Daily Topic for December 20, 2008
When we listen to great music like Handel’s Messiah, we get a foretaste of inspiration we will experience when Christ returns and “all flesh shall see it together.” Every tribe, tongue, nation, and people will be represented on that day. But preceding this powerful revelation to “all flesh” is the Christmas event. Humility comes before honor. So often in our endeavors we are looking for glory without paying the price of humility. But God in Jesus Christ set the standard.
Worship the One Who humbled Himself that the peoples might have life. Be exalted, O Lord, among the nations, as we bear witness to Your grace, mercy and love!
The Tunisian Jews of Israel are a strong people who are unafraid to practice their religion in the face of terrorism. Many Tunisian Jews who live in Israel make a yearly pilgrimage to one of the world’s oldest synagogues, El Ghriba, in Djerba, Tunisia. This synagogue is the site of a terrorist bombing where 21 people were killed in 2002. After six years, they refuse to be intimidated into stopping this pilgrimage.
Before WWII, Tunisia was a French colony. The French stood in the way of Tunisian Arabs who would have oppressed the Jewish minority. When the Nazis occupied Tunisia during the war, they enforced anti-Jewish policies and confiscated Jewish lands until the allied forces drove them out. In 1956 Tunisia was freed from French rule, but their new leadership changed into an oppressive dictatorship. It was then that Tunisian Jews began immigrating to the new Jewish homeland.
In Israel today, the Tunisian Jewish community has its own feasts and celebrations. According to the Stanford University publication, “Homelands and Diasporas,” one of their popular practices today is the Feast of Jethro. They gather together for food in the synagogues to celebrate the end of a plague in their community 2,000 years ago.Learn more at joshuaproject.net
Pray for the Tunisian Jews to see Jesus and embrace Him with the same passion and drive they exert in their lives now.-KW