Atheism: A Little Sympathy?

It was a matter of days before Jesus Christ was to be handed over to the Pharisees to go through a mock trial, which itself led to his standing before Roman governor Pontus Pilate, who will give the go-ahead for him to be crucified. Not that Pilate was able to charge him with any crime. He knew that Jesus was innocent. But he had to give in to the baying crowd below him, who were chanting, CRUCIFY! CRUCIFY! Pilate knew full well that it was out of envy that they wanted him executed. Yet Pilate had to go along with it, else his conflict with the baying crowd would have brought him to stand before the Emperor in Rome, to give an account for his inability to govern a turbulent Jewish capital.

 

Jesus Christ, so meek and so mild, so as he is presented to children to this day. During the start of the Christmas season, carols are sung across the nation about the helpless babe, lying in a manger fast asleep, without ever letting out a whimper that he needs to be fed and his diapers changed.

 

And yet we now see him one morning walking down the hill towards Jerusalem with his disciples, feeling hungry. After all, they do say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. He approaches a fig tree, in full leaf, and starts looking for figs he can get his teeth into. Surely, as the Son of Man, Jesus should have known that it was not the season for figs. It was Spring, figs don't ripen until the Summer. After going about his search, he steps back and making sure that all his followers were within earshot, loudly declares: May no one ever eat fruit from you again! And from that moment on, the tree began to wither from the roots up. (Mark 11:12-14.)

 

Atheists would love to pour scorn on this incident, as Jesus acting more like a spoilt child who couldn't get his way rather than the meek and mild character who wouldn't harm a fly. Then to add to this, Jesus turning to the crowds surrounding him and crying out: If any of you does not hate his father or mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters, yes even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26). Atheists would point out how scores of families were left weeping with distress as one of their sons or daughters walked out of the home to join a weird sect or cult, which poured scorn on mainstream churches. I should know, I have gotten involved with such a group towards the end of 1972, and dear Mum burst into tears when I told her that I believed God wanted me to join that group. Fortunately for all of us, I came across a stray magazine which on its front cover featured an article exposing the truth about this particular cult.

 

It seems to parallel the character of God in the Old Testament. Ferociously jealous, God would kill anyone who followed or worshipped a rival god. Atheists love to point this to us, omitting a small fact that all rival gods of the ancient Canaanites demanded babies and young children to be burned alive at their sacrificial altars. Well educated atheists tend to keep this side of the argument hidden, and accuse God of being a megalomaniac. Then again, a megalomaniac God he could well be, according to the atheist. After all, we mustn't forget about the guy who collected sticks for firewood on the Sabbath, Numbers 15:32-36. He was taken and put in a cell overnight. The next morning God ordered him to be stoned to death, his screams as the fuselage struck bringing distress to his wife and family, who afterwards had to fend for themselves without a breadwinner.

 

And in Numbers 11:1-3 we read of the Israelites complaining about their hardships as they are camped in the desert. God starts to send fire among those on the outskirts of the camp, burning them alive. God's quick temper is again revealed in Numbers 16, when Korah and his mates decided to return to Egypt, seeing that they were far better off there than at present in the desert.  Not just the adults, but their children and little ones, perhaps their grandchildren, too young to know what was going on, all perished by being swallowed up by the ground they were standing on, which gave way beneath them. So much about protecting them against being burnt to a crisp on a pagan altar.

Then there is the story of King Saul being commissioned by God through Samuel to slay all the Amalekites. In 1 Samuel 15:1-3 the task is set:
Samuel said to Saul, "I am the one the LORD sent to annoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the LORD. This is what the Lord Almighty says: 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'"

The Amalekites were to be executed by King Saul's army for having fought against Israel to defend their territory soon after the Israelites had left Egypt, as recorded in Exodus 17. This occurred hundreds of years before Saul's day. In other words, the generation of Amalekites alive during Saul's reign were to pay the price for the sin their forefathers committed in ancient times. I suppose it is a bit like saying that I, my wife and daughters are to be executed because my Roman ancestors persecuted and killed Christians around AD 60.  In the  slaughter of the Amelekites, not only adult men but women and children would also be slain. So I can imagine a female toddler, less than two years old, sitting at the corner of the room, screaming aloud for her mother, mouth wide open, tears streaming down her face. Just her misfortune that she had Amalekite parents, both lying dead in the next room. Then a formidable Israeli soldier, attracted by the screams, enters the room and thrusts his sword through the tiny body. By God's orders.

Atheists will tell us that the Bible is by no means a standard to set our moral principles. Surely there is much truth in this. How would we feel if we were aware of innocent children slain today for something their great grandparents did many years earlier? Or killed because of an in-group/out-group divide, or a tribal or neighbour dispute. We are living in a day when perpetrators of child abuse are sent inside for many years as each case makes news headlines across the whole Media, TV and newspapers alike. Child abuse horrifies us, but back in Biblical times it was commanded by God, or as the atheists would put it, a dispute over religion as well as being outside the house of Israel.

According to the atheists, we like to make excuses, saying that - ah! We are no longer under the Old Covenant, as Jesus came to fulfill the Law. Now, according to Pauls' letters, and especially the one addressed to the Galatians, we are under grace, the Law having been fulfilled in Christ, therefore it is no longer our schoolmaster. Furthermore, grace unites both Jew and non-Jew under one roof, the Church, and the line dividing the two groups was taken away at the crucifixion. Yet it is tragic, really that there is an in-group/out-group mentality within our churches. Different nationalities, different denominations, social class within a congregation and different doctrines and opinions, and also age divide as well, even within a small group. The atheist looks at the church, and walks away, the earnest enquirer is not impressed and agnostics remain without knowledge, nothing there worth pursuing.

Even I, myself have been branded as likely to stand outside the door of Heaven and been told by the Lord, I never knew you, depart from me, ye who work iniquity, of Matthew 7:21-23 - just for believing in Once Saved Always Saved, and therefore not producing the spiritual fruit of the vine of John 15:1-8. I am also seen as one who takes sin lightly and not working out my salvation with fear and trembling as Paul wrote in Philippians 2:12 - if living in fear of punishment and terrors of a lost eternity is the reason for Christian commitment, which certainly does not reflect the love of God, and any unbelieving observer will see this fear straight away! No wonder the unbelieving mock our faith. The atheist also see us squabbling - are we eternally secure in Christ as believers or not? Sermons are delivered, books written, radio broadcasts and televangelists spout out their opinions, and in modern times, the Internet is plastered with texts and videos from both sides, each blaming the other of adhering to the devil's doctrine. No wonder we look rather foolish to the atheist or agnostic, especially one who has a high degree of education.

So the atheist blames religion as a hard taskmaster which inspires fear of punishment, yet have no historical evidence to base itself on. The story of Creationism, of Adam and Eve, the Noachian Deluge, miracles done by Moses in Egypt, Balaam's talking donkey - as well as a baby boy born without a natural father are held as nonsense, and against science to the atheist - let alone the suffering of one man to atone for the sins of the whole world, which the atheist would find offensive. Higher morality can be achieved by mankind without the need of the Atonement, according to the unbeliever, proof of we don't slay innocent children in the name of religion like in the past, upholding their claim.

I as a Christian believer feel stuck in a corner, so to speak. Yes, I do feel a level of sympathy for the atheist who knows the Bible well. After all, how can we adore a God who ordered young innocent children slain just because they were of an out-group, that is, unfortunate to have Amalekite or non Israeli parents. Yet at the same time I can feel embarrassed, upholding recent young-Earth Creationism at the face of Plate Tectonics, giving us evidence that the continents of North and South America, for example, had taken millions of years to move to their present positions, if the rate of movement is about the same as the growth of a fingernail, which is about two centimetres a year.

Modern education is reaching higher and higher degrees, the Gospel based on recent Creationism is getting to look more and more foolish on a daily basis, the rank and file are bowing to the knowledge and opinions of the academics who are laughing at the Bible in louder tones. So confessing Jesus Christ as Saviour becomes even more challenging as time moves on.

Having said all that, God is my Saviour and Lord through faith in Jesus Christ and my desire is to keep on being filled with the Holy Spirit. For no matter what the atheists think, what the skeptics believe, what the crowd thinks, the love of God will prevail, because I know that the supernatural birth of Christ, his death on a cross to atone for our sins, his resurrection and ascension and his future return to rule from Jerusalem are all solid-rock facts.

And here I rest my case.
 

Lordship Salvation - Fact Or Fallacy?

There was always that time of day Mary particularly feared. That was at the dinner table in the evening with her father, mother and her siblings. Thus the dinner table should have been the one place where the whole family gets together after a typical day, a time to chat and share how each member spent their time. Instead, Dad would often fly off the handle, banging his fist on the table so hard, that everything on it would jump into the air, and utter an expletive of angry words to any member of the family, but mostly directed at his wife, Mary's mother.

As the young girl trembled at yet another of her father's explosive tempers, she vowed to herself:

I'll never marry a man who is like my father!

Some years later, Mary met Bill, who treated her with kindness and love. He too seemed to have a high moral standard, but this did not bother Mary during their courting days, because he kept on showering love and affection, by which her own love for him was engendered. When he at last proposed, she joyfully accepted and wedded him. But it took some weeks later, well after their honeymoon ended, that one morning, as she cooked breakfast, she burned the toast, and the room filling with smoke stirred her husband's ire. He banged his fist hard on the table and shouted aloud to her what a damned fool she was.

Mary reeled back, and thought:
Oh my God, I married a man who is just like my father!

That morning, something inside her died. She could no longer see her husband in the same way she saw him during their courtship. As time went on, she bore him children, and their father developed a pride of his own parental status, yet she stayed around to make sure that her children had a good start in life.

Then one day, while the kids were at school, she met Mike at the office where she worked part time. With her own love for Bill long dead, she saw Mike as a possible means of escape from a loveless, fear-bound marriage, in which she felt imprisoned. Eventually, she falls in love with Mike, and files a divorce from Bill. It was a messy affair, what with the Court case on who will have custody of the kids, but watching their parents separate brought much fear and insecurity within them.

The characters in this tale are fiction, but they are based on a true story involving living people. If Mike turned out to be a far better husband than Bill had been, chances would be that her second marriage will endure to old age. But supposing Mike too had a ferocious temper and a high moral standard she was not able to keep? The most likely scenario would be a second divorce, followed by a vow that she would resist any further attempt to be wooed by another man who comes her way, and may even join a feminist group or club. In turn, if she had won custodial rights of her children Bill had fathered, she would end up as one of many single mothers living in the land.

Rather like the Samaritan woman who crossed paths with Jesus Christ while he sat at the well. She has had five husbands, had divorced them all and she was already living with another man. Back in those days, as within the Middle East to this day, a wife was looked and treated as a man's property. This Samaritan woman fell in love and married five different guys at different times, and each of her husbands treated her like scum. When she met Jesus, not only did he tell her everything she had ever done, but he loved her, and loved her in a way that was to change her life forever. He loved her as she was, and by her own choice and the thrill in wallowing in such love, she went out to her city and invited them to see this man who she believes to be the Jewish Messiah.

And this, I think, is what following Christ is all about. I have read blogs on this site as well as books on the Lordship of Christ, which may bear what looks like an admirable slogan: If Christ is not Lord of all, He is not Lord at all.

It this sense, Jesus is looked upon as a kind of employer or leader rather than who he really is. To the one who teaches Lordship salvation, first I must renounce all my sins, deny myself of any pleasure that is looked upon as unwholesome, take up the cross and follow him. I think that there just might be a problem about renouncing of sin. Talking of sexual sin, for example, I have found it okay to refrain from sex which is outside of marriage. But just looking at another person with a degree of lust is classed by Jesus Christ as adultery as well, but I'll be lying if I were to say that had not happened since conversion. And calling someone a fool without a proper cause is classed as murder, yet I've been angry many times. So is snobbery or snootiness is classed as murder also, according to the Apostle James. Then going back to the sin of adultery, marrying a divorcee is adultery, according to Jesus. By divorcing Bill and marrying Mike, Mary becomes an adulteress along with her second husband. Yet I recall not that long ago when I attended a housegroup, and one of the female members was going through a painful divorce. The leader of the group declared this to be condemned by some Christians on the basis of adultery. She burst into tears as she stormed out of the meeting. How could she love a God with such a picky nature? Yet that is what Lordship Salvation seem to demand.

 

And music, one of many I should deny myself from if I am to take up the cross to follow Jesus. Most Christians would feel smug for not liking the punk group Sex Pistols of the seventies, or the rock  band, Iron Maiden with their 1982 album Number of the Beast. But I happen to like and enjoy listening to George Harrison's hit, My Sweet Lord, which is a reverence to the Hindu Hare Krishna Mantra. Or listening to Enya with her smooth New Age songs and instrumentals. But then again, I ought to take full delight in Christian songs. The snag with that is I must love such spiritual songs, or else if I don't, it might be proof that I'm not saved after all. Yet there were a number of songs which, to my mind, seemed totally naff, such as the one which contains the line, I am richer than a king - not exactly inspiring if I struggle week by week to keep our budget afloat. Or that other song which has the words, Let it rain, let it rain, let the rain fall...when I was forced to remain housebound for much of the working week due to atrocious weather! It makes me wonder about the mind-thought of these songwriters. Then another song, These are the days of Elijah...Yea, indeed. When I visualise a man in a suit leaving his detached home in a leafy Surrey suburb to climb into his saloon car for a short drive to the office - it's as close to the days of Elijah as it would get. Seriously, since I have a preference for George Harrison and Enya over some spiritual songs, Jesus must be scowling at me, according to Lordship Salvation.

 

But here, on the subject of spiritual songs, I am aware of the songwriter's sincerity in producing such music. I am richer than a king is a referral to our Heavenly heritage and that we as believers are already seated there despite our daily struggles and gross unfairness in this life. And Let the rain fall on us is about the Holy Spirit filling us as a corporate body so we would have an impact among unbelievers around us, particularly at work. The issue with Elijah is still to me somewhat of a mystery, but the point here made is that according to Lordship Salvation, Jesus can't be very happy with me in preferring secular music, and may even question my salvation.

 

Another example maybe, is riding on a nail-biting roller-coaster yelling at the fast, downhill drop when I should be spending my time praying, meditating or reading the Bible. Or forbidding to watch television. Around 1976, I had gotten involved with a Pentecostal group which met weekly at the leader's home, and this guy had visited the homes of members to ensure that there were no TVs present. I had left that group before he had the chance to visit my apartment. He also insisted that men had short hair and women met with their heads covered, and salvation was lost if anyone don't tow the line, loses or renounced their faith. In such an environment, I may indeed "take up my cross and follow him" but God also seemed to present a callous nature which is easy to fear but difficult to love.

And I think this was the main problem with the house of Israel, particularly during and after the Exodus. I read about the almighty power of God as Moses defeats Pharaoh, then opens up the Red Sea so that the Hebrews can cross on dry land, watch the sea close back in to witness the pursuing Egyptian army drown, feed them with manna and deliver the Decalogue from the summit of a high mountain. But in reading these pages, together with the whole book of Leviticus, I felt very little of God's love to the Hebrews. Very demanding? Yes. Perfect? Yes. Holy? Yes. Just by reading the Law I could see a lot of goodness and fairness for each other, but being executed for collecting sticks on the Sabbath? Or just for swearing at my parents in frustration? Or for having sex with a woman not my wife? Or even one person who questioned the leadership of Moses. For me personally, in these pages I can't visualise God as a loving Father who understands my weak frame yet accepts me for who I am, but rather as someone who is constantly looking out for any mistake I make and clobber me for it.

This, I believe, was how the house of Israel viewed God as well. The rest of the Old Testament is a melancholic record of the rebellious nation who had a golden calf made soon after the Decalogue was delivered. When the calf was destroyed, the people drank from a nearby stream and worshipped, but I tend to sense that it was through fear of punishment rather than true contrition borne out of love. The nation rebelled right through to the exile to Babylon, with only short periods of revival, such as under King David and Solomon. By the time of the prophet Jeremiah, the nation was in such a bad state that repentance was out of the question and the exile was the only means of discipline.

 

Yet God knew of all this from before history. In Romans 5:20 Paul writes that the law was added so that sin might increase. In other words, although the law of God was perfect in itself, it brought the wrath of God, as sin within myself caused me to kick back in rebellion. And I should know. During my teenage years I was an atheist, after failing to keep the law of the Roman Catholic Church in order to enter Heaven after death. In the synoptic Gospels (i.e. Matthew, Mark, Luke) where the true meaning of the law was revealed, most of the teaching of Jesus was directed to Jews, who thought that by keeping the law of Moses will receive eternal life. Many believed that they were doing okay. The rich young ruler was one of them, although he was aware that he missed out on something. When Jesus exposed his love of his own wealth which brought him security, it was then that his failure to keep the commandments lay mostly with his sin of worshipping his riches instead of God. As one who believed in Lordship Salvation myself in the 1980s, I failed to read what Jesus concluded: That what is impossible with man is possible with God. In other words, without a special working of God in our hearts, it is impossible to keep the commandments perfectly to the level of inheriting eternal life.

In the beginning, God created us with a free choice to love him. He didn't want automation. Instead, he desired a true relationship of love. Because God himself is love. This perfect eternal love flowed unhindered between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Throughout the whole of eternity there was no hint of disagreement within the members of the Trinity. The whole Godhead agreed to create the earth and put humankind on it with the purpose of sharing in this love within the Trinity. When sin entered the world, the culprit for this was Lucifer, and the battle for men's hearts was between God and Lucifer, not with man himself.

 

God didn't say that he will defeat the Devil by giving man a set of laws to keep. Instead he declared that a descendant of Adam will bruise his head, and he in turn will bruise his heel. Jesus Christ did just that - when he died on the cross, Lucifer was defeated. Jesus Christ is the incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity. He is God becoming flesh, a necessity to redeem humankind and restore the love relation between them and himself. Because Jesus is God incarnate, he is Lord. In fact, that is precisely why he is Lord - because Jesus Christ is God Almighty! When Paul wrote that no one can say Jesus is Lord except through the Holy Spirit, he was referring to him as being God, not merely a leader, employer or teacher.

One way God likens his relationship with the believing saint is likened to the husband/wife relationship. Jesus had referred to his Church (universal body of believers) as his Bride. As a believer, I am part of that Bride. So are you. But it wasn't by any effort on my part or yours. Any effort on our part would have been utterly impossible, simply because Jesus Christ is God and we are not! Therefore to believe, I did not throw all my secular music records away into the trash bin, neither did I promise never to visit the cinema, amusement park or even from watching television, yet neither did I give my life unconditionally and unreservingly to Jesus Christ, promising to take up the cross and follow him daily in order to secure my salvation. Yet I have read and listened to Lordship Salvationists teach precisely this! By the end of the day I wondered just whose grace saves; God's grace - or my own?

Poor Mary. Her husband had a very high moral standard, high enough to pass judgement when she burned the toast. The result was that something in their marriage died. She was a loyal female who believed in both keeping her marriage alive and making sure her children were taken care of, yet it lacked that vital spark of life. Mike was the easy way out.

But supposing on that morning, while smoke was filling the kitchen, Bill had put his arms around his wife and gently whispered,
Darling, don't worry about the toast. You can heat another slice of bread, or if you wish, I'll do it. Oh Mary, I love you so much. You are everything to me, and you will always be.

How much more would the marriage have blossomed! She would have felt secure, revelling in her husband's love. One thing for sure, Mike at the office would have had absolutely no appeal to her. Her steadfast love for her husband would have drowned out any desire Mike would have tried to engender. Just to make Bill happy would have been her best interest, eager to pursue.

And that's how Jesus is to us, and if believed to be true, our response would be in love, knowing that his love for us is unconditional. He has taken all our sins, all our imperfections and all our shortcomings on the cross. God the Father will never ever see us as sinful or falling short ever again, as he has removed our sins as far away is east is from the West and our sins he will see no more.

Lordship Salvation? Into the bin along with the burnt toast. After all, both taste awful.





A Letter to Saul (Paul) of Tarsus

Dear brother Saul.
I recall the day you came all the way from Tarsus to visit us at the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem with your father, a fellow Pharisee and one of us, to be taught by us in preparation for your initiation into membership of the Council here in Jerusalem.

Let me say that I was impressed with your zeal for the traditions of the fathers, and you took a great liking to our brother Zerah, whose fiery devotion to our traditions remains unsurpassed to this day, and brother Saul, I was able to see very clearly that he was your role model and even in your youth you have every desire to be just like him.

But it was also brother Zerah's devotional zeal which, I'm very sad to say, made him the ringleader who successfully persuaded the crowd to have one man in particular, crucified, although according to my opinion, he was innocent of any wrongdoing and therefore not deserving to die at all. I have examined him myself by asking him questions during the night, so that we can discuss matters without any disturbance. Not only was his answers so graceful, but he also raised issues concerning the things of our spiritual standing with God, and not on what we do or the traditions we keep.

Then I also watched him do some amazing things, like bringing sight to a man born blind - on the Sabbath. This is when I became convinced that God was with him, for as the man who had received his sight himself testified, no man can give sight to the blind except God be with him. However, this enraged brother Zerah, who insisted that no one who claims to be God's prophet breaks the Sabbath. And he was right, of course.

But it was when this man brought a dead man back to life at a nearby village of Bethany that made such a miracle the last straw for brother Zerah. He actually believed that the whole of Israel will turn against the Sanhedrin to follow this one man, brother Jesus of Nazareth. It was then that brother Zerah stirred up a riot among the crowds to having him sentenced to death under the Roman procurator Pilate.

As brother Jesus of Nazareth hung on that cross, I heard him cry out, "ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI" which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

As I stood there, I began to mutter where he left off -

"Why are you so far in saving me,
so far from my words of groaning?"

Then I recall that which came to my mind, and I muttered:

"Many bulls surround me,
strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.
Roaring lions tearing their prey
open their mouths wide against me.
I'm poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint.
Dogs have surrounded me;
a band of evil men have encircled me,
they have pierced my hands and my feet,
and divide my garments among them
and cast lots for my clothing."

I then also recall muttering under my breath:

"Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
and yet we consider him stricken by God,
smitten by him and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions.
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The punishment that brought us peace was upon him
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way,
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all."

Then I recall the words he himself spoke while we were alone that night:

"For God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believes in him
should not perish
but have everlasting life..."

From that moment, brother Saul, I began to cry, publicly and without shame. His innocence shone so brightly, even in his sufferings, touched my heart. I just wept as I stood in front of that cross.

Then not long afterwards, we were in this large upper room in Jerusalem, a gathering of about 120 of us. What's more, there were women among us, including the mother of brother Jesus, some of her friends - and this Canaanite woman with her young daughter. A story goes that Jesus did not hesitate to heal her daughter of some...some infirmity. Now as you know, brother Saul, we Israelites, and particularly us Pharisees, have a rule that there must be no mixed-gender assembly in worship. At the Temple and at every synagogue, men assemble at one place, women at another. Furthermore, our wives were looked on as just our property, here to bear our offspring. This was endorsed in the last of the Ten Words, which says that one shall not covet his neighbours possessions, which includes his wife.

Then to be in the presence of a Gentile was an abomination, and contact with such a one would have defiled us. Let alone a Gentile woman like the one who sat next to me, who would have been the lowest of the low, and practically an abomination to any Pharisee. No Gentile would be allowed to enter a house of an Israelite, likewise, no Jew would enter a Gentile's house. We Jews are by nature very nationalistic. And even among us Jews, we as Pharisees looked upon the shepherds of sheep as pariahs, social underlings, along with the publicans, who had betrayed us by complying with the Romans in exhorting taxes to pay these Romans, and their cohorts, the sinners. We Pharisees stayed well away from these people, lest we become defiled by their presence.

But that day in the upper room, things were very different, and things will never be the same again. We all sat there each and everyone of us under a deep, heart-searching conviction. Conviction of our sin, our iniquities, our weaknesses, our shortcomings and failings. And our strong hold on our traditions, our religion, our nationality, our gender divide, our social classes - had all crumbled to dust and blown away like chaff in the wind. We were all in it together - all of us falling short of God's glory and the sudden realisation that we are all in need of his mercy, regardless of who we are.

That was why, brother Saul, I wept when I stood at the cross. The very innocence of this Jesus of Nazareth caused everything I hold dear to become as nothing, as I already explained.

Then as I sat in that room, the daughter of the Canaanite woman turned and cried out, "Mummy!" Her mother then broke down into tears and wept uncontrollably as I put my arm around her to give some comfort. This Jesus of Nazareth, who had shown her so much love as he healed her daughter, had pierced her soul, washing away what must have been a huge pile of sins, guilt and shame. Her home town was Tyre, way up north of Jerusalem, in the Phoenician province north of Galilee. After her daughter was healed, she decided to leave her home to search for this Jesus, but by the time they arrived here in Judea, this Jesus who she was seeking had already died.

She was homeless here in Judea, as no innkeeper would accommodate a Canaanite woman, so I took her in with her daughter until she was ready to return home to her house in Tyre.

Now, brother Saul, I am convinced that this Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah we were waiting for. Contrary to popular opinion, he did not come to defeat our Roman oppressors and liberate Israel. That sort of Messiah -King is he who our brother Zerah is waiting for and expecting. No, rather this Jesus of Nazareth had done something much more important. He came to liberate our hearts from sin and its guilt and has given us the capacity to serve and worship God from within our hearts, and not just from the tablets of stone which God formerly used when Israel was set free by Moses from the Egyptians.

Now, brother Saul. You are still young and you have yet much to learn. But you have this fiery zeal and enthusiasm for our traditions of the fathers. Your ambition is to keep the Law of Moses perfectly. Therefore Caiaphas, the High Priest had set you under the tutelage of brother Zerah, whose own zeal will in no doubt rub off on you. But let me warn you. If you mention this Jesus of Nazareth to brother Zerah, he will get cross with you and he will instruct that he was not the Messiah we were waiting for, as he did not set Israel free from our Roman oppressors. But I would also ask you, dear Saul, to consider everything I wrote here. This Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. And there is much talk of him rising from his grave three days after he died on the cross. If this is true, and I don't think there are any reasons for doubting, then it will be the same Jesus the Messiah of Nazareth who will one day return to reign as the true King of Israel, on the throne of his father David.

With much fatherly love,
your elder and brother in the Sanhedrin,

Nicodemus.