Του λιθου – The stone

Του λίθου σφραγισθέντος
υπό των Ιουδαίων,
και στρατιωτών φυλασσόντων το άχραντον σου σώμα,
ανέστης τριήμερος Σωτήρ,
δωρούμενος τω κοσμώ την ζωήν.
Δια τούτο αι δυνάμεις των ουρανών
εβόων σοι ζωοδότα.
Δόξα τη αναστάσει σου Χριστέ,
δόξα τη βασιλεία σου,
δόξα τη οικονομία σου,
μόνε φιλάνθρωπε.

Though the tomb was sealed by a stone
and soldiers guarded Your pure body,
You arose, O Savior, on the third day,
giving life to the world.
Therefore, O Giver of life,
the heavenly powers praise You.
Glory to Your resurrection, O Christ,
glory to Your kingdom,
glory to Your plan of redemption,
O only-loving God.

This is the apolytikion that is sung this Lord’s Day in the Orthodox Church; it is the first of the eight which are sung in rotation throughout the year, because Lord’s Day is a commemoration of the resurrection of Christ.

There is one problem with the English translation: The first line has been purposely mistranslated in an attempt to hide a feature of our “Christian” history. What line 1 really says is, “The stone being sealed by the Jews.”

Everyone who sings this hymn in Greek with understanding knows what it really says, but as the Church in America is drifting away from Hellenism in an attempt to keep its increasingly nominal flock from running off to other amusements on the Lord’s Day and every day, it’s now experimenting with “new” translations of the ancient texts. The translation cited above, though, was made more than twenty years ago.

The Church and the Jews. This is the topic on my mind.

It all goes back a very, very long way with me personally. I’ve had a lifelong relationship with Judaism and Jews, starting with my “growing up Polish” in Chicago, where Jews are numerous. On my way back to the adult version of Christianity, I passed through a phase in which I was very much influenced by Judaism because of my Bible study. Even after I committed my life to Christ, I was still at the public library studying Old Testament commentary such as the Soncino Chumash, the Talmud, and other writings of rabbinical Judaism. To this day, I regularly include the reading of the Talmudic tractate Pirkei Avot (Sayings of the Fathers) in my studies. The great Jewish Christian authority of the 19th century, Alfred Edersheim (pictured above), has always been one of my teachers. All this by way of explaining why I think, and feel, the way I do about the Jews and Israel.

This morning I had an experience that startled and informed me.
I happened to notice that there was a large coin show taking place at Lloyd Center, and so I went in to see what it was like. I collect ancient and foreign coins, and who knows, maybe I’d find a bargain there. (As it turns out, I didn’t.) One of the tables I stopped at had some interesting coins, and the woman standing behind it repeated a script I’d heard her say a couple of times to chaps ahead of me, “We have more items in boxes behind us, if you’re looking for something in particular.” I explained my collecting interests, but she told me that they didn’t carry anything like that, in an argumentative and defensive-sounding voice. I was taken aback but tried again, and she turned around and came back with a little box that was partly coins of France. When I started looking through the box from the front, she quickly pushed her finger into the middle of the box while saying, “I told you, the French coins start here,” again in a bossy tone of voice. Hardly what I would consider customer service etiquette. I tried to be even friendlier, smiled and tried to make small talk. I looked up and noticed what I suspected, and asked her, “You are Jewish, aren’t you?” A long pause followed, and I could feel a strange mixture of fear and insult coming at me from her face, before she hesitantly responded, “Yes, I am.” Foolishly, but still trying to break the ice, I said, “Well, shabbat shalom! We really shouldn’t be here today, should we?” After the words were out of my mouth, I could’ve kicked myself. Though her attitude didn’t change, I suddenly realised that she didn’t want to be identified as a Jew, and that my attempt to connect with her on that basis was a threat. She was a woman probably in her mid 60’s or even a little older, and I could see as I looked at her more closely, there was a lot of pain in her eyes. I quickly finished looking through the box of coins, gave it back to her, thanked her, and moved away. I don’t think I have ever experienced what it means to be a Jew in a Gentile world so strongly before. Something I knew instinctively, had read about, and even seen in films was now very real to me.

A lot of my “Jewish” memories kept surfacing as I pretended to look at items on other tables and finally left the show and returned to my car. I thought back to how Jews had reacted to our presence among them when Brock and I used to attend Ahavat Achim synagogue here in Portland. There was an edge of fear the first shabbat evening we turned up there, and I tried to put the rabbi at ease, telling him who we were and what was our purpose—we just wanted to pray and worship with them.

I thought of our rougher experience trying to join a Jewish online forum, and the kind of reactions we got from the members once they figured out we were Christians. Again, we never approached them in a condescending, aggressive way, or tried to proselytize them. We just wanted to join them in discussing the scriptures. Yet many of them practically stoned us. We didn’t blame them or retaliate. We knew somehow that the problem was way bigger than the two of us.

I was still thinking about whether I should go back tomorrow and try to make it up to that Jewish woman, openly apologize if need be, when I noticed it was time for vespers. Andrew was chanting, and so I drove him there and decided to stay and pray. After the service, the deacon came out (the presbyter was absent) and gave the “talk.” (At Aghia Trias Cathedral, the vespers service has been cut back to precisely 30 minutes, so the presbyter can lead a discussion on some relevant topic, or teach a class.) Father deacon passed out photocopies of the Protevangelion of Saint James, and proceeded to teach on the subject of the life of the virgin Mary, as contained in this non-canonical “scripture.” He also put in a lot of effort trying to demonstrate that this “gospel” of the infancy of Mary, the source of most of Orthodoxy’s traditions about her, was in ancient times more beloved of the Christian churches than the book of Revelation, and more important. He essentially said that it really should be in the New Testament, but the fathers (though they unanimously endorsed its truthfulness) decided not to include it, because the New Testament was supposed to include only books about Jesus and the apostles. I’d never heard that explanation before. I have studied the Bible constantly since I was about 22 years old, and have also studied the so-called New Testament apocrypha on many occasions throughout the years. Not only is it obvious to me that the Protevangelion is no genuine part of scripture, just from the style and the content (which is scarcely distinguishable from folk tales), but anyone who is familiar with Jewish laws, customs and history, knows that the legends contained in it are simply impossible. When the Church finally decides that historical truth really is important, perhaps things will change, but at the moment only the learned know these things, and few if any would publicly question these “traditions.” There’s no point.

The congregation at vespers consisted of eight people, two of them students from Multnomah Bible College. I listened to the deacon’s animated monologue—he does like to tell stories—while in my mind I kept turning over ideas that were coming to me about the Church and the Jews. I knew, for example, that many of the church fathers wrote and preached against the Jews in terms that would today be considered very anti-semitic. The hymns of the Church, coming out of that early period, I knew were filled with phrases that vilified and condemned the Jews for not believing in Christ, and even for delivering Him over to death. The hymn quoted at the beginning of this post is a mild example, and the English translation tries to cover this up. But it seemed obvious to me, the more I thought about it, that the Jews have been made the scapegoat of Christianity almost from the beginning. What must it be like to belong to a people few in number that the populace at large thinks are “Christ-slayers”? Yes, this term occurs in one of the hymns of Orthodox Holy Week. No wonder that the Jewish wife of one of our members (she converted in order to marry him, but is still Jewish inside) rarely comes to church with him at all. Years ago I saw her during Holy Week services, but rarely since. It can be, and must be, a very painful thing to hear that the people you grew up among and who your parents are, are just “bad,” for not becoming believers in Jesus.
The gospel according to John uses the term “the Jews” to mean, usually but not exclusively, what we would call “the authorities.” My guess is that this usage, combined with the belligerent animosity that developed between the Jews and the emerging Christians in the first two or three centuries, laid the foundation of an implicit anti-semitism in the Church through the writings of many of the fathers. The course of history shows what became of this unfortunate beginning. Despite official decrees not to molest the Jews, in practically every locale the Jews settled, they were molested, their rights and properties forfeit, their very lives circumscribed. It’s not my point to go into detail, but it’s obvious that the Church has not treated the Jews well. So, is it any wonder that I had the experience I described in the beginning of this post?

It really is a difficult thing to be a Jew, even now, even today. Just as it would only make it worse, were I to go back and try to “make it up” to that woman at the coin show, so there is also nothing that the Church can really do to “make it up” to the Jews of today, other than to treat them with the respect that our common destiny demands. God, our God and their God, has preserved them even after the destruction of the Temple (as Christ prophesied), and He has not abandoned them, as many think who believe in “replacement theology,” even though this concept originated in the early period. The Church has been grafted onto the olive tree of believing Israel. We have to be patient as we wait for the complete redemption to occur to see just who “believing Israel” really is, just as they have to wait to see just who "Moshiach" is.

If anyone has had the patience to actually read this long post, I thank you, and I ask that you pray for Romanós the sinner, who loves the Jews for the sake of Messiah.