The View from my Window

Overlooked Message of Easter

April 20, 2006 on 9:48 am | In Miscellaneous Musings! | Comments Off

                                                                                                          2006 April 20

Overlooked Message of Easter

 
The Easter Holidays are the most important holidays for the Christian faith. This is when Lord Jesus rose from the crucifixion and thus made his divinity visible to all. At one time, Bethlehem (along with Jerusalem) was the center for experiencing spiritual enlightenment for the faithful.

Now I am not sure.

This area is now full of so much carnage that one’s heart cries knowing that the Son of God walked here. His message of love, compassion and forgiveness has become foreign to this land. It is a great pity as this land has so much history and is of great spiritual value not only to Christians but also to Jews and Muslims.

Now, the ancient route that Jesus followed will soon be severed by huge concrete slabs nine meters high. During the recent Easter Holiday, the Christian population of Bethlehem found it difficult to attend traditional ceremonies.

Lo! Behold! There is no outcry to this development. There are no protest marches and no editorials to condemn this barrier wall. If a wall is required for safety, couldn’t it be built such that paths traversed by Jesus remain open?  If that means that Israel has to sacrifice a small piece of land to Arab side, that sacrifice would demonstrate compassion, generosity and understanding of the spiritual need of the Christian faith. As I am a Hindu/Jain by faith, maybe I lack the deeper nuances for this silence from the Christian faith and world powers.

The world is in turmoil. The spectrum of terrorism, which has engulfed the world over last few years, has now been overlain by possibility of a nuclear standoff. This is the time to keep cool and think thru issues calmly and resolve the conflicts.

The message from Lord Jesus of compassion, non-violence and forgiveness needs to be put in practice. How can we do that? One can forgive someone who shows repentance and/or realizes the mistakes made. One can dialogue with someone who is amenable for a dialogue but it becomes very difficult to communicate if one party spews venom all the time.

The basic tenet of compassion, non-violence and forgiveness must remain supreme. This is the way of the Christian faith. This is the way of all major religions. This is the civilized way.  This is the loud and clear message of Easter.

Suicide bombs, target killing by use of missiles and constant revenge killing and complete disregard of the pain and suffering inflicted on others is the way now in the Middle East.

How will that stop? I believe it will only stop if a personality like Mahatma Gandhi  (a great believer in non-violence and respect for all) would arise in the Middle East.  I pray from the bottom of my heart that such becomes a reality and soon. Otherwise tighten your seat belts for a rude awakening to destruction and pain all around.

Even we in Canada will not escape it.

Pravin Shah 

The only lesson people learn from history is that they learn no lessons from it.