“Merciful Father, as you have sent the Holy Spirit on Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, to write all that You wished and wanted, we pray You, send the same Holy Spirit on us, so that we may understand, appreciate Your Word, and make it our plan of life. This we ask for the merits of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.”
14….I believe that, a visit to the Holy Land, makes us stop to think, to become conscious of something we have been missing since we started reading, listening or studying the Holy Book. We would realise how important it is that to understand, fully, the words, the situation, of what is recounted, written in the Bible, we have to go back with our mind’s eye, with our imagination to those days when Jesus lived in Palestine…of those days, over 2,000 years ago.
We do have to know about the political set-up, the religious implications, the customs, the culture of the Jews. We need to be fully informed about the background, the every-day life in that land, where Jesus was born, grew up, lived, worked and taught the people. If we lack this knowledge, we would be missing much from the authentic meaning of the message as Christ taught it.
Yes, we have to create a mental bridge between the 21st century, wherever we live, and go back to those early days to feel the atmosphere in which Jesus grew up and died. I shall give one example to illustrate clearly all that I am suggesting, because I firmly believe in it. Let us refer to Luke, chapter 12, verse 6, where we find these words of Jesus:”Are not five sparrows sold for two pence, and yet not one of them is overlooked by God.”
We might think, that, this is a straightforward statement, and we naturally, respond: ‘So what?’ But let us study this statement in the light of the Jewish Customs of the day.
In actual fact, the price of sparrows was one penny for two, so, why did Jesus say five for two pence? He should have said four sparrows for two pennies. The reason is because in those days at the ‘bird market’, people used to go to buy sparrows and, the seller of birds, used to give ‘an extra bird’ (as a bonus?) for the two pennies spent. (Our modern publicity stunt of ‘pay for two and get three…is as old as the Bible).
But, the extra bird was fetched out from a different cage, full of dying or miserable looking birds. But, once you buy your four sparrows, energetic, full of life, you wouldn’t want the fifth bird. In fact, they used to throw it away in the street, as it was not worth keeping. According to historians the street, on that day would be littered with dead or dying birds.
That is History, that is part of the customs and culture of the Jews. But, what interests us more is the second part of the Biblical Text: “……..and yet not one of them is overlooked by God.”
Now, after having felt the atmosphere of the situation, I would say: ‘If God does not overlook a poor dead or dying sparrow, worth nothing, thrown on the floor to be swept away and burned, how is it possible that God would overlook me, a human being, created in His image and likeness, an adopted son of His. How can God overlook me, He who has sent His Son to suffer, to be Crucified and Resurrected FOR ME. Could I, by any stretch of imagination, ever think that God could ever overlook Me?’
This was one of the thousands of instances of the Pharisaic Laws, Rules…obeying the Rule to the letter BUT not in spirit. Jesus accused them on this point. Yes, the ‘bird sellers’ were duty bound by law to give an extra bird, and they did give the bird, BUT, they did not deem it important to see, if the bird was dead or alive.
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