In our Jesus Sing at WW's nursing home Sunday morning, I mentioned that President's Day had been the previous Monday. "Who were America's greatest?" I asked. Of course Lincoln and Washington were named. Then I described how different they had been: one born in wealth and owning a plantation at Mt.Vernon VA and the other born in a KY log cabin, then schooling himself at night in a home where light from the fireplace was all that could be afforded. One a soldier aristocrat coming out of rural retirement with his wife, Martha, to preside over the second Continental Congress, then be made general of the Continental Army and finally get unamously chosed as our first president; the second going into politics in IL, becoming a lawyer, loosing in his bid for the state senate, and finally getting elected by a minority of the popular vote to be president and then re-elected, in which office he was assassinated at the start his second term. Both had worked as surveyors before becoming public figures and both were involved in major wars: Revolutionary in the 18th and Civil War in the 19th century.
Next, I asked the residents to name the greater of the two. They all said "Washington, because he was father of our country" and prayed at Valley Forge when everything seemed lost. I agreed that he had been both a man of war and also of peace, but that the rest of the world considers Abraham Lincoln as the greatest American. He was a only a civilian, instead. And he came from the bottom rather than the top of society. His presidency ended slavery, which Washington had tolerated. The residents seemed a little startled by this claim, but all of us agreed that the patriotism, which other nations don't feel toward our leaders, causes us to give #1 place to the very first one. Later I thought about Israel in the Bible. Moses surely was the greatest leader of all 12 tribes, and then so was their second king, David. Yet even Solomon in all his glory, who built the first Temple plus so much more, never came up to the level of either Moses or David. Still, the greatest of all their leaders would be rejected: "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." And so GOD brougnt a new Israel into existence. It is based on the Twelve Apostles instead of Jacob's twelve sons. And this "Israel of GOD" is the holy catholic church (ecclesia, which means "those called out" of a perishing world). Organized religion thinks it is Christianity, but the Bible's name is "the Kingdom of Heaven" wherein greatness is measured quite differently from how it is in this world: "he that is greatest among you shall be your servant" said Jesus.
Danny Pearl's execution by Muslim terrorists seems to me an echo of 9/11, where Jew hating suicide bombers turned themselves and Jumbo-jets full of passengers into missile weapons that destroyed the WTC. Just as it epitomized world commerce in which NYC Jews play such a major role, so the Wall Street Journal was targeted in the person of the Jew, Danny Pearl. Middle East hostility between Sharon and Arafat (Israelis and Palestinians), keeps spreading to the ends of the earth and Armageddon's prelude is happening before our eyes. If ObL proves to be still alive, Islam may see it as Allah's protection; the same way they might interpret Sadam's long survival in Iraq where he's the only one yet in power of those national leaders during the Gulf War over a decade ago. We seem to have broadened Operation Enduring Freedom from only ObL's al-Qaeda network to going after that whole Axis of Evil: Iraq, Iran and N.Korea. Thus Saddam's days are surely numbered now. If only he could see the writing on the wall and get out before he has to be taken out somehow. Hopefully, we won't resort to assassination of terrorist leaders as the Israeli's have been doing. Nor should we start using "disinformation," which means propaganda lies. Next we'd consider biological warfare, since anthrax was used on us by terrorists from somewhere (maybe of our own population like the OKC bomber). I've even heard CIA discussion of torture to get the captives to talk. To stop terrorists, do we have to sink down to their level? Heaven forbid, for how could we then ask the Lord to help us? Those at Gitmo have been treated very properly in my opinion. They've even had a Muslim chaplin ministering to them. Except I wish we'd given them Bibles instead of copies of the Koran. Their belief included the Old & New Testament. Soon it's going to be mighty hot down there weatherwise, so here's a recommendation that they tear pages from their Korans and make fans for themselves.
I read from Jeremiah in the Bible this morning about the cruel way he was treated by his fellow Jews just for telling them the truth. King Zedekiah was afraid of his military leaders who wanted to fight the Chaldeans instead of submitting to them as the Lord demanded. At one place He even called Nebuchadnezzer His servant. When the angry Jews threw Jeremiah into that well full of slime, one witness told the king who had his men rescue the prophet. Then king Zedekiah priately asked Jeremiah of the future and was told that if he didn't surrender that Jerusalem would be burned and he would be killed. It came to pass and the Babylonians put Gedeliah in charge of a remnant in the and. He reuled at Mizpah and asked Jeremiah if they should flee to Egypt. When told not to go, he had other strong leaders who insisted, though Jeremiah said the sword of Babylon would reach clear into Egypt to punish them. So Jeremiah, who had been given his freedom by the Babylonians, was carried off as a prisoner by fellow Jews to Egypt. What a costly career for him to be Yahweh's spokesman. His "bad news" would have been good if God's people had given heed to it. Gedeliah had been killed before they went down to Egypt by a terrorist named Ishmael. And that made me thing of our war against current Islamic terrorism. Though claiming to speak for Allah, they try to control events toward their own goals as I see it. Egypt was the land of bondage to ancient Israel, and going down there for safety must have seemed abhorrant to many of them. But they feared the wrath of Nebuchadnezzer because Gedeliah had been murdered by a ridical of their own number, Ishmael. Islam today is suffering the same fate beause of those among them defaming their faith.
I awoke this morning to continue a sort of waking dream that I was witnessing a nail being driven into the hand of Jesus. And it came as a voice or insight, "Here is where the Father connected to the Son." I went on to consider that Jesus was not yet lifted up, but laying on the ground (even that I might be driving the nail). "He laid down His life for us" came to mind as I reflected. The Lord was not one to lay down, but He was forced down by those Roman soldiers, who then raised the cross and dropped it into the ditch prepared. I wondered if eating the loaf of Communion could be "driving the nail." It was the first piercing of His divine body. Was the left or the right one first? Somehow I feel it was His right, the one lifted to calm the storm on Galilee as He spoke those words "Peace, be still." Thus, the Father Creator above and beyond the universe, connects to humanity through that nail. In it, something really got nailed down for certain. Maybe this was a vision for Good Friday 2002.