Yeshua is Not a Messiah.

Yeshua is not a Messiah. What do I mean by that?

Let me explain, in Jewish tradition there is the idea that in every generation there is a Messiah, or Messiah type so to speak that could be the ultimate Messiah. Thus some say Schnersohn was the Messiah type of our generation,  the Baal Shem Tov was the Messiah type of his generation and so on. Should this apply to Jesus? (Yeshua); absolutely not. Yeshua is not just another candidate for Messiah; he is the Messiah the ultimate redeemer of Israel. He is not a could be Messiah, he is not a ‘well he is just a candidate for Messiah,’ he is not a will be Messiah, again he is The Messiah.

But what if he is just a Messiah? Was this the position held by the early believers?

Let me ask you a question if they did truly believe that he was just a Messiah, instead of the Messiah, then why where they giving their lives up? Why where they (all the 12 Disciples)? Why would a person want to give his life away for a man who might be the Messiah? How could countless of believers in the Early Church go to their deaths in the barbaric Animal arenas of Rome for the sake of one who could be Messiah? How is that Countless of Christians were burned at the stake, tortured, drowned, buried alive, crucified, boiled alive, beaten to death, have their head taken of by clubs, ripped in half, skinned and thrown into a sewer, and have hot lamps seared unto to gaping wounds. How could they in their right mind go through such things for a man who at best might be Messiah?

Paul is constantly calling Yeshua Christ. And the vision of him (Messiah) in revelation is certainly one of exaltation. So in conclusion Yeshua is not a Messiah he the Messiah. I do not want to serve a Man who could be Messiah; I want to, and do serve the Messiah of Israel.

Select Poetry from Denise Levertov

Select poetry from Denise Levertov:
Perhaps not a poem but all I can say and I cannot be silent.

As a devout Christian my father took delight and pride in being (like Christ and the Apostles) a Jew.
It was
Hasidic lore, his heritage,
He drew on to know
The Holy Spirit as Shekinah.
My Gentile mother, Welsh through and through, and like my father sustained by deep faith, cherished all her life the words
Of Israel Zangwill, who told her you have a Jewish soul.
I their Daughter (flesh their flesh, bone of their bone)
Writing in this age of Terror, a libretto about El Salvador, the suffering, the martyrs,

Look from my page to watch the apportioned news-those foul dollops of History each thrusts at us, pushing them into our gullets-

And see that,
In Lebanon
So-called Jews have permitted
So-called Christians
To wreak pogrom (thunder of devastation)
On helpless folk (of tribe anciently kin to their own, and now concentrated in Camps……)
My father-my mother
I have longed for you.
Now I see
It is well you are dead,
Dead and gone from Time,
Gone from this time whose weight
Of shame your bones, weary already
From your own days and years of tragic History,
Could surely not have borne.

Passage

The spirit walked upon the face of the waters walks the meadow of long grass;
Green shines to silver where the spirit passes.
Wind from the compass points, sun at meridian,
These are forms the spirit enters,
Breath, Ruach, light that is witness and by which we witness.
The grasses numberless, bowing and rising, silently cry hosanna as the spirit moves them and moves burnishing
Over and again upon mountain pastures a day of spring, a Needles’s eye
Space and time are passing through like a swath of silk.

Adventures with the Apostles: Thaddeus

As one drudges through the writings of the ancient Church one finds many exciting details about the Apostles, Yeshua, and the early believers not found in the four canonical Gospels. These stories can be found mostly in the Acts of the Holy Apostles. Each Apostles is given a work such as acts of the holy Apostle Thomas, Acts of the Holy Apostle Matthew, Philip, and so on; they serve has a midrash on the deeds and lives of the apostles.

Yesterday on Shabbat as I was reading these accounts I came across the most wonderful story (midrash) it was found in the, “Acts of the Holy Apostle Thaddeus.”

According to the legend the Governor of Edessa Abagarus by name, hears of the fame of Yeshua and desires to know what this man is about and what he looks like, he sends one of his servants Ananias to inspect this Yeshua, but Ananias is unable to explain this remarkable man.

After Yeshua’s ascension Thaddeus is chosen to go the land of Edessa, and to speak to the governor of Edessa about Yeshua.
We pick up in the middle of the story:

And after the passion, and the resurrection, and the ascension, Thaddeus went to Abgarus; and having found him in health, he gave him an account of the incarnation of Christ, and baptized him, with his entire house. And having instructed great multitudes, both of Hebrews and Greeks, Syrians, and Armenians, he baptized them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, having anointed them with the holy perfume; and he communicated to them of the undefiled mysteries of the sacred body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and delivered to them to keep and observe the law of Moses, and to give close heed to the things spoken by the Apostles in Jerusalem. For year by year they came together to the Passover, and again he imparted to the Holy Spirit.

And Thaddeus along with Abgarus destroyed idol-temples and built Churches; ordained as bishop of one of his disciples, and presbyters, and deacons, and gave them the rule of the psalmody and the holy liturgy. (Taken from ‘Acts of the Holy Apostle Thaddeus’)

Once again we see how the apostles of Yeshua impacted the world. In this case Thaddeus; the impact that the Holy Apostles had on the world to bring it out of the darkness of idolatry into the realization of Hashem will serve has a blessing, it will also serve has a blessing to all those Gentiles who have heeded the call of the Apostles to come out of idolatry to take a look at the beauty and life found within the law of Moses, as Thaddeus instructed in his account.

Words of Eternal life.

“Everyone who separates himself from you is as though he were separating himself from his own life.” (Midrash Sifre on Numbers 10:8)

“Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68)

If one reads the above quote from Sifre in greater context it has to do with R’ Tarphon talking about R’ Akiva’s Halacha, he ends with the above quote from Sifre. For believer’s Yeshua’s Halacha are “The words of eternal life.” We will do very well to not separate from it, let’s we “separate ourselves from our own life.

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