Melanie tells me I tend to see a sermon in everything. I certainly see one in the story I read about an incident at the site of The Nativity that took place last week. What do you see here?
Priests Scuffle With Brooms, Stones, At Traditional Site of Jesus' Birth
BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) - Robed Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests went at each other with brooms and stones inside the Church of the Nativity on Thursday as long-standing rivalries erupted in violence during holiday cleaning.
The basilica, built over the grotto in Bethlehem where Christians believe Jesus was born, is administered jointly by Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic authorities. Any perceived encroachment on one group's turf can set off vicious feuds.
On Thursday, dozens of priests and cleaners came to the fortress-like church to scrub and sweep the floors, walls and rafters ahead of the Armenian and Orthodox Christmas, celebrated in the first week of January. Thousands of tourists visited the church this week for Christmas celebrations.
But the cleanup turned ugly after some of the Orthodox faithful stepped inside the Armenian church's section, touching off a scuffle between about 50 Greek Orthodox and 30 Armenians.
Palestinian police, armed with batons and shields, quickly formed a human cordon to separate the two sides so the cleaning could continue, then ordered an Associated Press photographer out of the church.
Four people, some with blood running from their faces, were slightly wounded.
It just looked to me like legal religion stirs up the law and the law stirs up the flesh. Kinda like that old Bunyan analogy about sweeping up dust and not being able to clean house...even though he was a Puritan I do believe he received the grace of God and you can see little grace analogys in his story...it just took him a long time to get there.
ReplyDeleteIf you dont have the strongman of Jesus in His only true form of grace...then the situation will get worse when you try to clean up via the law and more demons will come and make it worse.
Seems like the sermon you were thinking...am I right?