I POST every day, first to the “Friends of the WCC”, a reflection on this year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The theme had been proposed this year by the MECC (Middle-East Council of the Churches) and indeed, I try to show the Semitic Christian roots that are often neglected though they deeply impact the heritage of all the Church Traditions. Today’s text:
Week of Prayer for Christian Unity [Continues in Jerusalem till Jan. 30], the Twelfth Day – Jan. 29, 2022.
As new techniques appeared in modern times, incredible capacities to create tools, items, structures, whatsoever, we also learned how to dig deep into the history, the development of our ancestors, forefathers. In Hebrew, “History” shows two facets: a) Toledot means “History and the succession of generations”. It refers to the semen, the seeds of life that have been entrusted by God to man and woman as they accompany each other. Genesis explains that God took the woman from the “side” (Tsela’ is both “rib” and “shadow side, closest to the Adam, Gen. 2:18-2”) and brought her to Adam so that he could no more be submitted to loneliness. The living woman was introduced to him in order to act against him, counter him in order to give him real discernment. This is the direction of the original two-fold companionship.
Masculine semen is the “holy deposit” of life granted to males. They can transmit it to the fertile ovular womb of women where male and female babies, sons and daughters of humans are knitted as their offsprings and give sense to our lives and destinies.is both “rib” and “shadow side, closest to the Adam, Gen. 2:18-2”) and brought her to Adam so that he could no more be submitted to loneliness. The living woman was introduced to him in order to act against him, counter him in order to give him real discernment. This is the direction of the original two-fold companionship.
b) Greek Historia comes from the root historein I. e. “be witness or expert; give testimony, search, inquire,” and histōr “knowing, expert; witness, related to Indo-European weid- = “to see, thus to know, discern”. Interestingly, the rabbinic tradition interpreted the Greek word as being linked to the Semitic root Hester = “concealed matter”. Because who can really get to the very core of human events and actions. History seems thus to be hidden as God is concealed (El Nistar/Deus absconditus).
Thus, we are both visible. We can encounter the others and still, beyond the clothes of our flesh and souls, we keep being hidden to ourselves and to those who live at the same period of history as we do.
It means that we cannot be rigid, react to events and to people with stiff attitudes. The deposit of life that we safeguard as the treasure of existing and the capacity to be humane can be drifted to destruction, powerful pulsion to exterminate the members of the generation to which we belong. It goes easy, too much, without discernment or consciousness. Then, each group is tempted to make its own selection. When the Persians came marauding in 614 AD Bethlehem was the only place of worship they didn’t torch because they considered that the Magi who came to adore the newborn Baby Jesus were ancient Persian “priests”.
The Magi did not journey till Bethlehem as “national warriors” of any sort. They contemplated the Star, certainly positively conversed with the Jews and their own scholars who lived in the East. They did not decide to destroy or betray the Messiah. They could have adopted the Herod’s party and his thirst for might and murder of any opponent… even if the “enemy” was a newborn child. They came with presents that show how precious the Baby was. They came from a region where people had understood that they could donate their wealth. All things being equal, the Magi might have acted as the widow who had left all her possession to the Temple treasure.
The Magi certainly belonged ethnically to the Persian Plateau and to the nations of the East, but they only traveled with a spirit of wide open and all-human desire to see, know the Son of Man, the divine and human Savior. We come back to this “seeing – knowing” that features history and obliges us to ask the Lord to bless and never to curse.
The Magi certainly belonged ethnically to the Persian Plateau and to the nations of the East, but they only traveled with a spirit of wide open and all-human desire to see, know the Son of Man, the divine and human Savior. We come back to this “seeing – knowing” that features history and obliges us to ask the Lord to bless and never to curse.
(My/our) own eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the face of all peoples – kata prosōpon pantōn tōn laōn.
A light to bring the Gentiles from darkness – Phōs eis apokalypsin ethnôn/φῶς εἰς ἀποκάλυψιν ἐθνῶν and glory of your people Israel – doxan laou sou Israel/δόξαν λαοῦ σου Ἰσραήλ.
We see and can know Who is the Light and Who is the Glory so this Sunday let’s rejoice and feel Christ is risen – He is risen indeed! The Messiah qom min qvaro Meshiho/ܩܡ ܡܢ ܩܒܪܘ ܡܫܝܚܐ came from His grave, He is alive and life-giving!
ITONIT 