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FIRST, THE NEWS: |
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INVESTIGATIVE REPORT: DISABLED & ELDERLY AT 'THE BACK OF THE LINE’ FOR COVID-19 CARE IN AT LEAST 25 STATES
from: LifeSite News
(9 Apr.) Coronavirus patients with disabilities or over a certain age could be placed at “the back of the line for life-saving treatment” in states across America in the event of a shortage of medical supplies such as ventilators, according to an investigative report by The Center for Public Integrity.
The report analyzed the emergency rationing or "crisis standards of care" policies of 30 states and concluded that 25 of them "had provisions of the sort advocates fear will send people with disabilities to the back of the line for life-saving treatment." The Center for Public Integrity says that the other 20 states had either "not established rationing policies or did not release them."
Among the report’s findings are (emphasis added):
Policies and guidelines in 14 states, including Alabama’s, put patients with specific criteria or diagnoses at the back of the ventilator line in a way disability advocates decry as discriminatory. Alabama, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Texas and Utah direct hospitals to take dementia into account. In Washington, the state's guidelines say doctors should consider "baseline functional status" when determining whether to move patients to end-of-life care, including "loss of reserves in energy, physical ability, cognition and general health."
… Policies and guidelines in five states — Alaska, Florida, Oklahoma, Vermont and Wisconsin — specify that patients with cystic fibrosis, a genetic lung disease that affects about 30,000 people in the U.S., should not be considered for a ventilator.
… Policies in 13 states direct hospitals to evaluate whether patients need "assistance with activities of daily living" or would need more resources than other patients, such as home oxygen or dialysis.
… Policies in six states — Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota and New York — say hospitals should consider taking ventilators away from patients who rely on them in daily life if others need them more, a practice advocates say would discourage people with disabilities from even seeking treatment for COVID-19. [read more~~]
COMMENTARY: Keep in mind that those states which are discriminating against the disabled and elderly are 25 out of just 30 states surveyed (or 5/6). There are 20 more U.S. states plus two territories and the District of Columbia not included in the survey, so by multiplying 53 by 5/6 equals about 45 states or territories ... an overwhelming majority of the U.S. that is outright planning for euthanasia of the elderly and disabled if the COVID-19 pandemic causes shortages of medical supplies. We see this happening already in the news reports leaking out about extremely high death rates in homes for the disabled and nursing homes: there's not enough medical equipment, isolation rooms, or trained staff in such facilities to deal with a pandemic.
Here they make explicit what is implied and unspoken about the elderly and disabled: "Those people are going to die pretty soon anyway, so why not just speed things up a bit?" We feel pity for disabled children who make up just 6% of the total population, thinking: "What a shame, they have their whole lives ahead of them!" But disabled working-age adults and retired people make up 61% of the total population -- ten times as many as the disabled children -- yet we don't feel nearly as much pity for them: just the opposite. What a shame!
KAZAKHSTAN: MORE COURT-ORDERED RELIGIOUS LITERATURE DESTRUCTION
by : Forum 18 News Service
(1 Apr.) In 2020, courts ordered destroyed 196 Christian publications. The owners were each fined one month's average wage. Punishing an individual for importing one religious book for personal use is a "clear violation" by the court, a legal specialist noted. "Normally [the Police] destroy books by putting them in a stove, but I can't say if they've already destroyed the book," the judge told Forum 18
In the cases of three individuals so far in 2020, courts have not only fined them about one month's average wage for bringing a religious book into Kazakhstan or offering religious literature to others, but ordered their literature destroyed. The Police were tasked with destroying the books. In February, a court in the southern Zhambyl Region ordered destroyed a book of religious sayings seized from a Kyrgyz citizen who had crossed the border into Kazakhstan. The judge ordered the one religious book destroyed even though the Religion Law allows individuals to bring into the country one copy of any one religious book for personal use.
The judge declined to say why he had punished the individual. He said that the Police were tasked with destroying the book. "Normally they destroy books by putting them in a stove, but I can't say if they've already destroyed the book," he told Forum 18. Police in a village in the north-eastern Pavlodar Region detained and seized Christian literature from two Baptists who were offering it for free on the streets. In early March, the local court fined them each one month's average wages and ordered the 196 items of Christian literature destroyed. Asked if he was comfortable taking decisions to order religious literature destroyed, one of the judges told Forum 18: "When we're enacting the law we don't distinguish on the basis of individuals' religious, racial or ethnic affiliation."
Punishing an individual for importing one religious book for personal use "is a clear violation on the part of the court," a legal specialist told Forum 18. In 2015, Yevgeny Zhovtis of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and the Rule of Law condemned such court-ordered book destruction as "barbarism." [read more~~]
COMMENTARY: The old Soviet mentality that commits religious persecution of minority faiths seems hard to shake off in the former-USSR, now independent republics. These practices of fining and/or imprisoning people who are merely trying to exercise their freedom of religion are indeed "barbaric." It is reminiscent of the pagan Greco-Roman emperors' persecution of the early Christians, often using the most gruesome tortures they could imagine. Haven't the past twenty centuries of Christianity taught humanity how to be humane?
PEOPLE NOT TO BE FORCIBLY KEPT FROM CHURCHES ON EASTER - HEAD OF THE NATIONAL POLICE OF UKRAINE
from: Religious Information Service of Ukraine
(10 Apr.) The Head of Ukraine's National Police, Igor Klymenko, hopes that the celebration of Easter under quarantine will include services in churches, but without crowds and incidents. He said this in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine, LB ua reports. Klymenko noted that the heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs met with representatives of the All-Ukraine Council of Churches to determine the optimal approach to the celebration.
"Both the police and the Interior Ministry factor in that the Easter Services should take place. We understand that we cannot and do not have the right to close churches. Therefore, we have reached an agreement: the churches are definitely working, they hold services, there are no more than 10 people at the service," the head of the National Police said. He added that only clergymen are allowed to wear no mask in churches, as this is required by tradition and ritual. At the same time, after the worship service, two people can enter the church if the church is large, and one person if the church is small.
The Head of the National Police noted that the Police of the Dialogue and district police inspectors are located near the churches, ensuring law and order, and the priests themselves in the church - to control the number of parishioners in the premises. "By no means will we enter the churches, and even more so, we will not take anyone out of there," Klymenko assured. [read more~~]
COMMENTARY: Another method to reduce the risk of infection at church is as follows: as you may know, in Ukrainian and Russian churches, both Orthodox and Eastern Catholic, the priest serves the Eucharist with a spoon (lozhitsa) and the communicant is supposed to open his mouth wide so the priest can drop the bread soaked in wine into his mouth without touching the lips, teeth, or tongue. But the spoon often does touch the communicant's mouth anyway.
This tradition dates from around the 13th century, when laypeople previously would sometimes pocket the bread or wafer dipped in wine placed in the hands and use it as a superstitious talisman. But in our time of viral pandemics, the article THE COCHLEAR [SPOON] CONTROVERSY suggests that it may be the right time to discontinue the small-t tradition of a common spoon, either asking parishioners to bring their own spoons, or dip the common spoon in alcohol and rinse it in water between each communicant being served.
CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK AT TEXAS INSTITUTION SICKENS 75
from: Disability Scoop
(7 Apr.) Residents at the Denton State Supported Living Center rose on the morning of March 20, aided by caregivers who helped them bathe, brush their teeth and eat breakfast. Employees fanned out across the sweeping Texas campus for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities as many residents headed to their morning group activities, like any normal day.
But it wasn't a normal day.
Unbeknown to nearly all of the facility’s 443 residents and 1,460 employees, someone on campus had tested positive for COVID-19 the night before. Administrators told only the staff in the home where that individual lived. They waited until 2:18 p.m. the next day to notify the rest of the campus about the positive case.
By then, the virus was moving. Within a week, 41 people at the Denton facility had tested positive. As of Friday night, that number had swelled to 50 residents and 25 employees. "It's spreading fast," said Francisco Santillan, who worked at the facility until earlier this year and is now an organizer with the Texas State Employees Union. "And I feel like the administration has dropped the ball."
The outbreak has become a crisis on a campus where many residents have pre-existing medical conditions and are considered at high risk if they contract the coronavirus. There are similar facilities across the country where large groups of vulnerable adults live in close proximity to one another and social distancing is impossible due to the level of care needed. In Missouri, three residents at a state-run home for people with developmental disabilities tested positive for the virus last week. In New Hampshire, one resident has died and five others are infected at a similar nonprofit group home. In Texas, four hours south of Denton, two residents at another state-run living center tested positive last week. [read more~~]
COMMENTARY: The above photo is from the article Denton County asks state for temporary hospital after COVID-19 outbreak at state supported living center, dated 24 Mar., at which time only six people had tested positive for COVID-19 at the facility. The Texas governor urged the state to allocate funds for a temporary hospital there, but by 7 Apr. the pandemic had spread to 75 people, mainly to residents.
US HEALTH OFFICIAL REMINDS STATES THAT TRIAGE CANNOT TRUMP CIVIL RIGHTS
from: BioEdge
(5 Apr.) The civil rights office of the US Department of Health and Human Services has issued a stern bulletin warning that doctors must not discriminate on the basis of disability, race, age or other factors if triage becomes necessary during the coronavirus pandemic.
"HHS is committed to leaving no one behind during an emergency," said Roger Severino. "Persons with disabilities, with limited English skills, or needing religious accommodations should not be put at the end of the line for health services during emergencies. Our civil rights laws protect the equal dignity of every human life from ruthless utilitarianism."
As the states struggle to cope with growing numbers in hospitals, disability groups have expressed their concerns that the disabled might be denied treatment. According to the New York Times, "Some [state] plans instruct hospitals not to offer mechanical ventilators to people above a certain age or with particular health conditions."
In Alabama's plan, people with "severe or profound mental retardation" as well as "moderate to severe dementia" should be considered "unlikely candidates for ventilator support" during a period of rationing. Washington's guidance recommends that triage teams consider transferring hospital patients with "loss of reserves in energy, physical ability, cognition and general health" to outpatient or palliative care.
But the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) suggests that such plans could be challenged: "In this time of emergency, the laudable goal of providing care quickly and efficiently must be guided by the fundamental principles of fairness, equality, and compassion that animate our civil rights laws. This is particularly true with respect to the treatment of persons with disabilities during medical emergencies as they possess the same dignity and worth as everyone else." [read more~~]
COMMENTARY: High school and university students in the U.S. are often taught the "lifeboat" theory of ethics: if there are too many people in a lifeboat so that it starts to sink, how do you decide whom to throw overboard? But when I was taking an honors philosophy course in university, our professor emphasized that this is a false premise: in order to get the right answer, you must first ask the right question. We are not passengers from a sinking ship who are overcrowded in a lifeboat.
In the same way, to categorize people as "too old" or "not healthy enough" is a false premise: many of the elderly or disabled people on ventilators might live for years if they continue to receive care, and many of the younger virus patients who need a ventilator might die within a few days or a week even if placed on a ventilator: thus by taking the former off a ventilator to give it to the latter could result in the death of both the former and the latter. Our "medical ethicists" need to rephrase the question. People do not fit neatly into categories or pigeon holes. They are people, not statistical categories.
FIRST RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH CLERGYMAN DIES OF CORONAVIRUS
from: Interfax-Religion
(10 Apr.) Alexander Gusev, protodeacon of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, died of coronavirus at the age of 57 on Thursday, protodeacon Andrey Kurayev said on social media on Friday.
Father Alexander served in the Church of Holy Royal Martyrs in Reno, Nevada, the United States, where he also helped in a hospital. He was diagnosed with pneumonia and coronavirus the week before. He is survived by his mother, wife, and son.
In a related article, Russian clergy drive through New York with the cross against coronavirus, on 6 April, with a blessing of the acting administrator of the Patriarchal Parishes in the USA and Canada, Bishop Matthew of Sourozh, the clergy of the St. Nicholas Patriarchal Cathedral in New York drove in a car procession with the cross through all the city districts carrying an icon of St. Tikhon with a particle of his holy relics.
The procession began after All-Night Vigil celebrated on the eve of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Mother of God and the 95th anniversary of the demise of the holy confessor St. Nicholas, Patriarch of All Russia, the website of the Moscow Patriarchate reports. The clergy and laity of the Patriarchal Parishes in the USA were called to pray during the procession and read the acathistos to St. Tikhon - the Heavenly Patron of America, the builder of the St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York.
In every district of the city - Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Brighton, Queens and Bronx, stops were made and prayers were lifted up during the spread of the harmful pandemic and for the healing of the sick. The clergy also visited the St. John of Kronstadt House of Diligence and a prayer service was said at the Chapel of Our Lady the Inexhaustible Chalice by the leaders and residents of this house. The procession with the cross concluded at midnight at the St. Nicholas Cathedral with a praise to St. Tikhon.
COMMENTARY: Secular people might think: "What good can such a procession do? People will die anyway!" St. Tikhon was a Russian Orthodox archbishop who was sent to North America in the first decade of the 1900s to establish Orthodoxy here. He travelled all over the U.S. and Canada, proclaiming the ancient faith of original Christianity, even preaching in some Protestant churches. One of those was a Presbyterian church on Vine St. in Denver, Colorado. In 1949 my father and mother moved our family to Denver and we began attending that very Presbyterian church. I still remember my elderly Sunday School teacher telling us about the Ecumenical Councils being so important in defining the Christian faith. And that once-Presbyterian church has now become an Orthodox church, long after St. Tikhon returned to Russia to become Patriarch and was starved to death by the Bolsheviks!
The above article also mentions St. John of Kronstadt, who happens to be my patron saint. He lived in the same era as St. Tikhon and was famous all over Russia for his miracles and answered prayers that people would send to him by mail. He would often know the content of letters even before opening the envelopes and would have prayed for those people. When we visited the monastery in St. Petersburg where his relics are entombed, as I knelt and prayed before his tomb, a voice came into my head: "Wouldn't it be wonderful if my wife and I could be chrismated into Orthodoxy on the centenial of his death?" But I immediately put that thought out of my head as being too much to ask of our priest. Later that autumn, Fr. Patrick came to me after Liturgy, said we were ready, asking us when we would like to be chrismated. It took place on 20 December, 2008, exactly 100 years after St. John's death.
OTHER NEWS HEADLINES:
CHRISTIAN MINISTER SUES HOTEL FOR SHUTTING DOWN CONFERENCE DEFENDING MARRIAGE LAST OCTOBER
from LifeSite News
STIMULUS CHECKS ARE AUTOMATIC... UNLESS YOU'RE ON SSDI
from Disability Scoop
OCU SYNOD ISSUES 10 INSTRUCTIONS REGARDING THE CELEBRATION OF PALM SUNDAY AND EASTER UNDER THE QUARANTINE
from Religious Information Service of Ukraine
MANY RUSSIAN AND GEORGIAN CIVILIANS NOT PREPARED FOR A LONG COVID-19 LOCKDOWN
from Mission Network News
FOUR MOSCOW CLERGYMEN DIAGNOSED WITH CORONAVIRUS, FOUR MORE SUSPECTED OF HAVING IT - PATRIARCHATE
from Interfax-Religion
RUSSIAN BAPTISTS CRY OUT FOR FEDERAL INTERVENTION AGAINST SCAPEGOATING
from AUCECB
UOC CLERGY DELIVER CORONAVIRUS TESTS TO MEDICAL WORKERS IN ALL REGIONS OF UKRAINE
from Russian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate
BULGARIAN PM: "THE CHURCH SAVED US FROM OTTOMAN SLAVERY. I CAN’T CLOSE THE CHURCHES"
from Orthodox Christianity
TURKEY TAKES ADVANTAGE OF CORONAVIRUS RESTRICTIONS TO BROADCAST THE ISLAMIC CALL TO PRAYER IN THE HAGIA SOPHIA
from Christian Persecution
GEORGIANS LITERALLY LAUNDERING THEIR CASH DURING CORONAVIRUS
from Eurasia Net
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These free PDF documents explain how these communities will operate, and quote in detail how a similar organization with about 25 such communities organizes and finances their non-profit housing cooperatives. There are hundreds and hundreds of church-related residential communities for the elderly and disabled all over the U.S. You can also join our email discussion forum to keep informed as these communities develop.
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Conservative Christians have for some time felt misgivings about Facebook's left-leaning editorial policies. But FB's new Faith on Facebook Resource Hub was recently created to specifically equip pastors, priests, rabbis, and other faith leaders with the tools they need to connect online with their congregants during the pandemic. Both our current church in Pittsburgh, PA as well as our former church in Madison, WI are using Facebook Live to video-broadcast their services.
One-way video-broadcasting is fine for church services, but for fellowship, sharing ideas and concerns, two-way video communication is essential during this COVID-19 pandemic. Skype has added video conferencing and group chat that don't require installing an app. And Rocket.Chat, open-source, is a similar online chat that includes Jitsi Meet video conferencing system. All of these work on PCs, Macs, Androids, and iPhones. Set up one of these for your church's coffee hour!
Several of our articles and news headlines in this issue of Hosken-News address the question of how to deal with shortages of medical equipment such as ventilators, protective gear, ICU beds, etc. - should we ration the medical care to only the patients who are young and healthy, or should we try to keep elderly and disabled alive just as much as the former? The article Moral Guidance on Prioritizing Care During a Pandemic provides some Christian guidance on these pressing questions.
An example of the above anti-elderly-and-disabled discrimination is the article Leading Dutch doctor suggests they won’t treat elderly patients during COVID-19 pandemic. It's nothing new for the Dutch: they have been leading the world down the slippery slope of euthanasia for almost two decades. The Dutch finance minister actually chided Spain and Portugal, "claiming they have wasted money in relating to the coronavirus pandemic" by keeping the elderly and disabled alive.
Many politicians are biblically illiterate: some in New York City recently lashed out at Franklin Graham's Samaritan Purse organization as "anti-LGBTQ" even though it is providing free medical care to patients without regard to their political beliefs or sexual orientation: see A Health Crisis Is No Time to Pick a Fight Over Beliefs About Marriage. Don't these politicians know the parable of the Good Samaritan who provided medical care out of his own purse to a poor, suffering Jew - a man of a different religion - who had been brutally beaten, robbed, and left for dead?
And finally, there's the article An Advantaged Disease, Indeed that gently questions why nearly all nations in the whole world have shut down their economies because of this particular disease, COVID-19. Suffocation is certainly a terrible way to die, but compare it to the SARS and Swine Flu pandemics: roughly similar death tolls, but the world didn't shut itself down back then. Each and every month, about 157,000 Americans die from various "ordinary" diseases: 54,000 from heart disease, 14,000 from respiratory diseases, 12,000 from stroke, 10,000 due to Alzheimer's, 7,000 from diabetes, 5,600 from drug abuse, and 4,700 from flu and pneumonia. So far, COVID-19 has added only about 10% to that total in the U.S. We need to put this current pandemic into perspective and get back to work, or else millions could die from rioting, suicide, drug overdose, alcoholism, and even starvation.
(Click → HERE ← to Discuss This Essay.)
Born to Die
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
I'm not the first to come up with the phrase "Born to Die" - there's a popular music album by that name and a book by the title From the Womb to the Tomb - He Was Born to Die by Pamela Wright, the cover of which is shown here. The Nicene Creed, the Apostles' Creed, and many Protestant statements of faith all emphasize Jesus Christ's miraculous birth, His death on the Cross that amazingly coincided with a solar eclipse on that very day, and His Resurrection from the dead so that we can share in His transfigured and transforming life.
But much transpired between His birth and His death that's not mentioned in these creeds and statements of faith. In Genesis 12:3 the Lord said to Abram when he was 75 years old: "I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you, and in you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed." And in ch. 17:4-5, twenty-four years later, the Lord changed his name to Abraham, saying he would be the father of many nations... even though he and his wife were childless! He then fathered Ishmael and Isaac, who in turn fathered the Ishmaelites, the Edomites, and the Israelites, among others.
One of those descendants was Israel's King David, whose ancestors included Tamar, the pagan wife of Judah's sons Er and Onan who both died, so she enticed her father-in-law. The next pagan ancestor of King David was Rahab the harlot from Jericho, and the next after her was the pagan Ruth who married Boaz. David himself had that sordid affair with the pagan woman Bathsheba, then had her husband Uriah the Hittite murdered. All four of these women are listed in the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. King David wrote that prophetic Psalm 22 (21 in the Septuagint):
"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? (v. 1).
"All those who see Me mock Me. They insult Me with their lips. They shake their heads, saying,
'He trusts in the Lord; let Him deliver Him; let Him rescue Him, since He delights in Him'" (vv. 7-8).
"They open their mouths wide against Me, lions tearing prey and roaring.
I am poured out like water. All My bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax; it is melted within Me.
My strength is dried up like a potsherd. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You have brought Me into the dust of death.
For dogs have surrounded Me. A company of evil-doers have enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet.
I can count all of My bones. They look and stare at Me.
They divide my garments among them. They cast lots for My clothing" (vv. 13-18).
"All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord. All the families of the nations shall worship before You.
For the kingdom is the Lord's. He is the ruler over the nations" (vv. 27-28).
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Then we come to the prophet Isaiah:
"Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel" (7:14).
"The voice of one who cries, Prepare in the wilderness the way of the Lord; make level in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the uneven shall be made level, and the rough places a plain:
and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it" (ch. 40:3-5).
"Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen, in whom My soul delights: I have put My Spirit on Mim; He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.
I, the Lord, have called You in righteousness, and will hold Your hand, and will keep You, and give You for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles" (ch. 42:1 & 6).
"Now says the Lord who formed Me from the womb to be His servant, to bring Jacob again to Him, and that Israel be gathered to Him (for I am honorable in the eyes of the Lord, and My God is become My strength);
yes, He says, It is too light a thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give You for a light to the Gentiles, that You may be My salvation to the end of the earth" (ch. 49:5-6).
"I gave My back to the strikers, and My cheeks to those who plucked off the hair; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting.
For the Lord God will help Me; therefore I have not been confounded: therefore I have set My face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be disappointed.
He is near who justifies Me; who will bring charges against Me? Let us stand up together: who is My adversary? Let him come near to Me" (ch. 50:6-8).
"Behold, my servant shall deal wisely, He shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high.
Like as many were astonished at You (His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men),
so shall He startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths at Him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard they shall understand" (ch. 52:13-15).
"He was oppressed, yet when He was afflicted He did not open His mouth; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is mute, so He did not open His mouth.
By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who among them considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of My people?
They made His grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in His death; although He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth.
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief: when you shall make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by the knowledge of Him shall My righteous Servant justify many; and He shall bear their iniquities" (ch. 53:8-11).
"Arise, shine; for Your light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen on You.
For, behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise on You, and His glory shall be seen on You.
Nations shall come to Your light, and kings to the brightness of Your rising" (ch. 60:1-3).
"The Spirit of the Lord God is on Me; because the Lord has anointed Me [the Anointed One = the Messiah] to preach good news to the humble; He has sent Me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn" (ch.61:1-2).
"For I know their works and their thoughts: the time comes, that I will gather all nations and languages; and they shall come, and shall see My glory.
I will set a sign among them, and I will send those who escape from them to the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the isles afar off, who have not heard My fame, neither have seen My glory; and they shall declare My glory among the nations" (ch. 66:18-19).
These Old Testament prophecies were veiled to the Jews, but these passages come to life for believers in Jesus as the Messiah, the fulfillment of the Lord's promise to bless all nations of the earth. They depict a Man coming in gentleness, preaching good news to the humble, healing the broken-hearted, and comforting all who mourn, but then He would be led to the slaughter like a lamb to make His soul an offering for sin, to justify many by bearing their iniquities. The result will be that His chosen among the Gentiles will preach the good news among all the nations. And that is precisely what happened! He was born to die... so that we might not die eternally but live forever with Him.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!
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Your fellow-servants,
Bob & Cheryl
p.s. There are two kinds of pain: the pain of discipline, and the pain of regret. The choice is yours.
