June 20, 2013 – 1 Maccabees 5 – 5:32

When the Gentiles see what the Jews were doing, they turn on the Jews that have joined them.  It doesn’t matter what side you say you are on, when things go badly, if you have joined, you are still seen with the stain of the enemy.  Many Germans and Japanese felt this during WWII.  Even though they may have lived most their lives here, they were still seen with a certain stain.  Many with any type of Arab descent or even look are seen in a certain way now.  I was thinking about this is terms of the many fallen away Catholics and those new places they have gone too.  To those that welcomed them in still see them with a stain when anything Catholic gets brought up.  Are they ever actually fully brought into the fold.  Especially those congregations which speak very ill of the Catholic Church.

I was also thinking about whether they thought Judas was the Messiah because of what he was doing.  Obviously, there were many that thought Jesus should lead the Jews against the Romans in a revolution.  That is what Judas was doing and doing very well.  You have to imagine that many thought he was.  You wonder how he reacted to that.  I imagine that with his trust in God as it appears, he was very much like John the Baptist and pointing to someone else to come and that he was not what they were looking for.  Just a God fearing man doing what God was asking him to.