Give us Barabbas!

Logic says that we are to trust our religious leaders more than we trust our politicians and bureaucrats, and as I look at it my feeling is that such a statement has to be true.  However, as I prepare to preach this coming Easter weekend, I find at least one occasion in which things went awfully wrong, with terrible consequences.

Herod was such an imbecile that all he could do was to feel relieved that the man who had been heralded as the king of the Jews was now before him as no more than a beaten, bleeding, well guarded prisoner whom he could mock and abuse at will... but nothing else; he couldn´t care less.  He had no reason whatsoever to worry about him.

Pilate was far closer to justice and righteousness... (not quite there, mind you, just closer).  He even had a conscience to nag him (and a wise wife too!) but those two advantages were not enough against his political instincts, and his morals and his sense of justice had to take a back seat against his need for political survival.

It was the religious leaders though, who said at the Sanhedrin that Jesus had to die; it was them who despaired at Pilate´s undecisiveness, and it was them who worked up the mob to demand Barabbas liberation and Jesus´crucifixion.  What strikes me and even sends shudders up my spine is to realise that once they were talked into a killing frenzy by the religious leaders, based upon religious reasons, the crowd did two terrible things that could be reasonably seen as a metaphor of our civilization´s current cultural and phylosphical suicide.

First, facing a specific choice between light and darkness, they went for the latter.  It was Deuteronomy 30:19 all over again, and they chose death, violence, unrighteousness, evil, and everything that Barabbas represented, and they did it consciously, with their eyes wide open.  They not only chose all that Barabbas represented; they fully embraced it, to the point of rubricating the election with the decision of murdering the innocent man who represented the complete opposite.

The second act is even more ominous and dark.  Challenged by Pilate for the injustice of choosing an innocent to be executed, their cry is mind blowing: "His blood be on us and on our children!" Now, willingly embracing darkness and evil is one thing; topping it up with murderous hatred at the expense of your very soul is a further step into insanity, but needlessly and wantonly calling a curse upon your own children... I can imagine those people, red-eyed, fists clenched, mouths foaming... posessed.

I said above I can see this as a metaphor, because it reminds me of  today´s more and more belligerent opposition to all that Christ and his church represent.  Certainly the Christian church has made many mistakes along the ages, some of them monumental and we have to enter into deep and serious exchanges with out culture and society, and acknowledge what is necessary and even apologize if needed... that´s not the point... it could even prove a healthy exercise.  However, most of the resistance and rejection of the Gospel comes as a hostile attempt to eradicate it from the streets, from schools, from any and all level of government, from minds, from souls, from everything and everywhere.  People want freedom to embrace evil without the uncomfortable presence of Christ and Christians around... a newer version of "Give us Barabbas ...and crucify Him".

However, in order to achieve a God-free society, you need a generation of adults consciously willing to sacrifice a whole generation of children to ensure that all that Christ brings to humankind disappears.  Let them ignore the difference between good and evil; let them do whatever their (sinful) heart desires, let them listen to a thousand voices and become incapable to discern any trace of truth in them... let them forget truth exists altogether!  Let us kill as many unborn babies as possible and rejoice in that freedom; let us invent ways to use people and throw them away when we get bored of them, and let the children that may have been born within that arrangement fend for themselves.  Let us teach our children that everything is OK, that all that matters is your own will... "His blood be on us and on our children".

Then comes the incredible horror of the cross, and the complete unknown of the tomb... but the very last word is Jesus´triumphant resurrection and his taking his righteous place at his Father´s side in glory... and that is and will be the final touching point of the metaphor, whatever and however long it takes to get there.

The other side of the coin

Just one more entry about the recent developments in Medellin:  I have just talked to the seminary´s vice Principal, and he tells me that things have gone back to a certain "normality" meaning that although all seems well and schools have reopened and there were no shootouts throughout the week end, a certain sense of threat and danger lingers as everyone knows that the problems have not been solved.  Sadly, it seems that history will repeat itself once more and things will not calm down in a visible way until an armed band simply guns down any others in or around their territory into oblivion, thus securing their complete and absolute control over assorted activities like drug trafficking, racketeering, recruiting boys as cannon fodder and girls for their harems (or the other way round; today it doesn´t really matter)... only when that territorial control is secured, "calm" will come back to the area.

Having said that, I bumped into an internet article recommending retirement locations for US citizens and guess what... Medellin came first in the list!  Go and see yourself... (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/8-great-places-to-retire-abroad-175538395.html) 
And yes... a couple of years ago my son asked me where I would like to retire (that´s how old I look in his eyes) and I said "here" without much thinking.  I might have to rethink it, but it is still an appealing thought nonetheless.

...and the beasts

Beauty...

What really made me think was that all the article says promoting Medellin as a good place to come and retire is true (except for its optimistic evaluation of living costs... too simplistic).  However,it is also tragically true all we´ve been talking about in the last two entries.  That is a reality in this country where life can be so beautiful and so ugly at the same time, a real champion in inequality, where expressions like "paradise" and "living hell" can coexist, where the evidences of unimaginable fortunes are paraded shamelessly in the face of those who do not have a crumb of bread for the day.

Add to all that an ineffective system of justice which guarantees impunity to the powerful and all the weight of the law to the powerless, and a deeply rooted and structural culture of corruption and let´s ask ourselves: Is violence that difficult to understand against such a background? 

And yet, I can´t help loving this wonderful country, and would still consider retiring here.

Uneasy calm

A big "Thank you" to all our friends who responded so propmtly and generously with encouragement and assurances of prayer.  Our friends in Robledo (the neighbourhood where the seminary has its campus) report a day of tense calm.  Yesterday at midday there was chaos and fear as rumours spread and hundreds of worried parents flocked to local schools to collect their children and take them home earlier than normal.  In the afternoon the whole area looked desertic, and in the evening everybody obeyed the curfew "just in case".

Today there was a tense calm in the air.  Educational authorities decided to open all schools, and although they did, many parents opted for not sending their children and wait until Monday hoping that by then things would have gone back to normal.



This particular crisis seems to be over, thankfully, but remember to pray for this city from time to time.  There are very ugly things going on as different armed groups try to reconquer territory and power.  Earlier on this week, two boys, not even teenaegers yet, were cruelly tortured and killed apparently for having crossed one of the millions of imaginary frontiers that divide the heavily populated "comunas" .

Local community under fire

This school is just around the corner from the seminary, and several of the students and personnel have their children there.

Villa Flora and Bello Horizonte are two neighbourhoods that surround the seminary in Medellin.  For the last couple of days, there have been intense exchanges of gunfire among local gangs, and one of these "combos" has lost some of its men, and has in response declared a sort of martial law in the area.  Today, all the local schools were evacuated in a hurry, after an anonymous communiqué circulated declaring that they would attack the schools that would not comply, and establishing also a curfew after 8 pm starting tonight.

We cannot know yet how this will affect the seminary or its students and personnel, but many of them have their children attending one or other of the schools under threat and the sense of fera and even panic (the latter a word used by more than one of them) is very evident in those I could talk to.  I have just spoken to the seminary´s acting Principal, and he tells me that although the situation is worrying, up to this point there will be no more action taken other than obeying the nightime curfew as a precaution.  If things get uglier in the following hours or days, then other measures, such as suspendindg classes might be considered, but they have not reached that point yet.

I´m posting this with an urgent request for earnest prayer on behalf of the seminary´s community and indeed for the people of the affected neighbourhoods, caught between the vicious crossfire.

(Spanish speakers can check the report in El Colombiano, Medellin´s main newspaper, and from where the picture above was borrowed:  http://www.elcolombiano.com/BancoConocimiento/C/comunidad_de_robledo_bello_horizonte_amanecio_atemorizada_por_panfleto/comunidad_de_robledo_bello_horizonte_amanecio_atemorizada_por_panfleto.asp)