Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon.”
NL Daily Devotion for Monday, February 1, 2021
by Daniel D. Maurer, Clergy Stuff
I’m doing research currently for a new novel I’m writing. It’s been fascinating, because it deals with bits of history I have not yet read. One piece is the culture of the Phoenicians. Phoenicians were traders and they lived on the coast in the Levant. Tyre and Sidon, were in fact two of the major cities. Tyre, interestingly enough, was the city from which the ancient megacity of Carthage drew its descendants.
Now, all these people, the Phoenicians, were Semitic-speaking peoples. Hebrew and Phoenician (and especially during that time) were very, very close. Aramaic, the language of Jesus, also was close enough to be nearly mutually intelligible to the Phoenician language as well.
The reason I mention this (besides by putting a feather in my cap for writing a new book) is the Phoenician people were Canaanites, whose religion the Jews at the time truly hated. The Canaanites practiced human sacrifice . . . baby sacrifice. Through archeological remains there is little doubt they did this. But Jesus welcomes them anyway.
Think about that, the next time you think about different people from yourself: were they as “bad” as baby sacrificers? No?
Then, you probably should not just welcome them, but you have been freed through Jesus to welcome them with open arms.
God, open my vision to see as you see. Amen.
