Merry today, happy tomorrow would be pretty much being merry always.
Slip in Christmas, and New Year, and it reads Merry Christmas, Happy New Year; or Happy Christmas, and Merry New Year, which is the most conventional form of Christmas greeting.
That is pretty much saying:
“Rejoice always, and again I will say, rejoice!”
“Rejoice always.”
We don’t always realize that, do we?
Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year 2018.
Please read through to the end for the message.
This real night sky photo and notes within quotes below are courtesy of Vineet, my nephew.
“All the stars that you see here are in our own galaxy. In the middle running top to bottom you can see the rest of our galaxy stretching out around us like a cloud of stars.
But off to the right, in the middle you can also see a another smudge like a small saucer with a bright center. That’s our next nearest major Galaxy- Andromeda. That smudge contains over a trillion stars in it.
It is further than anything else you can see in the picture and is about 2.5 million light years away.
To put in perspective, if our sun were the size of a grain of sand, the earth would be one inch away from it and Pluto would be 40 inches away from it. Andromeda would still be 2.5 million ‘kilometers’ away.
And there are still roughly another 100-200 billion such galaxies in the whole universe.”
As though this information is not mind-boggling enough, I ran into this space.com web article dated October 13 that says there are ten times more theoretical galaxies, meaning that all we know so far is about just 10%! That would mean a total of 2 trillion galaxies! Check out the excellent link below.
The Universe Has 10 Times More Galaxies Than Scientists Thought
I am certainly being ironic when I say in the title, that the universe is small. It is small in an interesting biblical perspective when you take a look at the verse below.
Jeremiah 32:17 New Living Translation (NLT)
17 “O Sovereign Lord! You made the heavens and earth by your strong hand and powerful arm. Nothing is too hard for you!”
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Mathew 11:28
Let us examine two well-known parables and challenge our understanding about them. Quoted below is chapter 15 from Luke 15 (New International Version).
Please try to answer my questions at the end.
The Parable of the Lost Sheep
1Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. 2But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
3Then Jesus told them this parable: 4“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?5And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders6and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’7I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
The Parable of the Lost Son (or Prodigal Son)
11Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons.12The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.14After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need.15So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs.16He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!18I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.19I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’20So he got up and went to his father.
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.23Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate.24For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing.26So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on.27’Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him.29But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.30But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
31 ” ‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.32But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ ”
Questions:
A surprising sequel to the parable of the Prodigal Son
Imagine that the Prodigal Son is the Church, father is Jesus, and the elder son is a Pharisee.
Now how do you see this ending? Soon after the father’s words of love and reconciliation, the elder son takes out his knife and kills Jesus.
In this way, we could even say the story of Prodigal Son foretells Jesus’s death. It is a very cogent story indeed.
My counterpoint about the Prodigal Son – Could he be a Jihadi John in USA?
We may be too quick to say that the Prodigal Son truly repented of his mistakes. He decided to return to his dad only when the going was too bad for him in life. If Jihadi John is expelled from his safe havens and dropped into USA, don’t you think he will plead for mercy? He will not be sorry for his actions, but he will be sorry that he was caught.
Similarly, what if the Prodigal Son was not truly sorry for his mistakes and he was sorry only that his life fell on hard times? Then his repentance is only fake repentance.
I don’t think Jesus meant that the elder son and the 99 sheep were worse off than the Prodigal Son or lost sheep. I think the elder son and the 99 sheep had a certain short distance to go for the salvation, but the lost sheep or the Prodigal Son had to make complete U-turns first. However, if anyone makes a U-turn, and is really serious about it, there is a lot to rejoice about.
Being brought up in good families and living law-abiding and righteous lives are good things. Apostle Paul only had to have an epiphany to make the transformation as the theologian extraordinaire of Christendom. The Prodigal Son had to have prolonged hard times to bear on him to make a U-turn. The beauty of the Christian hope, however, is that both Paul and Prodigal Son gain hope and a future, notwithstanding their different backgrounds.
The purpose of this blog is to recapitulate the Syrian traditions of Orthodox Christians in Kerala and to make a call to conscience in this time of unparalleled humanitarian crisis in Syria and neighborhoods.
This picture taken on Jan. 31, 2014, and released by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), shows residents of the besieged Palestinian camp of Yarmouk, queuing to receive food supplies, in Damascus, Syria (UNRWA via AP, File)
Early this month viral news spread about a three year old Syrian boy who drowned while the boat in which his family was trying to flee to Greece capsized in the Aegean sea. Here is a picture of the family before the tragedy.
Let us examine what the reference of Antioch in Bible is.
Antioch is about 15 miles inland from the Medeterranean sea, in what today is Turkey, just north of Syria. This city became home to the first Christian church outside of the land of Israel and was the first place in which followers of Jesus were referred to as Christians.
Apostle Paul’s first missionary journey passed through Syrian Antioch. It was in Antioch that the famous dispute with Peter occurred. Subsequent synod at Jerusalem purportedly approved Paul’s views about Christianity, particularly about circumcision and clean foods.
(The dispute of Paul with Peter is described in bible like this. “But when Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.” Galatians 2.11).
Patriarch of Antioch is the Bishop of Antioch. He is the Head of the Jacobite Syrian Christians in Kerala. Referring to the chart below, the two factions Jacobite and Malankara traditions of Syrian Christians of Kerala differ in that the former group still accepts the Patriarch of Antioch as their Bishop. To reiterate, the Chathoth Vallamkulam family has always stood for the local church leadership and is part of Malakara tradition from inception. However, my point here is that all the offshoots of ancient Christians in Kerala call themselves Syrian!
Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
The Syrian tradition is very deep-rooted in among ancient Keralite Christians. An account of an ancient migration of Syrian families into Kerala is a part of folklore and supported by copper plates. Thomas of Cana is traditionally believed to have come from Syria and settled in Kerala with 72 families. This probably happened in the first millennium. It is interesting to note that Kerala was a favored destination for Jews and Syrians in the first millennium.
Those who are interested to look at a few more pictures of the current Syrian humanitarian crisis, please see the following pictures.
What is my point here of mentioning the Syrian Crisis of today, ancient Syrian migration into Kerala and the Syrian tradition of Keralite Christians? Well, I believe the Syrian Christians in Kerala have a moral duty to support the Syrian Christian refugees today. Our churches are immensely rich and can support a few hundred refugees easily and that appears to me as the right thing to do.
David is the greatest King of Israel, who ruled from c. 1010 BC to c. 970 BC. He was the second king of Israel after Saul. Saul, of the tribe of Benjamin, was not succeeded by his son, but by David, of the tribe of Judah. This is an important observation to make because royalty should follow family lineage. What happened that changed the succession from Benjamin to Judah? The single most important event described in the bible is the giant slaying story of David killing Goliath.
The common version of the story seems to say that a giant challenges Israel for 40 days for a single combat, but no one takes it up, and finally David the small boy hurls his sling at the giant hitting him fatally, which event earns David the role of King. The story of David and Goliath has entered into modern language as the quintessential underdog story, of person or a corporation that wins over bigger opponents. The story is the subject of many books and famous paintings. Michael Angelo has painted the famous picture below. A recent book by Malcolm Gladwell draws business and self improvement lessons from the story. 
What I am about to say in this post is about David’s strategy of defeating the giant in ten seconds or less. I am borrowing the 10 second idea from 100 meter sprint event where the current world record is just under 10 seconds. Jamaican Usain Bolt holds the record.
I am going to say that David was a sprinter like Usain Bolt! That is the reason for my title – 10 seconds to stardom!
1 Samuel 17.39 David fastened his sword to his armor and tried to walk, for he had not tested them. And David said to Saul, “I cannot walk with these, for I have not tested them.” So David took them off.
The take-home point here, I think, is David’s spiritual, political and tactical correctness right from the above loud boasting through to the actual slaying.
First, David boasts his faith in God loudly that the ‘uncircumcised’ Philistine will not get away, showing his inner faith.
He is actually also making a political statement to serve as a warning to all ‘uncircumcised’ enemies of Israel that their fate would be just the same – nobody is going to get away insulting the living God. And finally,
David’s wisdom in planning and executing the act was superb, drawing on his superior skills of marksmanship and speed over his enemy’s muscles, and deceiving the enemy. In deception, David was a step ahead of the principle quoted in the ‘Art of War,’ a treatise composed much later around 6th century BC by Sun Tsu in China. ‘Art of War’ speaks of deception in war thus, “A military operation involves deception. Even though you are competent, appear to be incompetent. Though effective, appear to be ineffective.”
