Musing on a Lion and a Lamb

Credit: Pngtree.jpg

They call him The King of Beasts. His rippling musculature and regal bearing attract the attention and admiration of many people towards the lion. Those who live in regions lions inhabit also respect and fear them.

These animals are well equipped for both defence and attack, with powerful jaws, strong eyeteeth fangs, sharp retractable claws, and great strength. A magnificent mane further contributes towards an adult male’s kingly appearance.

My experience with live lions has been at the safe distance afforded by security barriers in places such as zoos and safari parks.

When growing up in the UK I enjoyed having Lyle’s Golden Syrup® spread on toast. Its sturdy metal container continues to display a picture of a dead lion with bees flying in and out of its decaying carcase, in which they’d constructed a honeycomb. A caption reads, “Out of the strong came forth sweetness.”  

Tate & Lyle®

Samson, an Old Testament hero and judge, while travelling one day, encountered a lion and killed it. Some time after, when passing the rotting carcase, he noticed that a swarm of bees had constructed a honeycomb inside it, laden with honey. He took some and ate it, then later posed this riddle for his friends and invited them to explain it, offering a prize for whoever might solve it: “Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness” (Judges 14:14 JKV).

Here’s a more poetic version: “Out of the eater came something to eat. Out of the strong came something sweet” (NRSV). If any of Samson’s friends had seen that carcase and noticed the bees and honey, they might have guessed the answer; however, none did.

Credit: FreeImages.com

Good Friday services don’t normally focus on a lion, but on a lamb, suggestive of gentleness and innocence – The Lamb of God. Jesus Christ, Son of God – the world’s one absolutely innocent man, offering Himself up to God as the perfect sacrifice for humanity’s sin.

Therefore, on Good Friday we consider Jesus’ betrayal, His unjust trials and condemnation and rejection. He willingly submitted Himself to whipping, beatings and the agonies of death by crucifixion amidst the indignities of public nakedness on a Roman cross. His sacrifice was supreme, final and all-sufficient. He permitted Himself to be led “like a lamb to the slaughter” (Isaiah 53:7).

Credit: mom.me

Revelation, the last book of the Bible, frequently represents Him as The Lamb (e.g. Rev. 5:6), but presents Him also as The Lion: “. . . See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah . . . has triumphed” (Rev. 5:5)! The commanding power and force associated with the lion reflect the character and accomplishment of Christ.

And so, Easter Sunday’s celebration of His resurrection and victory over sin, death, hell and the grave, honours our conquering Saviour, who is “King of kings and Lord of Lords” (cf. Revelation: 19:16).

Jesus’ meekness was not weakness. His meekness or gentleness was strength under control. I pray that we each experience the sweetness of God’s amazing grace and strength through embracing Jesus as the rightful King of our lives – our Living and Loving Lord.

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Peter A. Black is a retired pastor – well, sort of retired – and lives in Southwestern Ontario. He writes a weekly inspirational newspaper column, P-Pep! and is author of Raise Your Gaze ... Mindful Musings of a Grateful Heart, and Parables from the Pond – a children's / family book. ~~+~~

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Law, Not War? Rather, Love! (By Peter Black)

He and his wife have given millions of dollars for charitable purposes, yet they live in a small, modest bungalow in Florida. Ben came to North America from Eastern Europe in poverty and said he plans to finish his life that way.
 

Benjamin Ferencz.
Credit: Washington Post

His wife suffers from dementia, and his attentiveness and presence helps comfort and keep her stable. When he’s absent from her side, she misses him greatly. And so, this retired lawyer turns down numerous requests from around the world asking him to address conferences and speak at universities. That’s love.

Credit: Washington Post

Ben (Benjamin) Ferencz is the last surviving prosecutor of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials that were held shortly after the end of World War II. At only twenty-seven years of age he was appointed chief prosecutor of the Nazi extermination squads, considered the biggest murder trial in human history. Now at the age of ninety-seven his passion for peace-making burns as fervent and bright as ever!

Ferencz was Anna Maria Tremonti’s guest on CBC’s The Current, on Tuesday, March 21, 2017. I listened, intrigued by his personality, life and passion. He doesn’t take vacations, but continues to educate, inform and influence others as best he can, even though no longer touring the world. His mantra asserts that “Law, not War” and persistent education and resolution of conflicts is the better way. Armaments won’t do it, he insists.

Ben Ferencz’s passion reverberates in my mind today and somehow interacts with my own thoughts and journey during this meditative season of Lent.

Inter-church Lenten services are held in my community. I’m inspired by them and thoroughly appreciate fellowship with people from other denominational affiliations.

Sure, we may differ in some doctrinal particulars and practises. Fact is though, that God is not beholden to me and neither are those people. But, I am beholden to God and it is incumbent on me to recognize His grace as extended towards and expressed through those who believe that Jesus is Christ, the Son of God, our Lord and Saviour, who gave His life and shed His blood to redeem us from our sins and reconcile us to God.

I feel the warmth of fellowship “in Christ” with many, regardless of race and colour, and we mutually embrace each other as Christ-followers. That’s also love.

We hear much about mistrust, anger and hate directed towards “the other,” in our society and in the world at large, today. In harmony with Mr. Ferencz, I acknowledge that information and education can play a part, and that laws banning expressions of hate and hateful acts might help.

Trailer Credit: maxresdefault ; YouTube

I admire and appreciate what I’ve learned of this remarkable human being, Ben Ferencz. The film, A Man Can Make A Difference, tells his story. I’m sure the world is a better place because of his passionate commitment to justice for all.

Laws prescribe standards of behaviour, from domestic levels to international affairs. But will well-meant and well-worded laws change hearts? Surely the best laws are those that are indelibly inscribed in hearts and demonstrated through lives well-lived with understanding and practical love for others.

Jesus Christ’s accomplishment through the cross declares that self-giving and loving actions can help change attitudes and outcomes and can break down the walls of suspicion and mistrust that divide.  And yet, even He met with fierce opposition that led to His crucifixion and death. But was it not really His Divine love that held Him to the cross?

May the love of God our Father, through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, transform hearts today.

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Peter A. Black lives in Southwestern Ontario. He writes a weekly inspirational newspaper column, P-Pep! and is author of Raise Your Gaze ... Mindful Musings of a Grateful Heart, and Parables from the Pond. ~~+~~

 

 

The Gift of Honour on Mother's Day- HIRD

By Rev. Dr. Ed Hird

Mother Mary is the world’s most famous mother.  Her son Jesus honoured her while being crucified by passing on the care of his mother to the Apostle John.  In one of the seven last words from the cross, Jesus said: “Dear woman, behold your son, and to John: “Here is your mother.”  What an amazing honour and privilege that Jesus was giving John: to look after his mother.  How would you like to have been asked to look after the blessed Mother Mary? 

Jesus, who loved the Bible, rooted his life in the Ten Commandments.  At the heart of the Ten Commandments is the call to honour our mothers.  To honour is to love, to value and to cherish.  Mother’s Day reminds us that we need to honour our mothers 365 days a year, not just for 24 hours in May.  The Good Book tells us that if we honour our mothers, everyone wins.  Honouring our mothers even benefits ourselves by giving us a longer and better life. 

Because Mother Mary was a widow, Jesus was especially concerned about protecting and providing for his mother.  The Good book says that taking care of widows is at the heart of genuine religion.  If we do not honour the widows in our family and community, our religion is nothing but an empty pretense.  It is too easy for widows to be forgotten and discarded particularly when their health is failing and they become shut-ins.  Perhaps Jesus at this moment is reminding you of a widow you know whom you need to give a call.  Mother’s Day is a great time to let widowed mothers know that they are important parts of our community.

When Mary became a mother, she faced rejection and misunderstanding, even from her own fiancé Joseph.  God had to speak to Joseph and tell him that everything was okay.  It is never easy being a mother, especially in our current high-pressure culture.  Children are too easily seen as an inconvenience and a financial burden.  Mother Mary chose to sacrificially welcome her baby son Jesus into the world with her arms of love.  Motherhood is a life of sacrificial love.  Mothers love their children with a depth and passion, similar to how much Jesus loves each of us.  Right before his crucifixion, Jesus stood on the Mount of Olives crying “How often I wished to take you into my arms like a mother hen would her chicks”.  The well-known song by Mark Lowry includes the line: “Mary, did you know that your Baby Boy would one day walk on water? Mary, did you know that your Baby Boy would save our sons and daughters?”  

This Mother’s Day, we can honour the Mother Mary for her courage in giving birth to the saviour of the world.  We can also honour our own mothers who showed the courage to give birth to and raise us to adulthood.  Thank you, Mom.  We love you dearly.  Where would we be without you?

The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, Rector

St. Simon’s North Vancouver

Anglican Mission in Canada 

-an article for the May 2015 Deep Cove Crier 

-author of Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit and Battle for the Soul of Canada

Father, Forgive Them

We are in a forty day march toward Easter—the most significant event in human history. During the season of Lent, there is great value in reflecting on the significance and meaning of the cross. What would it have been like to be there—to have witnessed the death of Jesus on the cross? 

In my novel, The Soldier, the Terrorist and the Donkey King,

I portray the events of Passion Week from the perspective of Marcus Longinus, the Roman centurion who oversaw Christ's crucifixion. Here is an excerpt as seen through his eyes: 

Friday 10:00 a.m. April 7^th 30 AD

          Within me I knew there was something primeval about this position, the position on the cross. This is a man’s first nightmare, his worst nightmare. Here he hangs, naked, ripped open, nailed open, unable to cover himself. He is unprotected. He cannot hide; he cannot run. In shame and nakedness his tormentors lift him up. His sin is posted above his head. Body and soul are pried open, and he hangs fully exposed. He is exposed before heaven and the world—the world that has rejected him—the heaven that he has offended.

          Nothing can be worse. It breaks the strongest men.

          But he was silent. The Christ was silent. He was still—quiet—beneath the flesh piercing blows. I had never seen, or heard the like of it.

          It troubled me.

          Now that he was pinned and mounted, he summoned his strength, and raised his voice for all to hear.

          “Father,” he gasped, “forgive them . . . They don’t know . . . what . . . they are doing.”

          Then silence, troubling silence.

          I dismissed his words. I knew what I was doing.

          Claudius doubled over, as though punched in the stomach. He staggered off the back of the Skull and began vomiting.

          He’s green I suppose, green and soft, yet to be hardened by the sights and sounds of the battlefield. He reminded me of how I was, when I first arrived in Germania. A few more of these trips up the Skull, and the toughness will come.

          A squabble broke out over the messiah’s clothes. Who gets what? I intervened and said, “The purple robe goes to Octavian’s crew.”

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Like the centurion in this account, we often are confident that we know what we are doing, but nothing could be further from the truth.

David Kitz 

David's award winning novel can be purchased directly from his website: http://davidkitz.ca/opencart/

 

Supreme Symbol of Help and Hope (by Peter Black)

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A disaster happens somewhere in the world, and it’s likely that—where political systems allow—Red Cross personnel and vehicles, bearing the large emblem of a red cross on a white background, are dispatched in response, bearing emergency supplies to help people in desperate need of life-sustaining essentials. (Of course, we acknowledge that much good work is also contributed under the emblems of the Red Crescent and Red Crystal, among others.)

Scores of Christian-based NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) are often there helping, funded by donations from people like many of you, who embrace the message and meaning of the Cross. My niece Gillian works for a Christian-based NGO, and recently returned from central America, where she was involved in coordinating humanitarian projects. 

Hitler’s Nazi Swastika, with its angled (let’s say, bent and broken) arms, is perhaps the most widely reviled form of cross—the antithesis of the Cross of Christ; not of help and hope, but of hate and genocide.

I’m glad the Cross is the supreme symbol of help and hope in the world. Good Friday’s commemoration of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ reminds me that out of the ugliness of crucifixion—among the most excruciating, slow and painful forms of execution ever devised—has come healing, help and hope to countless millions.

It is reckoned that as many as 1,000,000 crucifixions took place throughout the provinces of the Roman Empire during the first century AD. Intended as punishment for criminals and rebels, it also served as a warning to others. Yet, only one crucifixion, one victim and one cross led to the ugliness of crucifixion’s becoming this revered symbol of help and hope. And that was when Jesus of Nazareth—the helper, the healer, the friend—died on an old rugged cross. 

Why should this stake of barbaric execution, with its dark and bloody association with the torture of the worst of criminals, be revered and embraced as a beloved symbol? The cross is forever beautified by the One who hung upon it—the sinless Son of God incarnate who, through His sufferings and death, paid the price of all humanity’s sin and rebellion and resistance to God’s grace. 

Jesus was betrayed by a close associate, abandoned by those of His close circle, rejected by a frenzied crowd, and mocked by bigoted religious leaders who plotted his death, and forsaken by God His Heavenly Father. It was all in the divine plan, predicted centuries beforehand in various scriptures (e.g. as in Psalm 22; 41:9; Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Zechariah 12:10).

The Cross is offensive to some people, but it’s not so much the symbol, as its message (see 1 Corinthians 1:18-30). Is it offensive to your view of yourself and God? Does the biblical teaching that we humans have so offended God that we need to be redeemed and reconciled to Him, and forgiven and cleansed, offend you? Do you have difficulty accepting the assertion that we can’t do it by our own effort, all by ourselves?

The Cross strikes at our sense of self-sufficiency and self-dependence; knocks the notion that self-improvement is our pathway to our ultimate destiny and eventual delight. 

How wonderful the understanding that, since we’re unable to atone for our own sins (faults, failings, self-willed thoughts and actions, arising from human weakness) which separate us from a ‘right’ relationship with God, He in mercy provided the solution. In Jesus, God paid the debt, making possible our restoration to personal relationship with Him. 

The means was the Cross and the One who gave up His life on it: “. . . God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!” (Romans 5:8-9).  

Let us embrace more than this supreme symbol of help and hope, and in faith embrace the Christ of the Cross who is our help and hope—our Lord and Saviour, Redeemer and Friend. 

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Peter A. Black is a freelance writer in Southwestern Ontario, and is author of “Parables from the Pond” – a children's / family book."  (Finalist -- Word Alive Press ISBN 1897373-21-X )

His inspirational column, P-Pep! appears weekly in The Guide-Advocate. His articles have appeared in 50 Plus Contact and testimony, and several newspapers in Ontario.

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To be Served? Or to Serve? - Peter A. Black

“What is a weekend?” she asks, incredulous. Presumably, Lady Grantham – Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham – had never heard the term before. She frames the question, her steely eyes bulging and her expression conveying her typical overbearing air. She has no idea “how the other half lives.”

Veteran British actor Maggie Smith plays splendidly the imperious matriarch’s role. Violet heads the aristocratic Crawley family of the fictitious Grantham estate in the widely popular and critically acclaimed television series, “Downton Abbey.”

Lady Grantham’s whole existence having been spent as a member of the aristocracy, with her every need in life catered to by hired servants, resulted in her having no sense of common working-class people’s working long hours all week and looking forward to a break from their labour. Therefore, the idea of a weekend was a foreign concept to her. (By the way, I think Downton Abbey will likely be my favourite period series for a long time to come, and Lady “Granny” Grantham,” in some respects, steals the show!)

Set in a large manor home in England, with much of the filming done in a castle, the first series spans two years beginning with news of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 and concludes with the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. It provides insight into the cultural divide prevalent in the class consciousness of that time.

The second series concludes the war and follows developments to 1919, and in the process shows the distinctions between the classes beginning to break down. That was barely a century ago and is still within living memory for some.

Recently my Lenten journey approaching Good Friday and Easter transported me in thought on a trip to the Grantham household, in particular to considering “Granny Grantham.” To some extent she viewed that the role of the common classes was to serve, while her role and that of those in her privileged station in life was to be served.

For me, the inspirational significance dawned with the freshness of a bright spring morning in the immortal words of Jesus, the Incarnate Son of God, in declaring of Himself, “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”(Mark 10:45).

What a contrast – the Lord of glory, through whom the worlds were formed, voluntarily stepped into time, took on human flesh, assumed the role of a slave and served humanity with love and compassion, in truth and grace!

He knew beforehand that despite the healings and miracles He wrought by the power of God and His blessing of multitudes, many hearts would be hardened. Knew that they would reject Him and ultimately call for His crucifixion. Knew he would serve them and all humanity by giving His life up to the death on a cross; to be cruelly nailed – suspended, bleeding and broken in nakedness, at the crossroads of the nations. His life, a ransom.

A ransom is a price paid to redeem; that is, to buy back and reclaim. This is what Good Friday is about: Jesus Christ, promised Messiah and sinless Son of God, in agreement with the Divine Will, gave His life a ransom to redeem humanity from the curse of sin and bring us into restored relationship with God.

On the third day He arose. Resurrection Sunday. Unbounded joy!

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Peter Black writes a weekly inspirational column for Southwestern Ontario's The Watford Guide-Advocate. A version of this article is to be published there on April 5, 2012.
Black's children's / family book, "Parables from the Pond," is published by Word Alive Press; ISBN 1897373-21-X, and is available through Christian bookstores and Amazon.