Holy season on high alert
Israel locks down Palestinian areas following attacks
Israel: After a spate of terror attacks, tensions are high as Christians commemorate the death of Jesus today and his resurrection on Easter Sunday, Jews begin Passover this evening, and Muslims mark the 13th day of Ramadan. Israeli Defense Forces closed crossings with the West Bank and Gaza Strip for the first day of the Passover holiday. Soldiers carried out raids that resulted in the deaths of at least six Palestinians after a string of terror attacks starting March 22. Those left 12 Israelis and two Ukrainian nationals dead.
Ukraine’s Jews will defy food shortages, danger and war to observe the Passover seder this evening, though thousands of Jews have died in the war or fled the country.
Welcome to this Good Friday edition of Globe Trot. When Pilate presented the scourged Jesus to the crowd, it was the sixth day of the week, the day God created man. “Ecce homo!” or “Behold the man!” the Roman prefect declared. Possessed with what some call a Jeffersonian secularity, Pilate nonetheless played a pivotal role in defining the nature of what it means to be human and reconciling the world to God. “This is indeed the new Passover, calling time on tyranny,” said theologian N.T. Wright in a Maundy Thursday message delivered yesterday at King’s College, Cambridge:
Pilate, of course, sends Jesus to his death. But God then declares, by raising him from the dead, that the tyrant’s ultimate weapon, death itself, has been defeated. Jesus’ first followers went out into the world with that belief: not that Jesus was providing an escape from the real world, but that he had launched God’s new creation into that real world.
Israel also could face a political crisis after a member of its razor-thin coalition government resigned April 6.
Syria: A federal court in Virginia found guilty Islamic State member El Shafee Elsheikh of hostage-taking and conspiring to murder journalists and aid workers in Syria. Elsheikh is the only survivor of a group of British militants nicknamed “the Beatles” by their captives for their British accents. American and British authorities say the Beatles were responsible for killing 27 people, including British volunteers David Haines and Alan Henning and American aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig.
Mueller became a slave to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and was reportedly killed in a 2015 airstrike, unlike other victims, who were beheaded. I reported in 2019 on the many questions that surround her case.
Ukraine: Powerful explosions were heard in the early hours on Friday in Kyiv and a number of other cities across the country. TV pundits on Russian state-run news urged bombing the capital after Ukraine forces reportedly sank the Moskva, a Soviet-era vessel considered the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
The United States will send additional military hardware to Ukraine, and President Joe Biden floated this week the possibility of visiting himself.
The death toll in Bucha continues to rise as local authorities uncover the remains of those allegedly massacred by the Russian military. Among the murdered civilians was the dean of the Slavic Evangelical Seminary in Kyiv. The body of Vitaliy Vinogradov, a graduate of the Kyiv Bible Institute and the Evangel Theological Seminary, was found on the street.
“The shortage of food is almost catastrophic” in some areas, said Sergey Rakhuba, president of Mission Eurasia. Yet small organizations are getting needed supplies to some of the worst hit places where larger ones have failed.
NATO membership for Finland and Sweden may be only weeks away. And Putin allies warn Russia will deploy nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles in Europe in response.
Afghanistan: Women and children are fighting for a piece of bread. Impoverishment under Taliban rule is forcing families to sell babies for adoption and young girls into marriages.
Canada: Winnipeg schools haven’t closed for snow in 25 years, but they did this week after a spring storm dumped up to two feet of snow in Manitoba.
France: The wild rabbits of Paris will breathe easier this Easter after city officials reversed an order classifying them as a nuisance subject to elimination. Now police say they want “a peaceful cohabitation.”
Weekend listen: Good Friday by Fairuz, the 86-year-old Lebanese legend, is worth your time. To read N.T. Wright’s sermon mentioned above, message me. I have a copy but no link.
At Globe Trot we celebrate the dignity of men, women, boys and girls. Made in the image of God, their works and presence in this life—whether art, science, health, politics, humanities or industry—become therefore important. This energizes our global engagement every day despite tribulation, famine, danger and sword. As an early American Puritan said, “The very wheelbarrow is to be with respect looked upon."
The link to NT Wright's sermon:
https://www.ntwrightonline.org/the-music-of-new-creation-holy-week-eucharist-reflections-from-n-t-wright/