Soon after Marash Girl arrived home on Armenian Christmas, she called a friend with whom she had not spoken since the new year. Marash Girl learned that her friend was soon to have a serious operation. Marash Girl immediately (scroll down to read yesterday's blog) offered her the last container of holy water, the water blessed on Armenian Christmas. Her friend immediately accepted (although she too had been brought up protestant); the sense of relief that her friend felt was palpable, even over the telephone.
Next year Marash Girl must remember to bring her own large bottle to fill with that unending supply of water, water which will be blessed on January 6, 2015, water which Marash Girl will share with those around her that are in need of blessing and healing.
'o sola scriptura' was the cry of the Reformation. it was the Reformation countries, those countries whose religion was dominated by the Protestant reformers, that moved the western world away from superstition, from tyranny of the priesthood, and from idolatry, in all of its subtle forms. it was in the countries dominated by the orthodox churches, and the Roman church, that tyranny and poverty abounded. there is a direct relationship between the religious foundation of a culture and its political/economic/social bearing, the outworking of its religious presuppositions. the idea of Holy Water is part of the darkness of the ortho and catholic churches which eschew the study of the Holy Scriptures, and thus are denied the truth and the freedom consequent to knowing the truth. From what, exactly, does that truth set us free? it is the lie, the great lie perpetrated on the Creation by the father of all lies, Lucifer, himself. we are told that the devil comes to kill, rob, and destroy. he does that by masking the truth overtly, and subtly. anything which removes us from the Father in Heaven, is removing us from the power to overcome the lie and be set free. it is the freeing from the lie that allowed the western countries, blessed by The Reformation, to experience the scientific revolution of the 17th century followed by the application of that knowledge in the industrial revolution of the 18th century. all the political and social and economic institutions that developed consequently flowed from that liberation from the lie of Lucifer. think of it. a culture dominated by a commitment to knowing the truth.. Nowhere in history, at no other time, was there that single minded pursuit of the truth. it was always the pursuit of power that marked a culture, and the success of that pursuit. The question, taunt, and reduction to absurdity of the question asked by Pontius Pilate, what is truth, when it was standing right in front of him, is the sounding brass, the noisy gong of a world fallen away, and dominated by The Lie. the only water that is holy is the life giving water of the holy spirit that quenches our souls, and removes from us the abiding thirst that is the mark of a lost soul.
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