March 3, 2003 

"WE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US"
(from the old cartoon "Pogo")

Some of us know about how Jesus hinted at the upcoming destruction of the Temple, which occurred about 35 years after his death. We may also be aware of the political intrigues involving various factions mentioned in the Gospels: the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots and Herodians. All these forces came to a head with the Roman siege of Jerusalem in AD 70.

The main source of our knowledge about these events is in the writings of a Jewish historian of the time by the name of Josephus. A Roman sympathizer, Josephus was not completely objective as he told the story of Jewish resistance. Yet, he clearly admired the heroism and idealism of some of the leaders whose political agendas he disagreed with. His account of courage and martyrdom during the resisters' last stand is retold in the inspiring Hollywood movie "Massada."

Josephus also wrote about the events leading up to that moment, when the rebels were still in Jerusalem. The city was being surrounded by Roman armies gathering for attack. Instead of marshaling all their energies for the defense of their homeland, the various Jewish factions were busy squabbling among themselves. In the very time of great crisis, "the sedition at Jerusalem was revived and parted into three factions, and one faction fought against the other." Josephus commented that this was "a sedition begotten by another sedition, and like a wild beast grown mad, for the want of other food, fell now upon eating its own flesh."

During this time, people continued coming to worship in the Temple. The leaders in that section of the city "still admitted those that desired to offer their sacrifices, although they took care to search the people of their own country beforehand, and both suspected and watched them, while they were not so much afraid of strangers."

Things got so bad that the people "were like a great body torn in pieces," and many of them "were in such distress by their internal calamities, that they wished for the Romans . . . to deliver them from their domestic miseries." Instead of strengthening Jerusalem's walls against the Romans, the fighting factions "allowed three fortified walls to be built to coop each other in."*

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A few years earlier (around AD 56), the Apostle Paul had written to the church at Corinth about the same insidious tendency toward self-destruction by division:
"You are still in the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? For when one says, ‘I belong to Paul,' and another, ‘I belong to Apollos,' are you not merely human?" (1 Corinthians 3:3-4)

Instead of joining their strength to defend themselves against the forces of evil and unbelief, they were investing their energy in choosing sides and building walls between each other.

In spite of the sad example of the Jewish defenders of Jerusalem and Paul's warning to the Corinthians, people of faith have been busy clobbering each other ever since. God gave us the spiritual armor described in Ephesians 6 to fight the enemy outside, not our family and friends inside.

* All quotes are from Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, Book 5, Chapter 2.

–Pastor George Van Alstine