Easter Thoughts

As I pondered the resurrection story this year, I was struck by the relentless pursuit of a God who refuses to give us up, to let sin win. Surely a man pursuing a woman would soon move on if she gave him as little encouragement as we give God. And yet his passionate pursuit of humanity brought him to the cross…and his ultimate victory was gained when he rose from the dead.

Others have said it better than I can, so I will partially quote a couple poems here.

Holy Sonnet #14

John Donne

Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you

As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;

That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,

Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,

But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;

Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. 

The Hound of Heaven (lines 1-51, 151-182)

Francis Thompson

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

  I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

    Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears

I hid from Him, and under running laughter.     

      Up vistaed hopes I sped;

      And shot, precipitated,

Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,

  From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

      But with unhurrying chase,       

      And unperturbèd pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

      They beat—and a Voice beat

      More instant than the Feet—

‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’   

          I pleaded, outlaw-wise,

By many a hearted casement, curtained red,

  Trellised with intertwining charities;

(For, though I knew His love Who followèd,

        Yet was I sore adread   

Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside).

But, if one little casement parted wide,

  The gust of His approach would clash it to.

  Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.

Across the margent of the world I fled,

  And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,

  Smiting for shelter on their clangèd bars;

        Fretted to dulcet jars

And silvern chatter the pale ports o’ the moon.

I said to Dawn: Be sudden—to Eve: Be soon;      

  With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over

        From this tremendous Lover—

Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!

  I tempted all His servitors, but to find

My own betrayal in their constancy,

In faith to Him their fickleness to me,

  Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.

To all swift things for swiftness did I sue;

  Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.

      But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,     

    The long savannahs of the blue;

        Or whether, Thunder-driven,

    They clanged his chariot ’thwart a heaven,

Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o’ their feet:—

  Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.       

      Still with unhurrying chase,

      And unperturbèd pace,

    Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

      Came on the following Feet,

      And a Voice above their beat—       

    ‘Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.’

His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.

Whether man’s heart or life it be which yields

  Thee harvest, must Thy harvest-fields

  Be dunged with rotten death?

      Now of that long pursuit

    Comes on at hand the bruit;

  That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:

    ‘And is thy earth so marred,

    Shattered in shard on shard?

  Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!

  Strange, piteous, futile thing!

Wherefore should any set thee love apart?

Seeing none but I makes much of naught’ (He said),

‘And human love needs human meriting:

  How hast thou merited—

Of all man’s clotted clay the dingiest clot?

  Alack, thou knowest not

How little worthy of any love thou art!

Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,

  Save Me, save only Me?

All which I took from thee I did but take,

  Not for thy harms,

But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms.

  All which thy child’s mistake

Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:

  Rise, clasp My hand, and come!’

  Halts by me that footfall:

  Is my gloom, after all,

Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?

  ‘Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,

  I am He Whom thou seekest!

Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.’

The Process Continues

The process of trying to understand the conflict here, that is.

I certainly don't have it figured out yet. However, if you are interested in learning more yourself, here's a link to an article I found to be informative and humorous.

I was also just introduced to the short movie "West Bank Story" which can also be described as rather informative and humorous (especially if you've ever seen "West Side Story" or any other musical). It's about 20 minutes long, and in my opinion, well worth the watch. If the embedded video below doesn't work, try the link above.

As a side note, you may wonder why both the article and movie are humorous. Frankly, the humor helps us avoid utter despair. For people who live with this daily or even think about it daily, it can be very discouraging. You start trying to think of solutions: "If only the Jews would do this, if only the Arabs would do that..." And then you realize that those are concessions that will never be made. And even if they were made, they might just make more problems. And even if they did help, there are still hundreds of other problems. Seeing a little humor in the situation can help lighten the burden.

Humor aside, though, as I examine the situation here and learn more and more about it, I am left with the realization that, as cliched as it sounds, our only real hope for peace in the Middle East is found in Christ. Different people might have different ideas of what this looks like, whether peace will only occur at the second coming of Jesus to the earth or whether it can happen slowly, though one changed heart at a time. Either way Jesus is our only hope. And for now, while we may not be able to solve the entire Middle East Crisis, we can do our part to bring the peace of Christ to individuals. In spite of what look like insurmountable difficulties, let us not give up or despair.

"And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart." ~Galatians 6:9 (NKJV)

Galilee, Day 3

October 27, 2008

Time for more tea and more impressions. Today was another full day. I’ll start with the highlights (places I enjoyed most).

1. I got to see the Jordan River! I think I may have caught a glimpse of it before, but for heaven’s sake! This is the end of my second month in Israel on my second trip here. The Jordan is one of the most famous places in this land, probably mostly because of spirituals. I mean, really, rarely would you meet someone who has heard of Beth Shean, much less knows where it is. Everyone knows about the Jordan. So it was about time that I got to see it! I was a little disappointed that the waters didn’t part when I put my foot in it, but I guess I wasn’t carrying the ark, after all, and shouldn’t be too distraught. I did get to see an amazing green and orange bird, though, so that made up for it.

2. Dr. Wright surprised us with a boat ride this morning! We just went out for a bit and came back, but it was lovely. It was interesting to learn a bit about fishing and the types of nets used. The best part was seeing Dr. Wright walk on water, though. It was nice that the rain let up for most of the ride too.
3. Mt. Arbel. Enough said. Ok, maybe not. We got to hike down the cliff and look into a few of the caves.
I didn’t see as many caves as I would have liked because I didn’t think I’d have time before it got dark. Oh well. It still amuses me so much that they have hand hold and foot holds built into the trail. I mean, it’s really nice. I’m not sure that I would have been brave enough otherwise to come down it, especially since it was a bit slick after the rain. But the trail really wasn’t much worse than some places around Natural Bridge or Monument, and those don’t have hand-holds. We joke around that in America if someone falls off a cliff they or their surviving kin sue for damages (“Why didn’t you warn me that standing near a cliff was dangerous?!”) In Israel they say, “Oh, you fell off a cliff? Stupid you.” As true as that may be, they sure have a lot more signs and rails and such around here. Of course, that is probably because it also has a denser population. These places probably get hundreds of visitors weekly, if not daily. Monetarily it just isn’t feasible to put these sort of safe guards all over Montana. At any rate, back to the point, Arbel was really beautiful. We even saw a bit of a rainbow, which pretty much made my day. We serve an amazing God!
Those were the beginning, ending, and somewhere in the middle of my day. The rest of the day wasn’t bad. We went to Qazrin, Kursi, and Capernaum. All of which I had been to before. In fact, the only new place for me today was the Jordan. I got to see a few different parts of the places I’d been (like the cistern at Kursi
and the “flying-saucer-church” at Capernaum) and I got to hear a different perspective on some things along with some new information, but a lot of it was review. Which isn’t bad. I admit, though, as much as I need review, I enjoy learning new things more.

Fortuantely, I did learn some new things. 
1. I learned that this northern area had 5 geo-political divisions (Philip’s territory, Galilee, Tyre/Syrio-phonecia, Decapolis, and Samaria. Of those, only Galilee was “Comfortably Jewish,” and it was in the middle of all the rest. By putting his home base here, Jesus was still focused on the Jews, but available to all sorts of people.
2. I learned that the job description of a disciple was someone that Jesus wanted so they could be with him. (Mark 3:13-14) We also talked a little about the 12 – their backgrounds and such.
3. When Jesus “crossed over” the sea He probably didn’t go straight across it in either direction. It probably was often as little as from Capernaum to Bethsaida: simply a crossing from one of the five ‘valleys’ around the sea to the next one, or similarly, from one geopolitical region to the next.
4. In Mark 5:1 Jesus arrives in one of these regions from somewhere “across” the sea. Some translations call it the “Land of the Gadarenes” or Gedera. Others call it Gerasa, and get others say it was Gergasa. The funny thing about Gerasa especially is that it is about 40 miles from the Sea of Galilee and 3000ft higher. That translation doesn’t seem so likely. Gedera is closer but still a ways from the sea. The only one really on the sea (which is pretty necessary for this story) is Gergasa (today known as Kursi). All three places have remains of Byzantine churches to commemorate this event. I think we’ll get to visit Gerasa on our Jordan trip.
This is at the church at Gergasa:

5. At Qazrin (or Qatzrin or to really Americanize it, Katsrine) we heard a story about wine-making at JUC. Sounded pretty nasty. We watched a video about the Talmud. I found it really terribly confusing. I couldn’t follow the logic of the presentation. We also looked there at a reconstructed house and the remains of a Synagog from near Jesus’ time. It gave a decent idea of what He would have been familiar with, and what he probably built as a carpenter in his own village.
6. Logically, if Joseph was going to Bethlehem for the census, that would mean he was from there and probably had family of some sort still there. Which means he probably would have stayed with family. In Middle Easter culture, generally there is a front “public” room where guests stay. A little further in is the room where the animals stay in inclement weather. Since the shepherds were out watching their flocks, we must assume that it was summer and the weather was fine and there were no animals in the “stable.” In a sense, then, it was an honor for Mary and Joseph to be taken out of that public room and brought further back into the house. Now that’s quite a different take on the story of the nativity.
7. At Capernaum it poured. For probably about 10 minutes.
We weren’t in it for most of the time, but we did manage to get fairly wet. We sat out most of it in the church built over the supposed sight of Peter’s house (or that of his in-laws) where Jesus is supposed to have stayed.

I’ll end with that. Time to go re-pack and make sure I’m all set to head “home” tomorrow. Strange how quickly Jerusalem has become home. I’ve enjoyed Galilee, but I’ll be glad to go back too.