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. ~~+~~

 

 

A Memory Tree (by Peter A. Black)

Our Christmas tree stands in our livingroom, handsomely adorned with a multitude of decorations. Its limbs bear miniature lights, shiny multicoloured balls and silvered icicle spirals that gently spin when we walk by. There are also faux crystal snowflakes and icicles, among a host of cute, colourful tree decorations, too numerous to mention.

But our festive tree is more than a seasonal display of colour and dollar store trinkets, although many do lend to its glory. I reckon it’s a memory tree, for several reasons. For example: Two dainty white crocheted angels remind my wife and me of our time in Watford, Ontario, and Guide Country. ‘Grandma’ Tippel was more than one hundred years old and residing in Victoria Manor, a care residence, when she fashioned them. A cute wishing well was made by another acquaintance.

Less adorned this time,

but still lots of memories.

Several needlepoint items were the handiwork of our youngest son Jerome and his buddy Heather, when they were in elementary school, three decades ago. Heather’s now married and mother of three children. Jerome’s in his nineteenth year in school teaching. He's deeply engaged in theatre – acting and singing, and sometimes directing.

A paper pie plate decoration our youngest granddaughter Abigail made at Miss Teresa’s preschool has a manger scene and the message, Jesus: God’s Gift to the World. She’s in grade five now.

Memories. My wife recalls where many more of the tree ornaments came from than I do – such as gifts from children she child-minded or baby-sat and who are now adults. Naturally, she has a deeper connection than I with those items on the tree.

Do you associate decorative pieces on your Christmas tree or other seasonal decorations with people from your past or present? Just the other day I realized that the answers May gave to my enquiries as to how we acquired some of ours increased my enjoyment of the season. 

Memories. Our parents weren’t able to give my sisters and me fancy or expensive gifts. I don’t view this as a disadvantage now, though. Instead, I’m convinced that it taught us gratitude and appreciation for the simple, small things, and to marvel at the kindness shown to us by others. Occasionally, more expensive gifts came to us from people outside the family. Often they were people whom our parents had helped out in some way.

So much for memories associated with our tree and its pretty ornaments. Each year the Christmas tree reminds me that the One who is the First Cause of all Creation came from realms of heavenly glory and, for a time, made His home on earth amongst the poor and lowly. His first earthly dwelling was an animal shelter and His bed a manger cradle.

My grateful musings don’t end there, for the Christmas tree also urges my thoughts forward more than thirty years in the gospel narratives, to the cross. Of all the trees in Palestine at that time, one – perhaps haphazardly chosen – was honoured to bear his wounded broken body, serving as the ultimate altar of sacrifice.

Yes, that tree was no doubt growing during the time that this Child grew from his bed in manger hay to manhood; the Child who was destined to die upon the tree in gruesome agony and blood, as the Saviour and Redeemer of the world.

The apostle Paul didn’t have an ornamented Christmas tree to brag about, for the tradition began centuries later. And yet he said, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14 NIV).

Paul memorialized The Tree – the spiritual reality and ideal of the Cross – and lived out its meaning.

Do you have a ‘memory tree’? Enjoy your tree and cherish your memories, but don't forget The Tree and the One who hung upon it.

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The original edition of the above updated and adapted article was published in The Watford Guide-Advocate, Dec. 11, 2014.

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Peter's second book is a compilation of inspirational articles on a variety of themes from his weekly column. These are interspersed with brief expressions intended to encourage. Ebook edition is available through Amazon.

 

ISBN: 978-0-9920074-2-3 (Angel Hope Publishing)

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Peter's first book: “Parables from the Pond” – a children's / family book (mildly educational, inspirational in orientation, character reinforcing). Finalist – Word Alive Press. ISBN: 1897373-21-X. The book has found a place in various settings with a readership ranging from kids to senior adults.Black's inspirational column, P-Pep! appears weekly in The Standard Guide-Advocate (of Southwestern Ontario). His articles have appeared in 50 Plus Contact and testimony, and several newspapers in Ontario.

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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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Under the Cross - M. Laycock

I stepped into my Jr. High Sunday School class and studied the wall. I team-teach so often when it’s my turn there are new and surprising things that have been put up in my absence. This time the effect was startling.

A large portion of the wall was covered with newspaper clippings. They were the kind I often skip after reading the headlines. Titles like, Child Pornographer Caught; Rape Victim Testifies; Stabbing Shocks Quiet Town. Disturbing words. Disturbing images. Then I noticed there was a large piece of paper spread over the top. It bore one small word that encapsulated all the headlines. The word was ‘Sin.’

And there was something even larger layered on top of it all – the shape of a large cross.

As I said, the effect was startling. I’ve known since I first became a Christian that Jesus took my sins away by giving his life on the cross, but somehow seeing the words and images on that wall brought it home and impress it upon my mind and heart. I was struck once again by the magnitude of what he did when he took the sin of the world upon his shoulders.

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

As I peered at the wall I thought of what it means to all of us, that such sins could be forgiven. I am a firm believer in justice but I am tremendously thankful that our God is a person of mercy. Without his mercy none of us could find peace and wholeness in our lives; none of us could hope for the blessings of heaven and eternal life. But because of his mercy the moment we accept his sacrifice, acknowledge our sin and proclaim Jesus as our saviour, we are free – free to own life as it was intended to be, and to welcome death as a portal into His presence.

There are a lot of sins buried under the image of the cross. There are a lot of sins yet to be transferred there. Where do your sins lie?