Merry (Orthodox) Christmas.......check out THIS harp!

Hello, saints......
In the last blog, I challenged the eurocentricity of our Christmas.  I'll do it a diff way today. I'm also going to show how, through ancient Judaism, God seeded Ethiopia & other areas of Africa in preparation for the Gospel. 

January 7 is Ethiopian Orthodox Christmas (Julian calendar). God prob kept the birth of His Son a secret so the day wouldn't be venerated above Him. In the Orthodox world, Easter is most prominent. 

In 2000 I was blessed to form a friendship w/the Qesis (priest) of the local Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Often, Orthodox Churches are more about nationalistic pride, (Russian, Greek, Armenian, etc.) but I sense this guy is a believer. I visited his Church a few times. I remember one Easter, he said from the pulpit, " I'll say something in English for our American friends visiting. We love our Ethiopian traditions but they're 2d to the Gospel of Jesus Christ." Some of their theology is messy but many of them are true believers. They hold to Miaphysitism.....(that Christ's 2 natures are united as opposed to a dual Divine Nature). In our 1st meeting, the Qesis educated me for 2 hrs on Ethiopian traditions as they relate to so many Jewish things. A lot of what I said was..... "What did you just say? That is simply amazing. Could you repeat that?" 

EO tradition claims that, during the time of King Manasseh, 40,000 Jews emigrated to Ethiopia & mixed w/the local tribes. Then there were later emigrations, apparently. (Hence, the vibrant "Beta Israel" Jewish community, many of whom have left for Israel in recent yrs.) The EO also claim that King Solomon & the Queen of Sheba had a son named Menelik, who became the the first Emperor of Ethiopia. Historically, Ethiopian Jews weren't exactly temple adherents but the Mosaic Law was central. To this day, the terms Jew & Christian are interchangeable for the EO. In contrast to Israel, there was no resistance in coming to their Messiah after the conversion of the Eunuch in Acts 8.....(I hope this isn't confusing. There is a Jewish community which practices Judaism & an Orthodox community. The Orthodox identify simultaneously as Jewish & Christian.....because they ARE both, even hereditarily, to some degree.)  I'm not sure how they see Law & Grace, but my Dispensational boundaries were strrrrrrretched. (I still lean Dispensational.)......Before this, I was absolutely closed to Reformed ideas. I dismissed Presbyterians as uniformly anti-Semitic & promoters of "replacement theology". Certainly, there are extremes, but to this armchair theologian, the EO became a living museum of Reformed theology. It made me curious & prompted me to investigate. I know it's a bit of apples to oranges, but for the first time, I considered how, in at least that unique context, it might be possible to see Israel & the Church as one!  

The centrality of Israel in Dispensationalism is a conversation stopper for people in "that other Abrahamic religion". I'd already discovered that I would need other theological narratives when speaking w/them. So, learning about Reformed Theology has helped me navigate the Israel issue. As I say......"I'm not Reformed. I'm not deformed. I'm not Pentecostal. And I'm not Re-pentecostal".....(a Repentecostal is a Pentecostal who's lost his/her salvation & come back home. LOL"  

Worth noting is the existence of other African people groups which either have Jewish blood or whose customs were heavily influenced by Judaism.....The Abayudaya of Uganda....the Lemba of South Africa....the Igbo of Nigeria....(Some think that "Igbo" is a corruption of "Hebrew"). The Kalenjin of Kenya, originally from ancient Egypt, had many Jewish customs, historically. A friend who preaches on the radio in Kenya (from here in our town), told me about this history. His father, who recently died, was a first generation Christian out of this quasi-Jewish culture. 

In a few weeks, I'll tell more about how the Qesis helped me w/a Black History Month event we put together for some inner city kids. 

I'll close by sharing a video of some very relaxing & etherial liturgical EO Begena (harp) music. This is a "Bray Harp", which produces a natural distortion for you musicians out there. Various forms of the Bray Harp were also used a lot in Europe even into the Renaissance & Baroque eras. Legend says that Emperor Menelik brought the Begena to Ethiopia from Israel. An acquired taste, but beautiful. It is easy to see how the evil spirits were driven from Saul if this is what David played. (1 Samuel 16:14-23) You thought I was done harping on Christmas, didn't ya?.....Get it? Harping? ​

For finding any excuse to mess with a sacred tradition of man A SECOND TIME (hah! Gotcha!)......and the nations, 

Branta-Claus.....who is just another witness to His Glory.