It is a beautiful and colourful feast, when
processions of various denominations march in and out, while young
Syrian and Armenian boys throw wild and inspiring dances full of
manly power. After hours of chants and prayers, Holy Fire burst out
of the empty Tomb to encourage us at this most frightening Saturday
of the year, the Saturday when the Lord was dead.During this godless
Saturday Christ fought the gates of Hell, and its outcome was far
from obvious. The Holy Fire was a sign of life from the Tomb. And
with sunrise on Easter Sunday came a beautiful day, a day of new
hope and new promise.This year, the Old City of
Jerusalem was full of CDs and videos of the great modern Passion
Play by Mel Gibson. It was also screened in semi-privacy of hotels
and clubs, for no cinema in Jewish-controlled Palestine wished to
show it. There was no clear reason as reason goes. The Passion of
Gibson is quite similar to his Braveheart; both films contain long
and heart-tearing scenes of torture, flogging and agony. But no
Englishman objected to the Braveheart being screened claiming it
will inspire anti-English sentiment. The Passion reminds in a way
even The First Blood, but no policeman tried to block Rambo saying
it inflames hatred to cops. If the Jews were an ethnic group, they
would be able to watch the Passion as easily as the English watch
the Braveheart. Indeed, our friend Gilad Atzmon was right: Jews are
not killers of Christ, but those who identify with killers of
Christ.
For Palestinians, this story of a kind Palestinian man tortured and
killed by the brutal look-a-likes of Israel's Border Police at the
shouts of 'Yiztalev', 'Crucify Him', is a story of their daily life
brought to the level of Faith. And they can find respite and hope in
its message of Resurrection. For the immigrant 'Jewish' population
of Palestine, there is a plain message: identify with Christ, not
with his killers.
If you have time, I advise you to read The Everlasting Man by
Chesterton (see below), for this book (called 'the best book of 20th
century' by Graham Green) will help you to understand today's main
problem: massive rise of the 'Judeo-Christian' heresy in the US,
probably the biggest challenge to the Spirit since the Albigensians
and Calvinists. And, when you understand the problem, you can find
the way to treat it.
G.K. Chesterton wrote:
There are people who say they wish Christianity to remain as a
spirit. They mean, very literally, that they wish it to remain as a
ghost. But it is not going to remain as a ghost. What follows this
process of apparent death is not the lingering of the shade; it is
the resurrection of the body. These people are quite prepared to
shed pious and reverential tears over the Sepulchre of the Son of
Man; what they are not prepared for is the Son of
God walking once more upon the hills of morning. These people, and
indeed most people, were indeed by this time quite accustomed to the
idea that the old Christian candle-light would fade into the light
of common day. To many of them it did quite honestly appear like
that pale yellow flame of a candle when it is left burning in
daylight. It was all the more unexpected, and therefore all the more
unmistakable, that the seven branched candle-stick suddenly towered
to heaven like a miraculous tree and flamed until the sun turned
pale. But other ages have seen the day conquer the candle-light and
then the candle-light conquer the day. Again and again, before our
time, men have grown content with a diluted doctrine. And again and
again there has followed on that dilution, coming as out of the
darkness in a crimson cataract, the strength of the red original
wine.
And we only say once more to-day as has been said
many times by our fathers: `Long years and centuries ago our fathers
or the founders of our people drank, as they dreamed, of the blood
of God. Long years and centuries have passed since the strength of
that giant vintage has been anything but a legend of the age of
giants. Centuries ago already is the dark time of the second
fermentation, when the wine of Catholicism turned into the vinegar
of Calvinism. Long since that bitter drink has been itself diluted;
rinsed out and washed away by the waters of oblivion and the wave of
the world. Never did we think to taste again even that bitter tang
of sincerity and the spirit, still less the richer and the sweeter
strength of the purple vineyards in our dreams of the age of gold.
Day by day and year by year we have lowered our hopes and lessened
our convictions; we have grown more and more used to seeing those
vats and vineyards overwhelmed in the water-floods and the last
savour and suggestion of that special element fading like a stain of
purple upon a sea of grey. We have grown used to dilution, to
dissolution, to a watering down and went on forever. But Thou hast
kept the good wine until now.'
Read on
http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/chesterton/everlasting/part2c6.htm
and the whole book on
http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/chesterton/everlasting/content.htm
Christ is Risen! Indeed, He is Risen! Ha-Mashiah qom! Be-emet qom!
Al Massiah qam! Haqqan qam! Meshiha qam! Bashrira qam!
Christos Voskrese! Voistinu Voskrese! Christos Anesti! Alithos
Anesti!
Israel Adam Shamir |
