Week 3B – Samaria
Thursday 11th March Welcome to Mount Gerizim! Around 400 Samaritans, that’s half of the Samaritan community, lives here. These were the arch-enemies of Jews in the times of the New Testament.
Because they can only marry within their community, the population has shrunk greatly and there are just four families left. They have maintained many traditions and practices over the centuries that mark them out as a unique community.
If you come here on 15th September, the Day of Atonement, you’d better have a strong stomach. The Jews no longer offer sacrifices, because the Temple in Jerusalem is the only place that’s allowed to happen, and the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
However, if you read the story from John 4 about Jesus and the Samaritan woman a few days ago, you’ll know that Samaritans worshipped on Mount Gerizim instead – in fact, they still do even today.
It’s a grizzly scene, there’s no doubt about it, to see all those sacrificial laws from Leviticus carried out for real.
We Christians have another reason for the dis-continuation of animal sacrifices, of course. The author of the letter to the Hebrews writes:
… we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
Hebrews 10: 10-14
Friday 12th March Welcome (if that’s the right word!) to Megiddo, better known as Armageddon!
Did you know this is a real place?
The Holy Land has always been contested. It’s the Fertile Crescent, and many people over the millennia have wanted to control it. You’ll know from the Old Testament how often there were wars between other countries and huge empires. Sometimes Israel was at war, and other times she was just caught in between bigger countries at war.
This Jezreel Plain that we see from Megiddo is a key strategic route between Africa and Asia. It’s seen many soldiers march across in all directions.
In Revelation, St John describes this as the site of the last battle, the definitive battle between good and evil. People interpret it in different ways, as literal prediction of a Middle East war to end all wars, or a symbolic reference to the final victory of God over evil at the end of time.
Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.
Revelation 16: 14
What do you think? It seems to me to be a good spot to pray for peace:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
A prayer of St Francis
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
Well, in the past two days we’ve seen the sites of sacrifice and war … join us again next week for some nicer highlights – as we continue our southward journey, we’ll soon be in the environs of Jerusalem, including Bethlehem, Jericho and the Mount of Olives.
Remember to join us this Sunday at 10 am @CastlerockDunboe for a special all-age service for Mothering Sunday.
Greek this Week 