Written from a friend

One of my good friends in New Haven, a former NEBS (New England Boarding Schools) FOCUS staff worker, is currently in Palestine, tredding the same ground I lived on over a year ago. She's encountering many of the things I did - reacting in many of the same ways - and in a way, I'm re-living it - but praying new things for her, which I didn't have eyes and ears for at the time I was there.

This is an excerpt from an email she recently sent:
I find myself wrestling with to what extent our Lord asks us to fight on behalf of the oppressed, poor, and suffering, and to what extent what they truly need is just simply to know Him. I believe He asks us to strive to meet both needs, physical and spiritual, and I pray I will be able to while here, even if in the teeny tiniest of ways. But I've been haunted by the fact that while the disciples expected Jesus to overthrow Roman rule, and restore justice to his people, His answer to the suffering around Him was to die upon a cross. When does God ask us to fight injustice, and when does He ask us to simply follow Him in a path of suffering?

I wonder, in the midst of these questions, as well as I as wrote my talk a few weeks ago on the Jewish expectations of a Messiah, how much the disciples wrestled with these facts - and how Jesus addressed them. I'm sure they muttered comments about the injustices Roman guards inflicted upon them. How did Jesus respond to the soldiers?

I'm grateful for another friend to walk this road -may God's peace come to that region!