The owner’s manual
Adherents of some religions follow their scriptures as guide to live on earth in preparation for heaven. The Holy Bible and the teaching of the Church serve as manuals to guide the conduct of Christians. The New Testament fulfils the promise of peace made in the Hebrew Scriptures. Christians therefore, are to be agents of […]
Adherents of some religions follow their scriptures as guide to live on earth in preparation for heaven. The Holy Bible and the teaching of the Church serve as manuals to guide the conduct of Christians. The New Testament fulfils the promise of peace made in the Hebrew Scriptures. Christians therefore, are to be agents of peace because the master, the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and Prince of peace, did not send any of the followers to propagate the Gospel message with a sword.
Rather than carry out a jihad or crusade on his executioners, he preferred to be the Priest and the Victim. This is what makes Christianity different from every other religion. If every Christian follows the manual of Jesus Christ, the world would be a replica of heaven.
God created the world, and willed that one of the rules in His divine manual should be the preservation of life and the created world. To follow God’s manual implies obedience to the divine will. In Adam humanity carried out this rule until the sin that is captured in the creation of Eve and the appearance of the serpent that accounts for the natural tendency of the human creature to disobey the creator. This introduced a disorder in the created world. Consequently, the first murder occurred in the pre-historic narrative of the relationship between Cain and Abel.
The punishment that Cain served for killing his brother Abel, points to the fact that every murderer would be an alien and a fugitive in the human society. Whoever works against peace is alienated from others. A person who does not love peace is an enemy of the earth. This is why God said to Cain: “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.
Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth (Genesis 4, 9-12).
God desires peace for his people and would not kill his own people to revile a national constitution as claimed by the terrorists. It is a contradiction to think that unless you are in possession of power, the society must be thrown into chaos. It contradicts God’s divine manual to think that only one religion has the monopoly of producing leaders to govern a nation.
This is another way of interpreting the selfishness of Cain who killed his own brother akin to the terrorists’ operations in many parts of the world today. God abides with us and wants to remain with us, his servants, forever. Human beings must therefore follow God’s manual by living in peace and harmony. Shouts of joy and gladness belong to those who take pleasure in God’s virtue. They would have the constant cause to say; great is Yahweh who likes to see his servants at peace (Psalm 35, 27).
Where God dwelt in Israel was called the house of peace hence, the city of God was called Jerusalem. The presence of the temple in Jerusalem also symbolizes peace. The people pray always for Jerusalem to remain forever peaceful. “Pray for peace in Jerusalem, prosperity to your houses! Peace inside your city walls! Since all are my brothers and friends. I say ‘Peace be with you! Since Yahweh our God lives here, I pray for your happiness” (Psalm 122, 6-9).
But the Israelites did not stop at praying for peace. They made peace offerings and sacrifices for peace. They expected God to show them the signs of peace by sending them abundant rain and harvest. They prayed against invading enemies and wild beasts (Leviticus 26, 3-13).
Not to follow God’s manual goes with grave consequences. In the course of history, the people replaced God’s manual with their own manual. They needed a human king. The peace for all nations was restricted to the Israelites alone. They engaged in wars and battles with other nations until the reign of Solomon that enjoyed some relative peace. But God is more powerful, he wants his manual of peace to remain constant hence David was not allowed to build a temple for the Lord because of his many battles. His hands were stained with human blood.
After the reign of King Solomon who built a temple for the Lord, peace vanished from Israel and the temple which was a symbol of God’s presence, was later destroyed. As long as the people of Israel were not living in peace, the temple remained in ruins and desolate. God has always been concerned with the peace of Jerusalem and Israel in general. He wanted the people to enjoy the blessing which peace brings. God had instructed Moses to tell Aaron how to bless the children of Israel: “May Yahweh uncover his face to you and bring you peace” (Numbers 6, 22-26)!
The prophets were called to remind the people of God’s manual of peace. Isaiah warned the people to do good and avoid evil. He told the people, there is “no peace, says my God for the wicked” (Isaiah 48, 22). Prophets who prophesied peace when there was no peace were regarded as false prophets. These false prophets in Jeremiah’s time were denounced (Jeremiah 6, 14; 8, 11; 28, 9). The true prophets called for righteousness and honesty. They called for justice and obedience to the will of God. They projected into the future by examining the signs of the present times. Isaiah prophesied the reign of the Messiah that would be the perfect reign of peace.
The Messiah is peace personified. This Prince of peace is God with us – Emmanuel. He is also called wonder Councilor, mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9, 5-6). This prophecy projects perfect peace and harmony in creation and among God’s people. The situation would be such that enmity and strife would be laid to rest. The presence of the Messiah would bring peace in such a way that: “the wolf lives with the lamb, the panther lies down with the kid. Calf and lion cub feed together with a little boy to lead them. For the country is filled with the knowledge of Yahweh as the waters swell the sea” (Isaiah 11, 6-9).
Perfect peace was the manifesto of Jesus Christ hence every Christian must look up to Christ who came to restore the manual that was dented by human manipulation. May this Lenten season be a blessing to our nation and heal the land of the current election fever that is killing some people gradually. This is the time for every Christian politician to remember his or her calling to serve sincerely and honestly in the temporal order. May no Christian betray his or her true identity because of some financial gains! Challenging situations are moments of revealing true identity and the content of Christian Character to love every human being irrespective of religion and ethnic considerations. The disciples continued the mission of Jesus Christ, our Gospel and Good news by praying and working for peace. In the house of Cornelius, Peter addressed the people: “It is true, God sent his word to the people of Israel, and it was to them that the good news of peace was brought by Jesus Christ but Jesus is the Lord of all” (Acts 10). Let us therefore follow God’s manual by sowing the seeds of peace to reap a harvest of justice (James 3, 18).
Fr. Prof. Cornelius Afebu Omonokhua is the Director of Mission and Dialogue of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, Abuja and Consultor for the Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims (C.R.R.M), Vatican City ([email protected]).