Home-grown, radical Islamic terrorism will probably escalate given the success of the Boston Marathon bombings and the close call and recent arrests of an extremist Muslim Toronto resident and another in the U.S. because of their planned derailment of a Canadian passenger train near Toronto.
You also probably heard about the Canadian Muslim who took part in the large terrorist attack and subsequent murders of workers and others recently at the oil refinery in Algeria.The temptation resulting from this horrible violence and the fear it causes is to build barriers, not bridges, in Canada and the U.S. to our Muslim neighbours.
However, may I remind you of Jesus’ choice of disciples, and the bridges that He chose to build with them to the local culture groups in ancient Israel when He was first here.
One of Jesus' Ambassadors, Matthew, came into His inner circle as a collaborationist tax-collector. Matthew abetted and aided the occupying Romans in oppressing the Jewish nation before he chose to follow King Jesus. Most Jews felt about Matthew much like the Dutch did during WW II about their fellow citizens who collaborated with and helped the Germans.
On the other hand, Simon the Zealot, another of Jesus' 12 key Ambassadors, was the ancient Jewish equivalent of the Tsarnaev brothers when Jesus walked around Israel. The Zealots were masters of ferocious and violent terrorism against the Roman authorities and soldiers occupying Israel.
It would have been interesting to sit in on conversations with Jesus and those two ...Matthew and Simon. We would have heard Him share in his own voice His peace-making, non-violent "Third Way" that we can still read about in Matthew 5:38-48.
Despite who Matthew and Simon were and the terrible things they had done before meeting Jesus, personally, He chose them, made them His friends, and partners with each other. That same invitation is available still today to everyone who will choose to believe in, follow, and obey Jesus, "God, The One and Only King".
Jesus also made the nobodies, Matthew and Simon, His Apostles. 'Apostle' is really better translated ...rather than being transliterated... as 'Ambassador'. And Jesus sent "His 12 Ambassadors to the whole world of non-Jews and told them to tell their Disciples (Learners) down through the ages to us to do exactly the same thing.
In view of Jesus command to His Followers in all ages, one of the saddest statements to come out of the Tsarnaev brothers’ story was this entry by Tamerlan, the eldest, on one of his web sites:
"I have no American friends – I don’t understand them."Do you, like me, wonder if Jesus holds Tamerlan responsible for the non-action of Christians who may not have reached out, in love, to the Tsarnaevs who were ordinary "Street Muslims", to use a term common in the media, before the demoniacal violence took place?
Or will Jesus be asking so-called Jesus-Following neighbours of the Tsarnaevs about what they did to share His non-violent Gospel of grace to the Brothers and their family ...before it was too late?
For unconditional love is Jesus' ONLY prescription for what is needed to hopefully counter and overcome radical Islamist hate and violence against non-Muslims ...especially Christians and Jews.
Despite what Islamic apologists argue, Muslims are taught these attitudes by their Holy Book, the Qur'an. (In it, regrettably, they find many hateful, violent commands like those in verses 4:76, 5:33, 5:51, and 9:5!)
Please pray for and reach out to your Muslim neighbours, without fear as Jesus commands in Matthew 28:18-20. Please also pray for both the persecuted and their persecutors in the genocide being implemented against Christians by radical Islamists, plus ordinary Street Muslims, throughout the Muslim-majority world and especially, right now, in Egypt, Iraq, and Syria.
