Luke 11:1-4 and preached at Queen Street Baptist Church.

When I was in the army and would be on course, we would often be taught by what we called a SME. SME stood for subject matter expert. It was acknowledged that there were certain people who had special knowledge of mental health or military law or anything else we needed to know. These SMEs would be brought in to impart their knowledge of their subject to us.

As Christians, one of the most important subjects that we could study is that of prayer. Most of us would acknowledge that prayer is important but how should we pray? We need a teacher.

Although I have read about prayer and prayer has been a part of my life for a long time, I would not consider myself an expert. Thankfully, I have found a SME to teach us about prayer. That SME is someone named Jesus the Christ.

The passage that we are looking at is a teaching session between Jesus and his disciples. The disciples had noticed that John the Baptist taught his followers to pray and they wanted Jesus to do the same thing. This is an appropriate request for disciples to ask of their religious teacher.

Before getting too far into this, we need a bit of perspective. Who was Jesus? Yes, he was a teacher and a rabbi. But he was more. Jesus was God incarnate, the second person of the Trinity, co-eternal with the Father. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, Jesus spent significant time in prayer to the Father. If that is the case, how much more should we dedicate ourselves to prayer?

I will also make note that this version of what we call the Lord’s Prayer is slightly different than that found in Matthew. Why is that? It could be because of the translation into Greek out of the Aramaic that Jesus originally gave this prayer. It could be because that Jesus gave different versions of the prayer. But we will see that the core of the prayer is exactly the same.

We call this the Lord’s Prayer but some will reject that label, preferring the disciples’ prayer. I like the idea of this actually being the Lord’s Prayer. There are prayers that are still used today within Jewish liturgy that began as personal prayers of famous rabbis. I don’t think that Jesus made up this prayer on the spot. I believe that this was a prayer that Jesus could have used himself. I will examine some of the reasons that might make some uncomfortable.

Let’s examine the Lord’s Prayer in more detail.

Jesus teaches us to pray to the Father but to begin a certain way. The prayer begins by asking that the Father’s name be hallowed. We don’t use the word ‘hallow’ often, except at Halloween. It is a prayer that God’s name be made holy.

How can our prayer increase the holiness of God’s name? That’s not the point. The point of this is that praise is an important part of prayer. We should not just jump in to demanding our list of requests. Nor should praising God be seen as a way of bribing God into giving us what we want.

Prayer is meant to emerge out of relationship. That is why we pray to the Father. While we can pray using ‘God,’ ‘Father’ is helpful in reminding us that we are in relationship.

We do not have to use the exact words from this prayer, but it is good for us to spend some time acknowledging how amazing God is.

A sermon based on Luke 10:38-42 and preached at Queen Street Baptist Church.

One of the hardest things about being a parent is that my children do not act the way I did when I was their age. They fight, bicker and get jealous. Not once as a child did I ever get in a fight with one of my siblings or get jealous about what they got for Christmas or their birthday. That might have been different if I wasn’t an only child.

I really find the whole sibling rivalry to be rather confusing. I had a friend who put red ants down his sister’s pants and when she cried for their parents, he put red ants down his own pants so he could blame another guy. My children have not gotten to that stage. Yet.

An entire book could be written about sibling rivalries in the Bible. In the Old Testament especially, we have some pretty unhealthy relationships from Abel and Cain to Joseph and his brothers. Somehow, no matter what the circumstances, siblings can find fault with each other. The story from the New Testament continues this theme. We will look at the details in a moment, but for now notice that one sister complains to Jesus about the other sister. But this story is not simply about sisters having a disagreement. The story goes more deeply than that, providing a lesson that challenges us all.

It helps for us to have a bit of cultural background. One of the greatest virtues in the ancient world is that of hospitality. Even in homes that were poor, people would do all they could to make their guests feel welcome. Hospitality is still important to many people, but in the ancient world and in that area of the world, hospitality ingrained deeply into the culture. There would be a deep shame if you did not provide proper hospitality to a guest.

With that in mind, when the story begins with Martha working hard to serve Jesus and make him feel welcome in her home, Martha was doing the right thing. She was fulfilling the cultural expectations and no observer would have accused her of acting improperly.

The conflict begins with who is involved in the hospitality. While Martha is working hard, her sister Mary is just sitting there. Have you ever been in a situation like that? You are working hard and there are people around you who are just sitting there, refusing to lift a finger to help. It can be pretty frustrating. By the way, we know from the Gospel of John that Mary and Martha also had a brother named Lazarus. What was Lazarus doing during all of this? Culturally, it would have been more acceptable for a man to sit out of the housework than a woman.

Actually, gender roles play a very important part in this story. It is not just that Mary is skipping out on the serving, it is also about the alternative that she chooses. Sitting at Jesus’ feet is not a sign that she is being lazy or is too tired to work. Sitting at the feet of a teacher was the sign of discipleship. The fact that Jesus allows her that position indicates that he accepts her as a disciple. This is extremely radical, in the Jewish, Greek and Roman cultures of the day. No teacher would take on a female disciple and Jesus does this forbidden thing.

The simple interpretation is that Jesus rebukes Martha for working and affirms Mary for taking the role of the disciple. That is not quite what is going on here. If we look carefully, the story is bit more complicated. Jesus does not say to Martha, “Would you please stop fussing around and sit down

A sermon preached at Queen Street Baptist Church.

If there is one piece of technology that I love, it is my GPS. That little box saves me so much on stress. I remember the days of unfolding a map while I was driving, trying to figure out where I was with one eye and watching the road with the other. I can take long and relaxing roads now and actually enjoy them. It doesn’t matter if I miss a turn, the GPS will find another way and get me to my destination.

That last point is the key. The GPS by itself is useless. The only way it is valuable is if I enter a destination. Once it has the destination it can give me all the information I need to get there. It will calculate the route and the time of travel. The second thing that is needed is for me to be moving. Even with a destination, if I’m not moving, nothing will happen. The GPS won’t beg me to get going, it waits for me to take the initiative.

I see in this a picture of what it takes to be an effective church. It is not enough to just show up. Something else needs to take place. We need the same two things that the GPS needs. We need a destination and we need movement. Our destination is simply where we want to go and what we want to become. We call that our mission statement. We also need to move. Where do we need to move? Any movement is better than none. The GPS will not help you if you are stationary, but even if you make a wrong turn, at least the GPS can correct you. It is okay for a church to make mistakes, it is not okay to not try.

We are going to take a look at our mission statement, that is entering our destination and then encourage each other to move toward that destination.

The first part of our church mission is that we are to be a welcoming church. Now very few churches would deny that they are a welcoming church. And if they did, hopefully they wouldn’t take pride in it. At the same time, I would say that many churches are not welcoming enough.

The confusion comes up when we mistake being friendly and being welcoming. You can be a friendly church, where every person knows every other person in the church. They are warm and loving toward each other, but it’s difficult for new people to break in. They are like something  put in the microwave not long enough, warm in the middle but still cold on the outside.

I believe that we are a welcoming church. I have seen how people are when a new person comes to church. It is not a program that people are obeying, but a genuine and natural desire to welcome. This is so important. New people will forgive a bad sermon, but they will not forgive an unwelcoming church.

How do we determine if we are just friendly and not really welcoming? We need to ask who we are prepared to welcome? We can friendly to people who are just like us, people that we would normally want to be friends with. But what about people who are different from us? What about people who are different culturally, financially, socially, physically, mentally or anything else? A good question to ask is, does this make me feel uncomfortable? Is this something that pushes me? To be truly welcoming, we must welcome all. There is no category of people who are unwelcome in our church.

We welcome people to come into our building and to join in community with us. But our goal is not just to fill up the pews. Part of our mission is to grow spiritually. Who does this apply to? Everyone. If you are still wrestling with who Jesus is and what he means to you, we

A message based on Luke 10:1-12 and preached at Queen Street Baptist Church.

On January, 2, 2017, exactly one third of a religious group called, United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing died. This group, more commonly known as the Shakers, went from three people down to two people. How did the once thriving Shaker community dwindle down to this tiny group? For one thing, they believed in lifelong celibacy and so new Shakers were being born into the community. In addition, they had formally ceased all missionary activity. Not only did they stop seeking converts, they shut down membership, not allowing any new people to join. These two decisions have severely limited the long-term viability of the group.

We definitely rejoice when our church grows, especially when a baby is born. Our three youngest children are adopted and we kept our church on their toes when we would suddenly show up with a new baby with no warning.

As much as we want our church to grow through the birth of new babies and the raising of children, we also believe in growth through evangelism. Some people do not like the word evangelism and yet it literally means the announcing good news. Growth through conversion is written into the DNA of the Christian Church. It can be argued convincingly that the Church was born on the day of Pentecost. That same day, the Apostle Peter preached a sermon from which 3,000 people decided to follow Jesus. When we look at the history of the early church in Acts, we know more about the way they shared their faith than any other aspect of church life.

It is important to understand why we share our faith. It is not out of intolerance. I am not intolerant of other faiths. I believe in freedom of religious expression for all people. I want people of other faiths to have the freedom to share with me, just as I want the freedom to share with them. When this is done in a respectful and kind way, it promotes tolerance rather than intolerance. We want to tell people about Jesus because the gospel is literally good news. Jesus has changed us and we believe that Jesus wants to change others. It would be intolerant if we refused to share that Jesus died and rose again to reconcile us to God.

Knowing that evangelism would be central to the church, Jesus began training his disciples on how to do it. It was not enough for Jesus to do the preaching. The disciples needed to be able to do this. And not just the twelve, for the task was much bigger than that. Although Jesus had an inner core of twelve, he had a much larger group of disciples. Of these, he sent seventy-two out on a mission. I believe that as Christians in this time and this place, there is much that we can learn from their experience. We are going to look at six attributes of a missional church.

The first thing we notice is that Jesus sent the disciples out. He didn’t say that they should just be ready in case someone came to them and asked them how to get to heaven. Jesus sent them out into the towns, to go to the places where the people were. They were to be proactive rather than reactive.

There is a temptation for churches to focus on reactive evangelism. There is a model of church growth called attractional. Basically, we do church, try to make it as impressive as possible, pray that some non-Christians just show up and hope that they get th

A message based on Luke 9:51-56 and preached at Queen Street Baptist Church.

We have all experienced rejection at some point in our life. It could have been asking someone out on a date, applying for a job or at the very least, asking something from our parents when we were children.

There is one particular story that stands out in my mind. It was when I was in junior high school. There was a school dance and I wanted to dance with a particular girl. There was a long internal battle while I tried to gather my courage. I finally convinced myself to start the long walk from the boys’ side of the gym to the girls’ side. I walked right up to her and asked, “Would you like to dance?” She respond by saying, “With who?” That was not the answer I was looking for. I clarified that it was with me and she politely declined. It ends up that she was hoping that I was coming over to ask for my friend, who she would have danced with. I would have rather that she just said “no” right away.

Have you ever experienced rejection when trying to share your faith? I don’t mean that they just didn’t decide to become a Christian, but rather they had a strong reaction to Jesus? About twenty-five years ago, I went on a short-term mission with Operation Mobilization. I was pretty new in my personal faith. To be honest, I thought I was pretty awesome. God was sure lucky to have me on his team. But before we left for Europe, we were told to hand out some tracts at the Toronto airport. Suddenly, we were much less confident in our ability. We looked for some little old ladies, thinking that they might be the easiest to talk to. We finally found our target and in a pack approached her and handed her a tract. She asked us if this was about Jesus and when we replied in the affirmative, she gave us the thumbs down and blew a raspberry. So much for my career as an evangelist. You would think I was asking her to dance.

That was not the first nor the last time someone said no to Jesus. We are going to take a look at a story from the Bible about a entire village saying no to Jesus.

We need a bit of background information to understand this story. Jesus was raised and started his ministry in the north in a place called Galilee. He wanted to go to the south to Jerusalem, which was in Judea. In between Galilee and Judea was a place called Samaria. While many Jews would go around Samaria, the quickest way was t go right through it. Unfortunately, there was a tremendous amount of hostility between the Jews and the Samaritans. If you think of any conflicts today between cultures, ethnicities or religions, you will understand what was going on between the Jews and the Samaritans. There was mutual contempt.

As Jesus and his disciples were travelling south, Jesus sent some of the disciples to make some preparations for them. Unfortunately, the Samaritans were not interested at all. They would not receive Jesus into their town. This was a strong rejection.

How well did the disciples react? On the positive side, no one could question their loyalty to Jesus. On the negative side, James and John wanted to call down fire from heaven to consume the village. Think about that. How often do we find the disciples volunteering to perform a miracle? Most of the time they leave it to Jesus. When Jesus wants them to feed the 5000 people, they are not confident at all in their ability to accomplish the task. But James and John are more than willing to try a miracle to destroy the village