Of Mayflowers

By Kim Stokely –

If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring?

Pilgrims!

I loved that joke when I was a kid. It still makes me smile, mainly because it reminds me of my childhood growing up in New England.

I once had the opportunity to visit Plymouth Plantation, the historical spot where the pilgrims first came ashore in North America and made a home. A life-sized model of the Mayflower, the boat that brought them across the Atlantic, rests in the bay. And, at least when I was there some (cough, cough) forty years ago, a large granite and iron barrier, reminiscent of a Greek temple, had been placed around Plymouth Rock, the boulder the pilgrims had to step on first before coming ashore.

Really?

Even as a kid I remember thinking, how could they possibly know that?

Did Miles Standish have a Sharpie quill marker to make sure they remembered the exact rock, among the millions along the New England shoreline that our forefathers jumped on to keep their feet out of the salty water? Although these guys were all about formality and the importance of their journey, I don’t think, after 2 months at sea in a wooden boat with so many unwashed people, that anyone cared that they had to step on a rock to get to land. I think they probably had trouble keeping everyone from jumping over the rails and swimming to shore. In fact, the first written mention of Plymouth Rock came almost 100 years after the Pilgrims landed. Oral tradition may have picked this rock, but I’m still not convinced that the one enshrined in Massachusetts is “the one”.

God doesn’t give us such nebulous facts when it comes to the story of His son, Jesus. The first four gospels include eye witness accounts of Jesus’s days on earth. Most scholars believe they were written before the destruction of Herod’s Temple in 70 A.D. This means they were written within 40 years of Christ’s death. Many of the names, dates and events can be historically cross-checked with secular accounts. God wanted those of us who came later to know His son almost as intimately as those that walked with Him. He inspired the Gospel authors to write vivid accounts of Jesus’s words and actions so we could learn, as they did, from the great rabbi.