Being a university student in 2020 isn’t turning out to be much fun. With thousands already in lockdown and the spectre of not being able to return home for Christmas, many must be wishing they had stayed at home. This isn’t the exciting start to a new life of freedom that they envisaged when they filled in their application forms. It’s all turning out to be rather more costly than they might have hoped. In the end, however, degrees will be completed, and the stories of this year passed to future generations.
In Jesus’s day students would choose a Rabbi to follow and set off in pursuit of a new life of learning and wisdom; and for those who chose to follow Jesus, like the students of 2020, things took an unexpected turn. Outrageous and controversial he was anything but predictable and was always getting into trouble for the things he said and did. With some foresight one of his students, Thomas, declared to his friends that if they continued to follow him then they would die with him, and ultimately, he was right. Despite the cost, however, they did continue with him and like this year’s students their stories too were passed to future generations.
It is no longer possible to listen to this story in the iOS version of the app but you can do so by subscribing to Turn The Page in Apple podcasts.