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Topic: “After Saturday Comes Sunday” - Elizabeth Kendal
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Ron McGatlin
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Posted: 07/03/2015 at 7:18am
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“After Saturday Comes
Sunday”
Arabic: Ba'd as-sabt biji yom
al-ahad
Assyria Day, 28 June 2015.
Elizabeth
Kendal
There is a popular Arabic war cry which never fails to make
the blood of Middle Eastern Christian run cold. Whether Muslims are
spray-painting it on walls, whispering it in ears or chanting it in the streets,
“After Saturday comes Sunday” (Arabic: Ba'd as-sabt biji yom
al-ahad”) is issued as a threat – a warning to Christians – that after the
Muslims have dealt with the Jews (who worship on Saturday), then they will deal
with the Christians (who worship on Sunday).
It should be clear by now
that this is no idle threat.
What I would like to do on this Assyria Day,
is look at
(1) how this threat has been playing out in Iraq;
(2) how this
threat has been playing out in Syria.|
THEN
(3) I will look at the
overall geo-political situation in the Middle East; and
LASTLY
(4) we
will turn our attention to the Cross of Jesus Christ; and there, at the Cross,
we will turn that threat on its head.
IRAQ
In 587 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar of
Babylon conquered Jerusalem, carrying much of the Judean population into exile
in Babylonia, the land of the Chaldeans. While some Jews returned to Judea with
Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah seventy years later, and set about rebuilding the
nation, others remained in Mesopotamia where they had put down roots,
assimilated and grown comfortable.
In 1906 an Ottoman census
counted 256,000 Jews in the Ottoman vilayets (provinces) of Basra,
Baghdad and Mosul (which together comprise modern-day Iraq).
Incited by
the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammed Effendi Amin el-Husseini, Arab
anti-Semitism escalated through the 1920s – 30s – and 40s. Violent persecution
escalated and by 1949, half the Jewish community had left.
In his
book, ‘Banking on Baghdad,’ journalist and author Edwin Black writes: “An
estimated 130,000 Jews lived in the Iraq of 1949, half of whom resided in
Baghdad. The Baghdad Chamber of Commerce listed 2,430 member companies. A third
were Jewish . . . Jewish firms transacted 45 percent of the exports and nearly
75 percent of the imports. A quarter of all Iraqi Jews worked in transportation,
such as railways and port administration. . .’ As Black makes clear – Iraq’s
economy was largely dependent on Jews.
The anti-Jewish pogroms reached
their peak in the early 1950s. Black writes, “Between January 1950 and
December 1951, Israel airlifted, bussed, or otherwise smuggled out 119,788 Iraqi
Jews – all but a few thousands. Within those two years, Iraq – to its national
detriment – had excised one of its most commercially, industrially, and
intellectually viable groups, a group that for 2,600 years had loyally seen the
three provinces of Mesopotamia as their chosen place on earth.”
By 2004 only 35 Jews remained in Iraq; by
2008 there were ten, with eight of those living in Baghdad under the care
of the Rev. Canon Andrew White (pictured) who described their situation
as “more than desperate.”
There was alarm in 2011, after WikiLeaks
published diplomatic Cables that identified Iraq’s last seven Jews. In October
2014, Rev Canon Andrew White was evacuated from Baghdad on the advice of
the Archbishop of Canterbury as his high profile made him an attractive target.
Six Jews remained.
After Saturday
comes Sunday
Long centred around its historic capital of
Nineveh, the Assyrian nation is indigenous to Upper Mesopotamia. Tradition has
it that the Assyrians began worshiping YWHW (Yahweh) the God of Israel after the
prophet Jonah preached there sometime between 780-755 BC. Assyrians subsequently
developed close ties with Jerusalem, and watched with interest as the scandal of
Jesus of Nazareth who claimed to be the Christ (the Messiah) played out. When
news arrived in Nineveh that Jesus had risen from the dead and had been seen by
many before ascending to heaven, the Assyrians believed that Jesus was indeed
the Messiah of whom the scriptures spoke. Once an imperialistic regional
superpower, Assyria became a great missionary power, spreading the gospel
through Persia, Central Asia and as far east as China.
Then, in the 7th C
came Islam, and the result was subjugation. Then, in the 14th C came Timur
(Timur the Lame / Tamerlane), and the result was total decimation. From the 7th
C until today – Assyrian history has been marked by repression and persecution;
replete with massacres and genocides.
Iraq’s last official census
(1987) counted 1.4 million Assyrians. But as Islamic zeal and Arab
nationalism rose in the wake of Gulf War One (1991), Christians with means
emigrated.
By the time of the March 2003 US-led invasion, the
Christian population of Iraq was estimated to be between 800,000 and 1.2
million.
After the US occupation, sectarian killings, church bombings,
ethnic-religious cleansing and targeted terrorism drove multitudes of Christians
from their homes, especially from the provinces of Basra and Baghdad. Christians
fled north, where they hunkered down in the ancient Assyrian heartland and
homeland of the Nineveh Plain, mostly around the cities of Mosul, and Bakhdida /
Qaraqosh.
But Nineveh was not secure. While the US “Surge” of 2007 did
kill many al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadists throughout the central provinces of
Anbar, Baghdad and Diyala, many more had simply relocated north to Mosul, which
subsequently became known as al-Qaeda’s base in Iraq.
From 2008, attacks
against Mosul’s churches, assassinations of its Christian leaders and violent
persecution of its Christian communities skyrocketed. Believers were extorted
for jizya (protection money) and forced to submit to Sharia law.
 |
Funeral after 31 Oct
2010
church massacre, Baghdad. | By 2010, a
remnant of around 400,000 Christians remained.
As persecution and threat
escalated throughout the country, masses of Christians fled; with thousands
finding refuge in Assad’s Syria. Those who remained suffered harassment and
intimidation; not only from al-Qaeda, but from Muslim neighbours who supported
the jihad.
The persecution went largely unremarked in mainstream media
and political discourse, because attacks on Christians don’t pose a threat to
the delicate and volatile sectarian situation in Baghdad, so they are generally
deemed to be of no strategic significance.
In December 2011, as
the last US troops prepared to withdraw thousands of Muslims emerged from Friday
prayers across Nineveh to attack Christian communities – destroying businesses
deemed “haram” (forbidden in Islam) [for example: licensed grocery
stores].
David William Lazar of the American Mesopotamian Organization
described the situation as “a big mess.” When asked who would be there to ensure
the safety of Christians he answered, “Basically, no one.”
Long time
Religious Liberty champion U.S. Congressman Frank Wolf (R-Va.) commented: “The
Iraqi Christians . . . are living in fear. Now with the forces leaving . . . I
think the Iraqi Christians are going to go through a very, very difficult
time.”
The Director of the Christian Defense Coalition expressed concern
that unless the situation is addressed “the public expression of Christianity
will be exterminated. America,” he said, “must realise, this horrible
extermination of Christians is directly related to our failure in ensuring their
safety. It is a tragedy that America's involvement in Iraq did not bring
liberation for Christians but brutality, oppression and possible extinction. We
cannot abandon them. We must do better.”
Archbishop Louis Sako of the
Chaldean Catholic Church gave voice to the pervasive fear, that if the
persecution continues with such intensity, “Iraq could be emptied of
Christians”.
[Those quotes are all available on the Religious Liberty
Prayer Bulletin (RLPB) 138: “Propaganda
versus Reality” (13 Dec 2011).]
In Australia, the Assyrian Universal
Alliance (AUA) published an open
letter to the Prime Minister, appealing for help from the Australian
government. Written by Hermiz Shahen, and dated 12 December 2011 (same day Obama
and al-Makili met in Washington to congratulate themselves for having defeated
al-Qaeda and created a model democracy) the letter included this grave
warning:
“The slow genocide of the indigenous Assyrians, also known as
Chaldeans and Syriacs, in Iraq now sits at the tipping point of a relentless and
inexorable genocide, leading to ethnic extinction.”
After detailing
the destruction of churches, the targeted violent persecution of Christians and
the desperate flight of more than 600,000 Assyrians since 2003, the AUA letter
highlighted the saddest and most shameful aspect of all:
“Despite the
scale of this human tragedy and the drastic displacement of the Assyrians, the
International Community’s response has been almost non-existent and the
displaced Assyrians have been left to their demise.”
Yet again, the
Assyrian nation has been betrayed and abandoned.
In March 2013 –
on the 10-year anniversary of the US invasion – Canon Andrew White estimated
that a mere 200,000 Christians remained in Iraq.
In June 2014, the
Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham /Syria (ISIS: formerly ISI, subsequently IS)
stormed into Nineveh Province, capturing
its capital Mosul in a blitzkrieg. Some 1,000 Christian families fled for
their lives.
On
Friday 18 July 2014, ISIS (now IS) issued an ultimatum. Christians would
have until midday of the next day to either convert to Islam, submit as
dhimmis (subjugated, second-class citizens without rights) and pay
the jizya (protection money) – otherwise they would “face the
sword”.
This was no idle threat; ISIS
had already marked the homes of the last remaining Christians with a large
red Arabic letter “n” (pronounced noon) for “Nasrani (i.e. Christian – one who
follows the Nazarene) and acquired their homes as “property of the Islamic
State”.
By the end of the day, all but the most infirm and disabled
Christians were departing. Forced to forfeit their homes, they were then met at
checkpoints on the roads out of the city by ISIS militants who robbed them of
their cash, gold, jewelry and passports – everything but the clothes on their
backs.
Patriarch Louis Sako lamented: “Christian families are on their
way to Dohuk and Irbil. For the first time in the history of Iraq, Mosul is now
empty of Christians.”
Then on 6 August 2014,
IS forces overran Bakhdida / Qaraqosh.
Patriarch Louis Sako, issued a
statement in which he warned that Iraqi Christians “are facing a human
catastrophe and risk a real genocide”.
Lamenting that all the churches
from Mosul to the border of Iraqi Kurdistan were now deserted and desecrated, he
added, “The level of disaster is extreme.”
SYRIA
As in Iraq, Judaism has been in
Syria for millennia.
In Syria, as in Iraq, violent Arab anti-Semitism
escalated through the 1920s – and 30s and 40s – and violent attacks on Jews
became commonplace.
In 1947, Syria was home to some 40,000 Jews.
After the United Nations voted in November 1947 to partition Palestine, Arab
mobs rioted in Aleppo, attacking and devastating the 2,500-year-old Jewish
community. Scores of Jews were killed and more than 200 homes, shops and
synagogues were destroyed. Thousands of Jews fled Syria for refuge in Israel.
After Israel declared independence May 1948, another wave of violence
erupted. Syrian Jews were beaten and killed while their homes were looted and
burned. Jewish institutions were closed, holy books were burned, businesses were
boycotted and properties were seized. Jews were left destitute.
To
prevent Syria’s Jews escaping to Israel where they could strengthen the Israeli
state and even become Israeli soldiers, Syria shut the doors, officially
prohibiting Jewish emigration. However, that period was so chaotic and the
Syrian regime so unstable, Jews continued to escape illegally into Lebanon and
Turkey.
By the time the borders were sealed shut in 1958, only
around 5,000 Jews remained – approximately 3,000 in Damascus, 1,500 in Aleppo,
and another 500 or so in the town of Qamishli, (in the north-east, near the
northern Syrian border with Turkey). Regulations were repressive and persecution
was severe.
In 1967, Arabs lost the Six Day War, and in Syria local Jews
paid the price – targeted with wholesale vigilante and state terror. Ultimately
the only way to survive was to pay an exorbitant jizya; but even then, security
was tenuous.
It was during that time that Canadian Jewish couple Rubin
and Judy Feld took up the cause of Syrian Jewry. By late 1972, the Felds were in
regular communication with a Rabbi in Damascus. When Rubin Feld (40) died of
heart attack in June 1973, Judy devoted herself to the work of facilitating the
rescue of Syrian Jews. Her first rescue was of a rabbi from Aleppo – 1977.
In April 1992, the Syrian government lifted the travel ban and the New
York Syrian Jewish community organised a rescue operation through which several
Jews were secretly airlifted out of Syria.
Judy Feld-Carr continued
rescuing Syrian Jews until September 2001; her mission only ended because all
the Jews who wanted to leave had left. By that time she had facilitated the
rescue of 3,228 Syrian Jews.
In September 2013, as war raged in
Syria, Sam Sokol reported for the Jerusalem Post that Syria’s remnant Jews –
numbering about fifty – were hunkered down in central Damascus under the
protection of President Bashar al-Assad. “The average age there is around 45 or
50” he said. “There are no more youths under that age to my knowledge. No
youths, no children.” In other words, the end of the Jewish existence in Syria
was in sight, all but guaranteed.
By 2014 there were as few as
eleven Syrian Jews left in Syria. These were Jews who had chosen to stay and die
in their homeland.
After Saturday
comes Sunday
As in Iraq, Christianity, has been in Syria
for some 2000 years – in fact it was in Antioch in Syria that the “disciples”
(followers of Jesus) were first called Christians (Acts 11:26).
 |
| Church choir, Damascus
2011. | Through 2011-12, northern Syria filled with
jihadists who flooded over the Turkish border. In 2012 the Syrian Arab Army was
withdrawn from the North-East so it could be concentrated in the north-south
Damascus-Aleppo corridor, leaving the Kurds to fight the influx of
jihadists.
On Thursday 17 January 2013, some 300 jihadists linked to
al-Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusra crossed the Turkish border with three tanks to fight
the Kurds in Ras al-Ayn in NE Syria’s al-Hasakah governorate. No longer safe in
Hasakah, Assyrian refugees from Iraq fled back into totally insecure neighouring
Nineveh.
In March 2013, Al-Raqqa fell to rebel forces, becoming
the first provincial capital fully under rebel control. Within months, the
jihadists had split: with al-Nusra pledging allegiance to al-Qaeda central’s
Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the young-guns of ISIS remaining loyal to al-Baghdadi.
As al-Nusra devoted itself to the battle for Aleppo, ISIS
consolidated its power-base in al-Raqqa.
After seizing Mosul
(June 2014) and running a bulldozer through the Iraq-Syria border –
declaring an end to Sykes-Picot – ISIS moved to expand into Syria’s Deir-ez-Zor
(east) and Hassekeh (north east).
In February 2015, ISIS
fighters raided the 35 Assyrian villages along the Khabour River Hassekah.
Some 230 Assyrian civilians remain in ISIS captivity to this day.
 |
Idlibs falls - March 2015.
No
Syrian nationalists here. |
In March 2015 – an
al-Nusra-led jihadi alliance known as Jayesh al Fateh (Army of Conquest) –
seized control of Idlib, making it the second Provincial Capital to fall under
rebel control. Rebels celebrated by burning the Syrian flag.
In
subsequent weeks Jayesh al Fateh not only consolidated
in Idlib, but cut the strategic M4 HWY which links Latakia to
Aleppo.
On 20 May 2015, ISIS
captured Palmyra, abducted a priest from Qaryatayn and won a battle against
Hamas in Yarmouk, a suburb of Damascus just 8 km south of the CBD. It seems
that ISIS is actually being squeezed towards Damascus. Doubtless plans are afoot
to cut the M5 HWY which links Damascus to Homs and the north.
Meanwhile
in the north, the Battle or Aleppo is heating up, led by the militant/terrorist
proxies of Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
The war will remain asymmetric
(with the SAA as the stronger force) as long as the SAA controls the skies. This
is why the rebels / jihadists / terrorists are calling for air support
(preferably US air support).
The Syrian government is the last line of
defense for Syria’s religious minorities, including Christians. Should the
government fall, then genocide is all but guaranteed. After all, this is
precisely what Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood promised in April 2011 when its
followers took to the streets chanting, “Christians to Beirut, Alawites to the
grave.”
That regime-changers Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia find that
acceptable is unsurprising. That the US and the West might regard it as a price
it is willing to pay, is flabbergasting.
These are pivotal days in
Syria.
The Overall Geo-Political Situation
in the Middle East
“In the end,” wrote former US National Security
Advisor and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, “peace can be achieved only by
hegemony or by balance of power.”
Well -- not only has a century of
Western hegemony come to an end, but so too has the balance of power dynamic
that existed through much of the 20th century – largely through Sykes-Picot
(which kept the Arabs divided), and the empowerment of minorities (Sunnis in
Iraq and Alawites in Syria). As hegemony has crashed and the balance of power
has been overturned - the region has dissolved into chaos.
Rushing to
fill the power vacuum are the region’s three historic imperialistic powers: the
Persians, the Arabs, and the neo-Ottoman Turks. Also in a struggle for hegemony
are the region’s two main Islamic sects, Sunnis and the Shi’ites. Complicating
matters – we also have two political axis: the US-aligned Turkey-Arab-Sunni Axis
(divided between pro-anti MB factions) and the Iran-led, Shi'ite dominated Axis
of Resistance (which includes several Sunni 'resistance' groups such as
Hamas).
This is what it looks like on the map.
The struggle will be furious for the stakes
are high, for these groups are fighting not merely for hegemony over
Mesopotamia, but over the whole Middle East and Muslims.
And as the old
African proverb goes, “When Elephants fight – it’s the grass that
suffers”. [Ndovu wawili wakisongana, ziumiazo ni nyika
(Swahili)]
BUT Christians are far more than mere collateral
damage, for they are being targeted. What’s more, they are being targeted not
merely for subjugation and exploitation, but for elimination!
And unlike
pre-WWI jihads, this 21stC jihad is not being fought with swords or even rifles,
but with automatic firearms, tanks, US-made armor-piercing guided rockets, and
by jihadists whose friends have chemical and nuclear weapons. This raises the
stakes to a whole new level. Also raising the stakes is the jihadists’ ability
to exploit mainstream media and communication technologies, especially social
media, to propagandise and recruit on a global scale.
Geo-politically,
the whole region is in flux. We have decades of turmoil ahead of us and it is
not going to be pretty.
And lest we forget, the elimination of an entire
ethnic-religious group is not without precedent; the Arab states have already
been “cleansed” of Jews. Fortunately the Jews had a safe-haven – their ancestral
homeland, Israel – which rescued them and absorbed them, giving them hope and a
future.
It is possible that Christianity could be eliminated from the
Middle East.
And the only thing necessary for this to be achieved is that
we do nothing.
Let’s turn our attention to
the Cross of Jesus Christ.
Have you ever imagined how
terrifyingly awful that crucifixion Friday must have been for those who had
believed and invested so much in Jesus?
For the followers of Jesus, that Friday was
the day when all their hopes, dreams and aspirations were violently, profoundly
and humiliatingly dashed, smashed and obliterated. What were they to make of it?
How could that weak, submissive, defenseless victim of injustice be the Messiah?
That beaten, lacerated, bleeding and broken victim of savagery who just meekly
submitted “like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,” (Isaiah 53) – mocked,
pierced (Psalm 22) how could he be Israel’s Saviour? What were Jesus’ followers
to make of it?
Was Jesus a fraud or was he a madman? Had his followers
been deceived, conned, led astray like fools? Would they now be laughed at or
pitied as victims of a ridiculous scam? Or worse; had the Messiah indeed come
and failed? Had the Christ been defeated? Had God’s eternal plan of redemption
come unstuck? Had the world and devil triumphed over God’s anointed?
To
make things worse, after Friday came Saturday. Yes, life would go
on. Humiliation, confusion, darkness and profound emptiness, even anger seemed
destined to continue without relief. As far as Jesus’ followers could see, that
Saturday was to be first day of the rest of their lives without
Jesus.
And just as the deadly cross of Friday extinguished life, the
deathly silence of Saturday devoured hope. What were his faithful disciples to
make of it? What were his followers to do? On Friday, before breathing his last,
Jesus had declared, “It is finished.” On Saturday, as hopelessness reigned,
Jesus’ followers must surely have thought: “It is finished indeed!”
But
it wasn’t – was it? . . . because ‘After Saturday came
Sunday’ and what happened on Sunday changed everything – so much so that
history revolves around it.
 |
| Caravaggio | We even see it in the Old
Testament prophetic texts – Isaiah
52:13 to 54:3 and Psalm
22 – which start with the horrific crucifixion and death of the Lamb of God
– but then everything changes – and salvation flows to the ends of the earth
thereby fulfilling God’s promise to Abraham, “in you all the families of the
earth shall be blessed”.
Blessed through the sacrifice of the Christ?
Who’d have thought it? God – whose ways are not our ways and whose thoughts are
not our thoughts (Isaiah
55:8-9) – he thought it.
The Cross (Friday through
Sunday; crucifixion, grave, resurrection) is more than an event and even more
than atonement. The Cross is revelation: that is it reveals something to us of
how God works.
God does not sit on his comfortable heavenly throne firing
rocket at his enemies. While he is indeed a super-power, that is not his way.
Rather God comes and enters hostile territory himself, not only to
subvert evil -- defeating it from within, as he did with sin and death -- but to
work it for good in fulfillment of promise.
Theologian, Professor Carl R.
Trueman of Westminster Theological Seminary, notes: “If the cross of Christ, the
most evil act in human history [crime for which all who have ever sinned are
guilty], can be in line with God’s will and be the source of the decisive defeat
of the very evil that caused it, then any other evil can also be subverted to
the cause of good.
“Indeed, if God can take the greatest of evils and
turn it to the greatest of goods, then how much more can he take the lesser
evils which litter human history, from individual tragedies to international
disasters, and turn them to his good purpose as well.”
Precisely because
after Saturday (the day of the grave) comes Sunday (the day of resurrection and
vindication), the Church can look directly into any crisis with realism and
honesty, and call it what it is – horrific, evil, wicked – and still find God at
work amidst the suffering.
As “The Nation of the Cross” (as
ISIS likes to call us), we know that because God works through affliction,
appearances can be deceptive. As 'the Nation of the Cross', we know that even in
the midst of darkness and confusion, when God seems absent and all seems
hopeless and we can barely see through our tears or breathe through our grief;
even when it appears that the “world” has won and the devil reigns supreme, God
is at work -- just as he was on that first Easter. God is busy subverting evil,
redeeming it as blessing in fulfillment of promise.
God moves in a
mysterious way his wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the
sea and rides upon the storm.
(William Cowper, 18thC)
So, just
because Muslims deliver “After Saturday comes Sunday,” (Arabic:
Ba'd as-sabt biji yom al-ahad) to Christians as a threat, doesn’t mean
Christians have to receive it that way.
For when Christians feed Ba'd
as-sabt biji yom al-ahad through a theology of the Cross something wonderful
happens --- the threat gets lost in translation.
Sunday is up on us
alright – and it is not the Sunday those Muslims are dreaming of.
I’d
like to conclude – with a little story that I find incredibly
moving.
One Sunday in Tel
Isqof
Tel Isqof is an Assyrian village in the north of
the Nineveh Plains. On 7 August 2014, Islamic State jihadists seized Tel Isqof
sending some 7,000 Assyrian Christians fleeing for their lives.
Kurdish
pershmerga launched a counter offensive and by 17 August had driven the
jihadists back. Though Tel Isqof had been liberated (and looted) it was far too
dangerous to return to as Islamic State fighters still controlled the surrounds,
and routinely attempted forays into the town.
On Sunday 9 November 2014,
something happened in Tel Isqof that was certainly symbolic and possibly even
prophetic. Fr. Paul Thabit Mekko, a displaced Assyrian priest holed up in Arbil,
tells what happened:
 |
Tel Isqof, Sunday 9 Nov
2014.
The Cross rises over Nineveh. |
“A group
of young men, now refugees in Kurdistan, wanted to go there [to Tel Isqof] with
a priest for a few hours, with the intent to open the church, ring the bells and
celebrate mass. After the liturgy they returned to the north, to the places
where they are currently living as refugees. It was a way of saying that we do
not abandon our lands, and we hope to return to our homes and our churches
soon.”
I would like to say that, just as ISIS silenced the
bells and removed the cross in order to make a statement (Christianity is
finished – dead and buried), those young Assyrian Christian men rang the bells
and restored the cross to its rightful place atop the dome of the church
overlooking the Nineveh Plain in order to make a statement of their own – a
statement of faith.
It might seem like Easter Saturday – a day of fear,
grief, hopelessness – but Sunday (resurrection, vindication) is coming. I have
no doubt that God has preserved an Assyrian remnant precisely because he intends
to restore them to their lands, in what will be a reverse exodus. For God has
promised:
In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria,
and Assyria will come into Egypt, and Egypt into Assyria, and the Egyptians will
worship with the Assyrians.
In that day Israel will be the
third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the
Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the
work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.”
(Isaiah 19: 23-24
ESV)
When I speak to Western/Anglo churches about this, I ask them, “Do
you want to be part of this great work of God?” And when they say yes, I say,
“Then die to self and follow Christ there.”
Some Christians and churches
say, “Oh but this is so unprecedented”, as if that is an excuse for
disengagement. But this persecution is not unprecedented -- it has been
going on since the birth of the Church. And who better to testify to that than
the Assyrian nation?
What is unprecedented however – thanks to the
development of information and communication technologies – is the ability of
the Church to be globally aware and globally connected – so that any church
today can be aware of suffering on the other side of the world, even as it
unfolds – and respond immediately – for the saving of many lives.
These
are days of unprecedented opportunity for the Church to truly demonstrate
what it means to be One Body in Christ – a holy nation – a people (as we are
described in 1 Peter 2:9). This is the day for active engagement in
faith.
And to you – my dear Assyrian brothers and sisters – I say: fix
your eyes upon Jesus – and remember the CROSS! Never give up, never lose hope.
He is faithful who promised.
AND whenever anyone tries to terrorise you
with Ba'd as-sabt biji yom al-ahad - “After Saturday comes Sunday”
-- remember God’s Easter paradigm and say, “Yes! After Saturday comes Sunday
indeed!”
------------------------------------------------------------ --
Elizabeth
Kendal is currently writing a book under the working title: “After Saturday
Comes Sunday”: Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East. The
above Assyria Day message draws largely of material from chapters one and ten of
that
work.
------------------------------------------------------------ ---
Elizabeth Kendal is the author
of
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Kimberly Fowler
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Posted: 07/03/2015 at 9:11am
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Thank you for posting this. It is sometimes difficult to know what goes on in other countries when US news solely concentrates on what just pretty much affects the US, and glosses over news which affects the world. And Christian news is ignored by most secular broadcasts.
Reading it, however, reminded me of a part of Micah which I read the other day:
From Exile to Victory
Micah 4
9
Now, why are you shouting loudly?
Is there no king with you?
Has your counselor perished
so that anguish grips you like a woman in labor?
10
Writhe and cry out, Daughter Zion,
like a woman in labor,
for now you will leave the city
and camp in the open fields.
You will go to Babylon;
there you will be rescued;
there the Lord will redeem you
from the power of your enemies!
11
Many nations have now assembled against you;
they say, “Let her be defiled,
and let us feast our eyes on Zion.”
12
But they do not know the Lord’s intentions
or understand His plan,
that He has gathered them
like sheaves to the threshing floor.
13
Rise and thresh, Daughter Zion,
for I will make your horns iron
and your hooves bronze,
so you can crush many peoples.
Then you will set apart their plunder
to the Lord for destruction,
their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.
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