Simon the Zealot

Introduction

On Christmas Eve 1914, in the dreary, mud filled trenches on the Western Front of the first world war, a miracle happened. British machine gunner Bruce Bairnsfather, later a popular cartoonist, wrote about this experience in his memoirs. Like most of his fellow infantrymen of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, he was spending the holiday eve cold in the mud, trying to keep warm.

“Here I was, in this horrible clay cavity,” Bairnsfather wrote, “…miles and miles from home. Cold, wet through and covered with mud.” There didn’t “seem the slightest chance of leaving—except in an ambulance.” At about 10 p.m., Bairnsfather noticed a noise. “I listened,” he recalled. “Away across the field, among the dark shadows beyond, I could hear the murmur of voices.” He turned to a fellow soldier in his trench and said, “Do you hear the Boches [Germans] kicking up that racket over there?”

“Yes,” came the reply. “They’ve been at it some time!”

The Germans were singing carols, as it was Christmas Eve. In the darkness, some of the British soldiers began to sing back. “Suddenly,” Bairnsfather recalled, “we heard a confused shouting from the other side. We all stopped to listen. The shout came again.” The voice was from an enemy soldier, speaking in English with a strong German accent. He was saying, “Come over here.”

One of the British sergeants answered: “You come half-way. I come half-way.”What happened next would, in the years to come, stun the world and make history. Enemy soldiers began to climb nervously out of their trenches, and to meet in the barbed-wire-filled “No Man’s Land” that separated the armies. Normally, the British and Germans communicated across No Man’s Land with streaking bullets, with only occasional gentlemanly allowances to collect the dead unmolested. But now, there were handshakes and words of kindness. The soldiers traded songs, tobacco and wine, joining in a spontaneous holiday party in the cold night.

Bairnsfather could not believe his eyes. “Here they were—the actual, practical soldiers of the German army. There was not an atom of hate on either side.”

On Christmas Eve in 1914 Christ transcended the politics and violence and for a few moments the Kingdom of God broke through as soldiers from opposite ideologies and motivations and political loyalties worship, broke bread and fellowship together. But it didn’t last.

In a world of division Jesus brings people together.

what in the world is a zealot?

A zealot or cananaen(not to be confused with the town of Cana) is actually an Aramaic word meaning fervently devoted to a cause, in a radical or uncompromising way. In our modern speech we would use the term radical.

Simon The Zealot (Hebrew transliteration of Simeon)

Zealots had a nasty reputation in Biblical times. By the year 63-66 A.D. They had become an organized revolutionary group. In fact it was this group that brought to pass Jesus’s prophecy of the destruction of the Temple.

Simon is only listed by this title in scripture. We know nothing about him outside of his being among the twelve, that he was faithful, that he received rebukes from Jesus but because he was a zealot we can pull back the curtain to ascertain a better understanding of his character.

Simon was a zealot when this group was in their early years well before becoming any formal labeled group like we see with the Sadduccees, Pharisees, and Essenes.

Here is what we know about Simon:

He looked for the rule of God in Israel. God was to be the only ruler of Israel. He was zealous for God in cause. Though some commentaries suggest in religious practice as well.

He was dutiful in religious practice but was not a Pharisee. He held the ways of Moses in high regard.

He was committed to the political cause of ousting Roman occupation and rule from the land. He was a man of ambition with little or no remorse to the people he harmed— Roman or Jew. Interesting fact, Simon was just as moved to disdain and violence toward Roman leaders and aristocracy as well as a Jew who sympathized with Rome or served Roman authority.

Question: I imagine he and Matthew the Roman Tax Collector had an awkward relationship when introduced...”McArthur writes “Simon would probably have gladly killed Matthew.”

What went through his mind when he heard Jesus say Matthew 5:43–44 ““You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,”

Simon trusted in his religious practice and duties as well as political ideologies and will of rebellion. His politics were the driving force of all that he aspired. Simon trusted in his work and effort guided by his ideals to bring about the restoration of Israel.

The Great Exchange

Jesus changes lives. Simon had a pre-Jesus life and a post Jesus life. Like the other disciples before him he had a character flaw. He had something in his flesh that had to be nailed to the cross of Jesus Christ. He had to put a part of him to death.

Jesus took a man who prided himself for what he could accomplish by his actions either in religious works or in political activism. In his acts of devotion to God or in acts of rebellion for country.

Simon had to learn that Jesus desired a kingdom of God born in the heart that would transform his flesh. A kingdom of grace, love, mercy, compassion and forgiveness, and restoration.

1 Corinthians 13:4–13 “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”

1 John 4:8 “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

1 John 4:4–6 “Little children, you are from God, and have conquered them; for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us, and whoever is not from God does not listen to us. From this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”

Jesus brings people together. The power of the Gospel is to transform and lift people up out of their former lives into the new kingdom. A kingdom without division built on unity in Jesus Christ. A tax collector and a revolutionary. Only in Christ can one searching for belonging and a new name find himself next to one who’s identity was firmly held in his religiosity and political activity. Two opposites brought together in Christ.

Jesus brings us to surrender. Decide how you will live today. Simon had to let go of personal ambition and desire. He had to give himself over to the Kingdom of God at work in the world and in his heart. He had to lay down his piety and confidence in his own self-righteousness in order to pick up humility, grace, and restoration.

Call To Action

Christian you must decide if you will place your confidence and trust in your own actions or trust the one who in action has brought all things under His authority?

Christ brings community and not division

He brings surrender over control.

He work transcends worldly work.

Like the Christmas Truce in 1914, soldiers from opposing powers allowed the Spirit of Christ to arise and saw each other as brothers in the faith.

Jesus says decide

21    You must be much in the way, or much out of the way; a good soldier for God, or for the devil. O choose the better part'—now!—to-day!

John Wesley

The Works of the Rev. John Wesley (18th century)

John Wesley (Founder of the Methodist Movement)

Simon was a radical committed to a cause. Jesus redeemed that energy and commitment so that Simon could bring light and life to the world through the Gospel message of Jesus. Instead of being limited by the geography of a nation Simon leaned in to the vision of Jesus that all the world needed to hear the Good News of salvation. The mission of Jesus outweighs the political.

What happened to Simon? Church tradition and early historical writings tell us he left Israel. Yes, he left the borders of the land with which he dedicated the entirety of his life and work to go north to the land of Britain. There he preached the message with commitment and fire. He was martyred there. Simon was changed from being willing to take a life in justice to his land to being willing to give his life so another land might have salvation too.