anti-semitism lives

One Easter Sunday when our family was still attending church we chose to stay close to home by attending the charming wooden Catholic church across from the corner store in the village of Lagunitas. In spite of quaint appearances, this Easter ended up causing me great offense. In telling the Easter story, the priest spoke blamefully of the Jews for crucifying Jesus, as though there were a throng of awful Jewish people who killed this poor Christian fellow that was the Messiah of the gentiles.

Even in lovely Lagunitas, anti-semitism lives. Anti-semitism, the crusades, the inquisition and the pogroms are facts of life for us. They are part of our history. They have caused us to associate Jesus with hypocrisy in the church and with the genocide of our people. Any inclination to inquire about who Jesus really was has been crushed by centuries of ill will. We have much to overcome before we can make an honest inquiry of Jesus.

Yet these historical tragedies do not speak to the teachings and meaning of Y'shua and the salvation he brings. That very text, the New Testament, which rouses the mistrust, resentment and fear of so many Jews, holds a treasure for us, if we can only find the courage to open it and read. It is rightfully ours. On the cover of my bible I have written, “Every word herein I own.” The first thing you find when you open the New Testament is a story of Christ's life by Matthew Levi, the tax collector who was called by Y’shua to be one of the twelve disciples. It written specifically for the Israelite reader of his time.

salvation is for the Jews

When Jesus lived and died, there was no such thing as a Christian or a Jew. There were Israelites, and Jesus was very much one of them. He came to his own people as one of his own people, offering salvation to his people, very much an heir to the traditions and covenant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, through the lineage of David, prophesied and proclaimed as Messiah throughout the Old Testament.

You know that Jesus was a Jew and that his last supper with the disciples was a Passover seder. Did you also know that Matthew, Mark, John, Paul and Peter were Jews? In fact, of all the writers of the Old and New Testaments combined, there is only one non-Jewish writer, and that is Luke (whom we might also claim since he’s a doctor.) (That's a joke.)

Saul was a Pharisee who persecuted the Israelites that followed Y’shua ha’Mashiach, hunting them down and imprisoning them. One day he met with the risen Messiah on the road to Damascus and had a change of heart when Y’shua threw him off his horse and challenged him. Calling himself Paul, he visited, taught and wrote letters to the new churches shortly after Christ’s death. Those letters make up much of the New Testament.

Peter insisted that gentiles were not worthy of salvation in Y’shua, until God showed him that he wanted all his creation to partake of the gift. The first debate among the early believers was over whether or not gentiles had to become Jews first in order to become Christians.

Y’shua and the salvation that Isaiah prophesied were intended for the Jews first, as God’s new covenant with his chosen people.

So you see that as Jews we can look back on a rich heritage of forefathers and mothers who accepted Jesus as the Messiah, some of whom made this brave choice during Jesus' own lifetime or shortly thereafter, risking their lives to do so. They also had a lot to overcome, in the face of the Jewish establishment as well as the Romans. Why did these Jews make such a choice?

completely Jewish, completely Christian

One of my greatest joys is retracing the footsteps of my Jewish ancestors as I learn their history in the bible. I imagine myself walking through the desert sands of Zion with my feet in their footprints. I am journeying back to the Lord of my people, and the bastardizations of Christianity that have hurt us so deeply will not keep me from finding the source of our existence. I have found it in the Lord and in Y'shua ha'Mashiach.

The completion of my Judaism in accepting Y’shua ha’Mashiach is a most natural way to live and worship God as a Jew. I am more Jewish now than I’ve ever been. I spend my time reading the great Jewish writers: David, Moses, Solomon, Peter, Paul, Ezekiel, the brilliantly poetic John, and others. I attend Shabbat with a congregation of Jewish believers and Christians who have a great love for the Jewish people. The rabbi there is particularly gifted at clarifying how Y’shua ha’Mashiach is present in the Old Testament traditions and writings.

I am also a complete Christian. I attend church, where the revered Jewish words and figures of the Old Testament are honored, analyzed, memorized, savored and treasured at length every week. Amongst Christians I am a fellow believer and yet I remain Jewish. When we Jews rise above our habitual persecution mindset, we find many Christians that have a great love in their hearts for the Jewish people.

If being Jewish were only about recipes and jokes and a few words of Yiddish, who would care about being a Jew? If being a Jew were only associated with victimhood and persecution, then Judaism wouldn’t have lasted through all the ages of trials. If being a Jew were only about following the law, then the Jewish faith would be all form and no heart. Being a Jew is about a covenant with the Lord that started with Abraham. It is about being a part of the grandest story of God’s self-disclosure, our rejection of God, our longing for God, and our reunion with God. The flow from the Old Testament to the New is seamless. God reveals himself from Genesis through Malachi and continues with the Gospels and the revelation of God's word made flesh.

The thread of my newfound faith in Messiah reaches back to God’s covenant with Abraham, through Isaac, Jacob, David and Y’shua, and forward to your grandfather Abraham, in honor of whom you gave me the middle name Abby, and on to you, me and my children. My faith in God connects me to my namesake Abraham, connects me to all believers, Jew and gentile, and looking forward, since God resides in a place beyond time, it connects me to God eternal.

end: bulldog

I continue to experience the drenching of the Ruach HaKodesh, or Holy Spirit, that I received on that memorable Easter when I was saved. I continue to cry uncontrollably, and my hunger for God grows. I am happy to be serving my Lord and learning what it means to be part of the body of Christ. Child of the bulldog that I am, I am part bulldog myself. Therefore I care less and less how others may judge, condemn or reject me. I am prepared to stand firm for my faith, to howl God's praises and bow before the mighty throne. Every meeting with the Holy Spirit is a confirmation that life lived in service to God is the only life worth living.

The little ceramic bulldog has been sitting before me as I have written this letter. I am uncertain still as to his purpose in relation this letter. Perhaps you have an answer. Or maybe it is a simple thing. I know that in a recent imaginary interview you had with one of your bulldogs, he reminded you that dog spelled backwards is God. Well, bulldog spelled backwards is Godllub. God is llub, and God does indeed llub you and me, and it is to celebrate and sing praises to the llub of God that this letter is offered to you, my father.