My Masada Relic

Years  ago,  a  good  friend  of  mine,  Gerald  C.  Davis,  took  a  trip  to  Israel  with  his  family.    He  told  me  that  among  other  places  they  would  be  visiting  Masada,   the  fortress  just  south  of  the  West  Bank,  a  short  distance  west  of  the  Dead  Sea,  in  which  the  ancient  Jews  successfully   held  off  the  Roman  army  for  a   substantial  period  before  committing  suicide.  Josephus  relates  how  how  the  Jewish  families  holding-out  in  the  Masada  fortress  --  about  1,000  people  altogether  --  committed  mass  suicide  rather  than  allow  the  Romans  to  take  them  prisoner.    I  asked  Gerry  to  retrieve  for  me  a  stone  from  the  top  of  Masada,  where  the  Jews  held-out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masada#mediaviewer/File:Israel-2013-Aerial_21-Masada.jpg

The  stone  Gerry  retrieved  for  me  is  palm-sized.   I  glued  a  portion  of  the  speech  of  Eleazar  of  Masada  to  his  followers,  before  their  deaths ...

It  is  a  wonderful  relic  from  a  desperate  age.

Masada  took  place  during  the  great  Jewish  Revolt  against  the  Romans  during  the  first  century,   as  the  Older  Brother  Church  of  Christianity,  the  Old  Testament  Church,  Judaism,   was  being  bludgeoned  to  death   by  the  world  around  it.  Though  it  was  time  for God's  people  to  shed  the  fig  leaf  clothing  of  Judaism,  Genesis  3:7,  and  put  on  the  sacrificed  victim  skin  clothing  of  Christianity,   Genesis  3:21,   the  people  of  Judaism  were  loved  by  Christ  in  a  special  way,   so  that  He  wept  over  Jerusalem  as  He  considered  the  horrors  to  come ...

41   As he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it,

42  saying, “If this day you only knew what makes for peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.

43  For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides.

44  They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”

Luke  19:41-44

One  of  the  things  one  sees  in  the  Bible,    as  it  is  read  through  the  lens  of  Bible  typology,  is  that  God  definitely  viewed   Judaism  as  the   first  Church.   That  is  the  concept   comprising  the  basis  for  the  Visitation,  Luke  1:39-56,  where  we  see  the  last  prophet  of  Judaism,   John,  jumping  for  joy  in  Elizabeth's  womb   at  the  arrival   of  the  Savior  of  Mankind  and  future  Invisible  Head  of  New  Testament  Church  --  the  Church  of  Rome.

Christ  Himself,  in  his  Eschatalogical  or  "End  of  the  World"  Homilies,  foretold  when  we,  in  the  New  Testament  Church,  would  be  reviled,  and  some  would  be  put  to  death.  Luke  21:12-19.

I  personally  believe  that  that  time  has  come. 

And  so  my  Masada  relic  is  very  dear  to  me.   Do  not  miss-out  on  the  adventure.