Joel of Jerusalem Oct/Nov 1970
“THE OFFICER WANTED TO KNOW”
During my recent term of military duty, my commanding officer asked me whether I celebrate the Jewish or the Christian Passover. “Actually,” I said, “no Jew is able to celebrate the Passover, since we have no Passover lamb any more. What we are celebrating today is only the Feast of Unleavened Bread, but not the Passover. However, as a believer in Yeshua Ha-mashiach—The Messiah Jesus—I can truly celebrate Passover. “For Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast, not with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
“I could understand such words coming from a Gentile, but you, a citizen of Israel should speak like this! This is beyond my comprehension.”
I explained to him that my faith is based on the Hebrew Bible, where the coming of the Messiah and His sacrifice for us was long foretold. Without faith in God and in His Word, we cannot survive as a nation. I then read to him the chapter on faith, Hebrews 11.
The officer was greatly impressed, and asked me to read it over again and slowly, which I did.
“You know,” he said, “It is so beautiful, just like our Torah. Could you sell me your Brith Chadasha (The New Testament)?”
“I cannot sell it to you, but I will gladly give it to you without charge.”
At first I was a bit afraid that he might take the book and burn it as some fanatical Jews have done before. However, this man found himself a shady place under a bush, sat down and read very diligently.
I left him there with a prayer in my heart that the Lord might open his eyes and his heart to the Truth.
In spite of the trouble with the Arabs all around and inside Israel, the propaganda against Jewish believers in Christ continues relentlessly. I am enclosing a clipping from one of our newspapers with the large Hebrew headline in red letters: “The Secret Agents of Yeshu” (a Hebrew nickname for Jesus.) I have personally been called “A secret agent of Jesus,” but I make no secret of it.
