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May they live in peace

May they live in peace

I have told you my story of how I and my followers became wanted by the authorities. We were hunted by the police of the temple after I confronted the High Priest and his group and challenged them for desecrating the holy temple by allowing the holy court yard to be used as a market place.

We left Jerusalem and took refuge in Caesarea, Philippi, and Tyre near the sea. We stayed there a while, and many people believed in me and were cured. Peter emerged as a committed leader, convinced that all the good they would do would overcome the “gates of hell.” Evil would not have the victory; truth, justice, compassion, and good deeds would win out in the end. That is faith. I taught my disciples that doing good for others is loving God and opposing suffering and wrongdoing.

Then we returned to Galilee for some months and eventually went up to Jerusalem again, as my mission was to teach a new way of life where compassion, love of neighbor, and caring for others were the heart of the New Community I wanted to establish. A community where social justice would direct society and people would have greater equality and there would be no more hunger and injustice.

Yes, that was my dream. I believed that one day such a happy kingdom in Israel and beyond would come to be a reality, and I hope you can share that dream with the world, believe it with conviction, and live so that it will happen some day.

At present, Israel is waging war yet again against the people that inhabit Palestine. There is great violence on both sides, but Israel has killed the greatest number: 43,000 Palestinians who are killed. Thousands more suffer hunger, want, and have been driven from their homes. They are mostly innocent civilians that are being killed every day by Israel‘s military force.

They are a people occupied, as were the people of Israel occupied by the Roman army and suffered the oppression and suffering. The people rose up in rebellion, killed many Romans, and gained their freedom.

The leaders of Israel had rejected my message of non-violence and failed to have compassion, justice, mercy, and peace in a New Community. They had a short-lived freedom. After two years, the mighty Roman army returned and defeated the People of Israel in a catastrophe event. I predicted that the temple would be destroyed. I said not one stone would be left upon another, and so it was when the Holy Temple was destroyed by the Romans.

Today the Palestines suffer a great catastrophe, one of many in 76 years. Israel will suffer a spiritual and political catastrophe of its own. I too am a Jew, and as I was rejected when on earth, so too have they rejected my message of mercy, justice, compassion, peace, and reconciliation with the Palestinians for 76 years.

Justice and peace are far off, and my message and offer of building a new community still stand if both sides can ever have trust and accept it as the way forward to a better life living side by side in peace.

Come again and reflect with me. Jesus.

Picture of Zacchaeus

Zacchaeus

Zacchaeus in the Bible was a man whose life-changing encounter with Jesus was recorded by Luke (Luke 19:1–10). Zacchaeus was one of the head tax collectors in the region of Jericho, and the Bible says he was a rich man. Jewish tax collectors like Zacchaeus were scorned by their countrymen for a couple of reasons: one, they were known for cheating the taxpayers; and, two, they worked for Rome. The other Jews saw Jewish tax collectors as collaborators with the enemy—traitors to their own people.

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