Easter: What’s it all About?

Approximately 1980 years ago, give or take five years or so, a man was crucified on a hill on the outskirts of Jerusalem.  His name was Jesus.  Although the execution was carried out by the Roman authorities, for only they were authorized to do such things, the proceedings leading to it had been carried out in a Jewish religious court.  The condemned man was, after all a Jew.  We are never explicitly told what the charge was, but it was probably about blasphemy or heresy of some sort.  They accused Him of calling himself the King of the Jews, which He never did according to the records.

We are told that He died on the cross quite quickly, hours instead of a day or two.  Of course it didn’t help that a Roman guard had stuck a spear into Jesus’ side which probably sped up the process.  We are also told that on the third day, the day of the crucifixion being the first day, His tomb was found to be empty and that in subsequent days He appeared before His friends, family and apostles.  We do not know if these appearances were physical or spiritual, and I’m not going to speculate one way or another.  From this event, some His apostles and a certain Paul of Tarsus formed a new religion called Christianity, now the most populace religion in the world. The current shape of Christianity owes more to the teachings and writings of Paul than to any other person.  But is this what Jesus wanted?  It should be noted that some of His disciples continued to preach to the Jewish population, no doubt understanding that this was the message that Jesus had wanted to convey.

As I said before, Jesus was a Jew.  He was born a Jew and He died a Jew.  Nowhere in the Biblical story of His life did He ever espouse starting a new religion.  His preaching and message was for Jewish ears.  His endeavours were directed at reforming Judaism.  If you read histories of that period, you come to realize that things were not going well for the Jewish faith and nation for over a hundred years before Jesus came along.  There were internal squabbles within the Jewish religion itself with competing group vying for power and influence.  The two main groups were the Sadducees and the Pharisees.  Think of this conflict as the political differences of today in Canada or the US.  Then there were the tensions caused by the Roman occupation.  There would be many who were willing to fight for freedom from this occupation; after all there were two recorded major revolts of Jews against this occupation in the hundred years before and after Jesus.  The latter was so serious that the Romans destroyed the Jewish temple in 70 AD; something the Romans didn’t normally do in occupied countries.  And there was also the clash between the traditional Jewish culture and the dominant Greek culture that was prevalent in that part of the world.  Even Roman culture was heavily influenced be the Greeks.  Judaism itself was fighting for its place in this scenario.  For one thing, it was becoming more rules based with serious strictures about everyday life.  Because, in many of the societies of that day, religion and government were one and the same, any law passed by the government became a religious law, and vice versa. The dominance of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem gave little comfort to Jews that did not live in Palestine but who accounted for an estimated 75 – 80% of the Jewish population.  So you had all of these tensions playing on the Jewish people and many, no doubt, were looking for some guidance.

  

Into this came Jesus who preached a simple, common-sense message on religion.  He preached a loving religion, including with strangers.  To a lot of people, it obviously struck a nerve.  They liked it.  His message about giving unto Caesar gave a way of resolving their conflict with the Roman occupation.  His message about the “good Samaritan” gave them an example of living with the non-Jews in their midst.  His “miracle” of feeding the multitude with the five loaves and two fish gave them an example of the power of sharing, for that is probably what the miracle amounted to.  They were very understandable messages, but they were messages meant for Jews.  One of the ways that you can tell is that He frequently referred to the Jewish prophets, particularly Isaiah.  Nobody in that time would understand these references except for Jewish people.

So who is this Jesus that made Him so famous in His own time?  We are told that He is the son of Joseph and Mary.  Joseph was a carpenter in the town of Nazareth.  In those days, a carpenter would have been a pretty important person in such a town, equivalent to building contractor and furniture maker of today.  He would be one of the more important tradesmen of the town.  He could well have had some education, including religious education from the town’s priests.  As Jesus was growing up, Joseph would undoubtedly have passed on knowledge to his son.  We are told that when Jesus was at about the age of majority (13) He visited the temple in Jerusalem where He debated with the priests about the nature of Judaism.  We are led to believe that He was a kind and gentle man.  He must have been personable, probably with a sense of humour, since He was able to attract people to His cause and to His talks.  To some degree, He was probably charismatic. 

His fame spread throughout Palestine (the Roman name for the province) until it reached Jerusalem where, in the days before Passover, He was greeted by a large crowd.  But Jesus must have known that, by stepping into the centre of Judaism, home of the temple, He was courting trouble with the Jewish leaders.  Would they accept Him, or condemn Him?  We now know the answer because several days later, He was tried before a Jewish court, which would be a religious court because that is the only thing that the Jewish leaders were authorized to bring charges against.  He was condemned to death and the finding was brought before the Roman governor, one Pontius Pilate.  At first, the governor was reluctant to authorize the death sentence, but finally he had to give in.  Jesus was crucified.  Easter was born.  The rest, as they say, is history.

The (un)Fair Elections Act

This act of Parliament has been much in the news this last couple of weeks.  The arguments for (mostly by the government) and against (just about everyone else) have been a study in contrast.  Expert after expert has warned against some of its provisions, some of the more controversial of which are buried in seemingly innocuous amendments to things like the Canada Elections Act. That’s where you’ll find the reference to one of the more controversial parts of the act – the requirement for two pieces of acceptable documentation to be an eligible elector.  The act itself is a lengthy compendium of amendments to other acts, new provisions and definitions.  You can look it up on the Parliamentary website. 

 

On that issue, let’s take a look at its implications.  As a supposedly upstanding (no snickers, please) Canadian citizen, middle-class, retired military and published author member of society, one would think that I should have no trouble being an eligible elector.  But for a moment, look in your wallet or purse and count the number of pieces of up-to-date picture ID you have that give your current address.  I have a total of three pieces of photo ID: my driver’s license; my military retiree’s card with a 25 year old picture; and my passport.  Only the driver’s license has my home address.  That means that if I should lose my driver’s license, through illness for example, I would be ineligible to vote in the next federal election.  Some may ask about my health insurance card.  But mine happens to be one of the older Ontario cards with only a name and number: no picture and no address. Now think of someone without a driver’s license or other government identification, or of a university student who often moves accommodation so keeps his parents’ address on his license, or any number of other examples and you see how close to disenfranchisement we are.  Will this mean that a lot more people will become ineligible to vote in the next federal election?  It most certainly will.

The other disturbing thing about this act is the way it is being presented and argued in Parliament.  Have you been listening to some of the government’s arguments?  “It will reduce voter fraud” they intone.  Have you ever heard about any significant voter fraud in any Canadian election at every level?  Even in municipal elections, which you would think would be the most prone to such fraud, I have never heard of such a thing.  But we have to stamp it out anyway, even if it disenfranchises tens of thousands of potential voters.  Or how about telling the many experts that they are all wrong?  Telling the investigator and author of the report, that was supposedly the justification of the act, that he did not understand his own report and had got all of his conclusions wrong has to go down as one of the greatest acts of hubris ever seen in this country.  The Minister of State who is responsible for drafting and pushing this act may think that success in this endeavour will bring him bigger and better things in his political career, but the damage to his standing with electors will undoubtedly not make him or his party very popular at election time.  But that may not be of any consequence when you think of another Tory action.

After the last election, new electoral boundaries were drawn up for the country including the addition of thirty new seats in Parliament.  Most of the new seats are in Conservative-friendly areas.  Most experts agree that this will increase the chances for the Tories.  And when you combine that fact with the Fair (sic) Elections Act, we could be in for Conservative governments for many years to come.  When Mr. Harper said that we would not recognize Canada after he was in power for a while, I don’t think any of us thought this would be the result.

 

If you truly believe that every citizen, regardless of age, economic situation or political leaning has to have the right to vote, we have to make noise.  We cannot sit complacently back and assume that everything will turn out okay, or worse, buy into the government’s specious arguments.  We have to make noise and our positions known.  Talk to friends and relatives.  Write letters to the editor.  Write blogs and opinion pieces.  We must make the current government listen.  Be an advocate for real fairness.

Quiz Answer

Oops!  I promised to reveal the answer to my trivia quiz in my 29 March blog in the next blog, but I apologize that I forgot.  So here is the answer.

The Question was, "What was the original title of the theme song from the movie and TV series M.A.S.H.?"

The answer is "Suicide is Painless".   

Don't believe me?   Watch the original movie and see Hawkeye, Trapper and others singing it.

Two people sent me the right answer.  One was my son and I would have expected nothing less from him. 

Music to my Ears

I love music.  I have loved music since I was a kid.  I like music of all kinds, but my tastes are selective.  I don’t necessarily like a lot of the music in any genre I follow.  But still I like classical, jazz, contemporary, rock, country and folk.

I have liked classical since my teenage years when my church minister lent me albums of religious oratorios.  My taste now runs to Mozart and Beethoven, Liszt and Mendelssohn, and Rodrigo and Copeland.

I have liked jazz since I discovered it in the college music library.  My first love was Dave Brubeck and he remains a favourite.  I tend to favour the “traditional” jazz artists such as Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Chet Baker.  My son is a great jazz fan and he has introduced me over the years to a variety of jazz musicians, some of whom I like and some I don’t.  But he keeps trying.

I have liked folk music since The Weavers at Carnegie Hall record I bought myself in high school.  If you want to hear the music of the Civil Rights movement, listen to Peter Seeger’s We Shall Overcome album.  But there continues to be some great folk music today.  Listen to any artist from Cape Breton in Nova Scotia.

I learned to like rock over the years when I found that there really was some good music there.  The first evening movie I ever went to see on my own was Rock Around the Clock with Bill Haley and the Comets.  My current favourites include Paul Simon, in particular his Graceland album.

 

I have liked contemporary since we found that it is a type of music that both my wife and I could love together.  This covers such a wide area that you almost have to divide it into subdivisions.  My tastes run from Leonard Cohen to Mason Williams.  You haven’t heard about Mason Williams?  He seemed to do everything in the 1970s from compose some great music (Classical Gas, Sunflower), be a comedy writer for the Smothers Brothers TV show, to some offbeat art, such as a full sized painting of a Greyhound bus.  To illustrate his song Sunflower, he had a sky writer aircraft draw petals in the sky and then wait for the sun to come up in the middle of the drawing and taking a picture of the whole thing.

 

Most recently I have learned to love country since I discovered a lot of the later albums by Johnny Cash.  Just last year, I bought a new vinyl record of Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison.  I also thoroughly enjoy Willie Nelson, both his singing and the hundreds of songs he written for himself and other artists. 

Over the years, as music migrated from vinyl to tape to CD, I stubbornly hung on to my vinyl records.  Somewhere along the way, I acquired a fairly new turntable.  I spent some time looking for a music system that would allow me to use the turntable, but without much success.  A couple of years ago, a friend offered me an old stereo system dating from the 1990s which, lo and behold, had a turntable jack and setting.  After digging out an old stereo stand that would hold the system, I can now, once again, enjoy all those old, and some new, vinyl records.  It’s wonderful.  They have now started making new vinyl albums and I have discovered some stores that sell used and new records.

The reason that I thought of all this is because of a concert my wife and I attended last evening at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.  This is probably the last live concert I will ever hear from one of the greatest female singers of our time, Nana Mouskouri;  she of the clear, bell-like voice and horned rim glasses.  I have enjoyed her music for many years and we have seen several of her concerts over those years.  She is, inevitably, approaching 80 years of age and has already “retired” once, in 2008.  She is billing this as her Birthday Tour, and in this vein, at the end of the concert, the audience sang Happy Birthday to her.  In every concert by her she has always been gracious, humorous and entertaining.  This concert was no exception.  I know of no other singer whose voice is so clear and melodic as hers.  When she stops recording and touring, it will be a great loss.  If you have never heard her, take the opportunity to listen to one of her recordings, particularly if it is on vinyl.  I promise you will not be disappointed.

As I write this blog, I am listening to a vinyl record of Nana Mouskouri.