(Part of a huge machine used to tunnel under the Tokyo Bay)Holy Messengers in Jerusalem, Rome, and Washington DC
I once humbly supported an NGO working in Afghanistan.
That is why I have to check the late-night TV news program if not delivered and broadcast from a Hong Kong or Singapore studio.
Indeed, if an Afghan local man walks on the street of Tokyo in his natural style, everybody would think he is a mad man.
If Afghan terrorists killed any single Japanese who has been working to help local Afghans, Allah would take it as an act of madness but not holiness at all.
SECTION I: FALL OF JERUSALEM
It was 30 years after the execution of Jesus Christ or four years before the final war of Israelites with the Roman Empire that a strange man appeared in Jerusalem.
He was named “Jesus,” one of common names among Israelites then. He walked around Jerusalem every day, shouting all day long, “Voices against Jerusalem and the holy place! Evil on Jerusalem!”
Other Israelites captured and whipped him to silence him in vain. They brought him to the Roman Governor who also whipped him in order to silence him in vain. He was released as officially regarded as a mad man, since he did not even thank kind people who gave him foods on the street of Jerusalem.
He continued to shout “Voices against Jerusalem and the holy place! Evil on Jerusalem!” until the final war between Israelites and the Roman Empire erupted.
Even during the war, he walked around Jerusalem being surrounded by Roman legions every day, shouting all day long, “Voices against Jerusalem and the holy place! Evil on Jerusalem!”
He was finally hit to death while shouting and walking on the wall of Jerusalem by one of big stones Roman soldiers launched with a catapult.
The Jewish-Roman War led to the fall of Jerusalem and the Diaspora of Israelites until after WWII.
It happened so, because Israelites had neglected the last messenger, namely the shouting mad man, the God sent to Jerusalem to give them the last chance to avoid the war and maintain Jerusalem for another 2000 years.
As a more detailed version:
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Josephus, in Jewish War, wrote that in the years leading to the first Jewish uprising of 66 C.E., there lived a man named Jesus, who prophesied the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem. This was not the same man as Jesus ben Joseph, the man called Christ, who had said he would destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days, and who had been executed three decades earlier. Jesus ben Ananias, ‘a rude peasant,’ made Jewish and Roman authorities initially suspect he was yet another one of those peasant rebels. Since the time of Antipas there had been a long line of them—there was John, known as the Baptist; and then there was the man called Christ, his cousin and great follower. Although the authorities had officially dismissed them as minor troublemakers, they had attracted a small number of followers, and neither the descendants of Herod nor the sons of Annas (including Caiaphas, his son in law) wanted any more trouble.
In 62 C.E., during the feast of Booths, Jesus ben Ananias exclaimed at the Temple:
‘A voice from the east,
a voice from the west,
a voice from the four winds;
a voice against Jerusalem and the sanctuary,
a voice from the bridegroom and the bride,
a voice against all the people.’
The Temple had always been a sensitive issue for Jews: when Caligula wanted to install statues of himself as Zeus at the Temple, the Jews gathered and stood in silent protest for forty days; when the Christ railed against the presence of vendors at the Temple and what he had called the desecration of his ‘Father’s house,’ he earned the ire of the Jews.
For days Jesus kept cursing the Jews and their Temple, until Jewish authorities arrested him to be ‘severely chastised.’ But he neither defended himself nor his actions; as he was being flogged, he just kept repeating his curses. Could there be a ‘supernatural impulse’ behind this man’s pronouncements? asked the Jews. They brought him to Albinus, the Roman governor, to be flogged some more. One could almost see the bones through his torn flesh. He screamed ‘Woe to Jerusalem!’ whenever the whip touched his back. ‘He neither sued for mercy nor shed a tear,’ wrote Josephus.
What are you talking about? Albinus asked him. Why do you say such things?
He didn’t respond, but went on with his curses.
The governor decided Jesus was a madman, and let him go.
For seven years and five months he went on walking around Jerusalem, his wail unflagging, although louder at the feast of Booths, the feast of Weeks, the day of Passover, the week of Unleavened Bread. Whether people fed him or hurt him, all he said to them in response was ‘Woe to Jerusalem!’
When war broke the Temple walls did come down. Jesus stood inside the tumbling walls of the Temple, standing in between the warring Jews and Romans. He screamed one final time: ‘Woe once more to the city and to the people and to the temple!’ He had just finished saying, ‘And woe to me also,’ when a large stone, hurled by a ballista, came into his view, growing larger and closer. He watched it, and didn’t move.
http://blagador.blogspot.com/2006_06_01_archive.html
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In my interpretation, Jesus ben Ananias must have been given a view of the total massacre of European Judaists which would occur 1900 years later in Europe.
It is because since anybody living in Jerusalem around 60 A.D. had been given the view of the Holocaust of 1940's, he should have acted precisely like Jesus ben Ananias, shouting "Evil on Jerusalem that is going to lose the faculty of protection of Israelites!"
SECTION II: FALL OF ROME
In the similar way, one strange man was killed in Rome before its fall through wars with wild tribes from the east.
At the Colosseum in Rome on January 1, 391, a strange man suddenly jumped into the arena in the middle of the bloody show by gladiators, who were forced to fight until their death, tens of thousands of Roman citizens were enjoying.
He shouted, “Stop the killing!” The huge audience were silenced for a while but got angry as their pleasure was so stupidly interfered; Being themselves again, they all shouted, “Kill the mad man!”
The audience started to throw stones at him to death eventually.
Yet, this incident had a significant influence on Emperor Honorius who finally prohibited the bloody fight of gladiators in the Colosseum.
But here, as another version of the story:
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"The Table That Turned the World Upside Down"
Matthew 26:20-30
Dr. J. Howard Edington, Senior Pastor
Providence Presbyterian Church
October 1, 2006
…
That day – January 1, 391 A.D. – 50,000 people jammed into the Colosseum to roar with blood-lust as gladiators fought to the death on the sand floor of the arena. Only this particular day was to be different from any other because in the crowd that day was a holy man named Telemachus. Telemachus was a devout Christian – a monk who some years before had retreated to the desert to spend his days in prayer and meditation.
But as Telemachus prayed, he began to sense that the Lord was calling him to serve the people who lived in the city of Rome. So Telemachus headed for Rome, the greatest city in the world at that time. When he arrived, he saw these thousands of people crowding into the Colosseum. Curious, he followed them in. As he took a seat, he noticed a wave of excitement and anticipation sweeping over the crowd as the gladiators came out and prepared to fight. As they marched on to the arena floor, each saluted the emperor by crying out, “Hail, Caesar! We, who are about to die, salute you!” Soon the fight was on. Telemachus was appalled. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Men for whom Christ had died were here killing each other for the amusement of the blood-thirsty crowds. Telemachus couldn’t stand it. Suddenly, he vaulted over the barrier, dropped to the arena floor, and proceeded to position himself between the gladiators. At first, the crowd laughed at the sight of this little holy man, still in his monk’s robe, standing between these two powerful gladiators. But then the crowd grew impatient and began to chant, “Let the games go on! Let the games go on!” The gladiators turned to look at the emperor. Caesar gave the thumbs-down sign. The gladiators raised their swords. Telemachus, in a voice that echoed throughout the vast stadium, prayed, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
The swords flashed in the sun. Telemachus fell dead, and the sand ran red with his blood. The crowd fell silent – 50,000 people and you could have heard a pin drop, for suddenly there was a mass realization of how horrible and how wrong this killing really was. And then in that embarrassed and embarrassing silence, one man, disgusted, got up and walked out, followed by another, and another, and another. Then Caesar, sensing a sudden shift in the political winds, got up and left, and when Caesar left everybody else left, as well. The games ended abruptly that day, and the Colosseum was never used again for such a bloody purpose. One man, Telemachus, by dying ended the gladiator games forever. The spilling of his blood stopped the blood-spilling of others. The giving of his life saved the lives of many others….
http://www.causegodjoy.com/docs/Ser10-1-06JHE.doc
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Clearly, too much entertainment or heavy reliance on bread and circuses led to the fall of the city Rome to the invading Visigoths soon after this incident, namely in 410, which led to the final destruction of the Roman Empire, since Roman citizens could not vigorously bear their own serious soul-searching even after the death of the holy messenger in the Colosseum .
SECTION III: LESSONS
There are many theories on the fall of the Roman Empire as well as ancient Jerusalem.
For example, Max Weber is also well known for his strong interest in the ancient Roman Empire:
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When explaining the decline of the Roman Empire, he focused on structural changes in Roman agriculture. More importantly still, Weber's life-long preoccupation with the increase of rationality in the modern world was to a considerable extent based on structural considerations, as witness his stress on the separation of the household from the business enterprise as a harbinger of economic rationalization. In all these instances, Weber also provides illustrations pointing to changing motivations of historical actors, yet on balance, structure seems more important than motivation.
http://www.bolender.com/Sociological%20Theory/Weber,%20Max/weber,_max.htm
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In summary, if you neglect a holy messenger, you cannot avoid a critical tragedy.
Too much indulgence in bread and circuses will lead to a structural change in the society and the industry, including agriculture.
Yet, Mr. Barack Obama or Mr. John McCain does not look like a holy messenger who must look like a mad man.
Or, does Mrs. Clinton look so fully?
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If the next General Election in Japan results in a change of administration, Mr. Ichiro Ozawa will be elected in the national assembly Diet as Japan’s Prime Minister, since he is the head of the Democratic Party of Japan.
Nonetheless, there is a strong concern over his policy on national security. Mr. Ozawa claims that Japan should send troops of the Ground Self-Defense Force to Afghanistan as a member of the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) or such of the United Nations.
It is very controversial. The Afghan civil war will not end until the quasi-civil war in Pakistan ends, while India, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and China are involved in the region as direct or indirect parties highly concerned.
So, Japan needs a strong opposition party if a regime change occurs through general election, since most of experts now predict that the very rare political incident in Japan will happen within a year.
(Mr. Ozawa should rather concentrate his efforts onto agricultural issues of Japan, since Japan is the Holy Land of Vigorous Rice Plants.)
Nonetheless, from the beginning, Mr. George W. Bush needed such a messenger even before Sept. 11, 2001, though Mr. Jyunichiro Koizumi visited so friendly Camp David in the summer of 2001, namely several months after the demolition of the large statutes of Buddha by AlQaeda and the Taliban at Bamiyan in Afghanistan.
( http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~har-snow/Nocturne.mid
Source: http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~har-snow/northwin.htm)
Act 26:11 And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities.
Act 26:12 Whereupon as I went to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests,
Act 26:13 At midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which journeyed with me.
Act 26:14 And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
Act 26:15 And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.
Act 26:16 But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee;
Act 26:17 Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee,
Act 26:18 To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.