Let heaven and earth bear witness: 2nd Week of Advent

“...but the others offered no opposition;

not a stone was thrown, there was no

barricading of the hiding places.  They

only said: Let us all die innocent; let

heaven and earth bear witness...”

--1 Maccabees 2:36-37

This past Sunday was the second Sunday of Advent.  The reading from Luke’s gospel reminded us that Jesus was lived in a specific time –under Tiberius Caesar and Pontius Pilate and Ciaphas, et al.  And in Luke’s inimitable way he tells us that in this time of these powerful empires and celebrated leaders that the Word of God came not to a king or emperor or high priest, but to a nobody living in the desert, wearing animal skins and eating locust and honey.  God spoke not to the great in their temples and palaces, sitting on their thrones, but to the humble—to the nobodies. To a young girl living in Bethlehem and then to a crazy hermit living alone in the desert.  Why is that such an important part of this story?  Perhaps to remind us that if we want to hear God’s voice, we need to avoid the distractions that come with palaces and temples and throne rooms; that come with special greetings in the market place and honored places at the table.  Perhaps the author (Luke) is reminding us that God doesn’t work the way the world works.  God doesn’t measure value in the same terms that we use.  That what looks like success, like victory, to us isn’t necessarily success in the eyes of God.  And what looks like failure and loss to us isn’t necessarily either in the eyes of God.  For instance, I was thinking about these nameless figures from the book of Maccabees; they end up refusing to fight and are utterly destroyed by the Greek army sent to squash the Jewish revolt in Jerusalem.

When I read the description of their action, my first thought went to Gandhi and the non-violence movement, and I began to romanticize their choice, and I half thought they would be mentioned again in some celebratory terms... but so far, nada.  They simply showed up and died, and the rest of the story is about Judah and the other Maccabees and their improbable military victories against Greek army after army; yet, despite all their amazing victories what do we have in the end?  Because we read these stories in light of 2000 years of history, we read them in a light of ultimate loss.  We know that the book history has written is a history of how the Jews despite all their astonishing military victories, lost not only the temple and Jerusalem but their entire homeland; their self-rule; their autonomy; their freedom even and yet survived, and often thrived.  My ignorance of the 20^th century history of Israel will remain in silence on this most recent chapter of their history, except to note that still Israel remains a land of uncertainty and strif

And so, I still wonder: what lesson is God teaching us by this group of unnamed souls who “offered no opposition,” who “died innocent” and allowed “heaven and earth [to] bear witness.”  What if the lesson of Maccabees isn’t that we are called to defend God and country with the sword; but that we are called to be innocent and offer no opposition (i.e. to turn the other cheek and offer no opposition to evil when it comes) and to allow heaven and earth to be witness to all that God wills for us.  If we submit to God’s will we may end up anonymous and forgotten in the eyes of the world. In the eyes of the world, we may seem to have been nobody of consequence, but...  

A last interesting element in this book of 1 Maccabees.  In chapter 9 we get a powerful vision of what the “heroism” of these warriors becomes.   In this chapter the Maccabean warriors attack a wedding procession escorting the bride and groom to the wedding feast.  Out of revenge, they strike and when they are done avenging their brother’s blood (and the theft of their own supplies), they take whatever loot they can and return to the “marshes of the Jordan” (9:42).   What does this sound like to our modern ear?  How often do we read and hear news reports of suicide bombings at weddings and in marketplaces? Wherever people might gather and let their guard down.  It sounds a lot like terrorism.  As if the author were --consciously or not—showing us what a mentality of war leads to: anything goes, the end justifies the means.  Was the attack justified?  To Jonathan and Simon (and their followers) it must have seemed so.  They needed supplies and they needed to send a message.  Don’t mess with us!  They needed to strike fear into some hearts and terror into some souls. And it didn’t matter that innocent lives might be lost.  Their cause was bigger than that.  They were fighting for God.

And so my mind turns once again to those people in the desert.  And I think of the others who have wandered in the desert, vulnerable and afraid: Abraham and Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael, Jacob, Moses, John the Baptist... Jesus... all who found themselves vulnerable and helpless; innocent and dependent on the witness of Heaven (and earth) to protect them.  

And I wonder...  What kind of witness am I giving?  When I lash out at someone who hurts my feelings? Or I gossip about a coworker or neighbor? Or I laugh at a crude joke? Or I fail to speak up when someone else is talked about or attacked?  How often am I afraid of the desert? The isolation of being seen as uncool... How often do I fortify my defenses or run and hide when I think trouble is coming? What if I listened to the example of those anonymous souls who said:  Let us all die innocent; let heaven and earth bear witness?  And I have to ask myself how can heaven and earth bear witness if I won’t let them?    

p.s.
as a writer I find a great lesson in how these people, mentioned very briefly, haunt the rest of the book.  Everything the warriors and kings do is somehow overshadowed by their humble non-violent witness...  Hmmm...  so many lessons.  I guess the Bible really is a "good" book.