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Opinion
An Easter reminder
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Sitting in church Sunday, the day that our Democrat Congress voted in Obamacare, my mind wandered a bit.
It was the week before Palm Sunday and our preacher illustrated the fact that Jesus knew what fate was awaiting him in Jerusalem the next few days. Yes the leaders of the Jewish "church" of the time managed to have this upstart murdered.
He had fatally preached that he was the long-promised Messiah. The faceless Jewish leaders knew that if his claim were true then the "church" as they knew it would be in for big changes. It took back-door deals and night time chicanery, but those faceless leaders managed to get the Romans to murder Jesus. Nice and clean, case closed!
The church hierarchy and their jobs of course remained intact.
How did that work out? Well the status quo remained for almost 70 years until the Romans had enough of those fractious Jews. Rome the world power of the time destroyed the Temple the seat of Jewish culture and political power. Jews were scattered to the four corners of the earth. They never were to be united as a people again until the formation of modern-day Israel in 1949 some 1,900 years later.
The Jewish religion and culture survived in a hundred countries in as many different forms. Primarily, the Jewish people gathered in communities centered on small synagogues. They kept themselves apart from the politics and religion of whatever country where they happened to be. It was that they were Jew first and Russian or German or other government governing where they had chosen as home second.
The musical production "Fiddler on the Roof" is a story of a Jewish community being broken apart because they refused to join in Russian culture and citizenship responsibilities of their home country. The story in Germany was even more brutal, with millions meeting death in the holocaust only because Hitler and his Nazis hated their apartness.
Yes "they" managed to murder Jesus but a whole new body of faith evolved through the 1,600 some years that followed. The government of the United States of America was founded on Christian principles. In the U.S., the power of the government was to be limited and individual citizens were free to conduct their lives as each saw fit--it was called liberty. Sure, rules evolved to assure civil conduct and the government had the power to conduct war to protect the country's interests. The government was to be responsive to the will of the people through representatives chosen to govern as a republic.
Those Christian principles, liberty and freedom of the people to labor and produce as each saw fit combined to build the most wonderful, prosperous and dynamic country that the world has ever seen. We were Americans first then Christian, Jewish, Irish, Mexican or whatever second. It worked!
The Jews, too, saw the light and when they had the chance they created a modern Israel as a secular democratic government much like the United States. They have made their desert bloom. Jews from around the world are welcomed as they immigrate to Israel. When they arrive though they become Israelis first and then Jew. Israel has had their share of problems with liberals in their government and now they have to deal with a U.S. President who harbors definite dislike for their country.
Unfortunately no matter how good a thing a people have going there always seems to be a fly that gets into the ointment. Economically, our country was in trouble in the 1930s, so a liberal leaning government decided that they should hand out government largess to individuals to "stimulate" the economy. Grateful those individuals would show their appreciation by voting for those liberals who had handed out the unearned money. That free money became an "entitlement" and whenever the liberals needed more votes they created more entitlements. The entitlement programs, Social Security, Medicare and especially Medicaid began to be troubled from poor management so the progressive's (the term liberal has fallen from favor) answer is to create another entitlement program. And so it is appropriate that our left leaning liberal government on a Sabbath day has created another huge mandatory entitlement program. It would be only appropriate for our President to sign the monstrosity, called Obamacare, into law on Good Friday. This one might not work out too well! Like the Jews of old, we may be in for big changes.
That is the way I saw it!