The playbook is always the same; when the establishment perceive a risk to their hustle from prophets who speak truth to their power, they neutralize the threat, whitewash their legacy and eventually invert their teachings. This has happened over and over throughout history but nowhere is this example more stark than what Pharisees did to an agitator who defied their grift. Follow me as I relay a story of how priests nailed a truth-teller’s hands and feet to the cross and silenced a revolutionary figure.
A couple of days ago, I had a very vivid dream about religion and the ways the Holy book has been weaponized to pacify humanity and elevate the rich. Prominent in my dream was a brown skinned teacher who rebelled continuously against the status quo and pushed back severely against usury. Wherever He traveled, he preached about love and extolled the virtues of community above selfishness. Though he had few followers compared to the “keepers of the law”, he nonetheless created a stir and inspired people to question the very dogmas that kept them in bondage.
We now call this messenger “Jesus” though his real name is Yeshua; nearly 2,000 years after His death, governments and religious institutions alike fear His words and go out of their way to pervert His likeness by comparing Him to a demonic Roman by the name of Cesare Borgia. Everything Yeshua taught has been flipped on its head in order to justify what He condemned and rationalize the very evils he spoke against. The Bible has been bastardized by the very shepherds who were supposed to guard it; Christianity is an echo chamber that drowns out the gospel of Christ. It will take a sword worthy of Gideon and fires from Isaiah to lift the veil of lies that cover our eyes.
Though I was never a religious type, I’ve always been drawn to spirituality ever since my formative years in Ethiopia. Everything I felt in my heart about Yeshua was the opposite of what they were drilling in our heads in church. Though they try generation after generation to alter His directives and revise the Bible to condone that which Yeshua condemned, the truth is always there hidden right in the midst of the copious lies that have been codified as the “word of God”. Central to Yeshua’s admonition was the principle that money is the root of all evil, this radical departure from accepted norms is why the Torah kingpins killed Him.
Right after they murdered Him, they added a caveat that changed the very essence of Yeshua’s teaching. Instead of money being the root of all evil, religious leaders noted it was “the love of money” that was the source of things wrong in this world. Like malicious lawyers, the added a devil with a detail and washed away a central tenant of Christ’s dictate. The Bible is full of examples like this, a slight of hand transforms messages and turns profound parables into pernicious platitudes. The way to sabotage truth is not by erasing it but by retaining its existence but hollowing out its core elements.
The top brass of Judaism feared Yeshua because they could not control Him. Unable to co-opt Him and draw Yeshua in with their lures of riches, they conspired to hand Him a death sentence. This is the soundtrack of humanity; the very people who are oppressed are the ones who remain silent when those who speak on behalf of the marginalized are snuffed out. Such was the case with Yeshua; the throngs He fed and the multitude He healed with His empathy were nowhere to be found during His time of need. I used to always say that Yeshua fed thousands but only three were by His side when He bled.
After His death, the very authorities he lambasted adopted His counsel and converted Yeshua’s instructions to perpetuate their schemes. Instrumental in this bamboozle was the advent of the Catholic church as a Roman tyrant by the name of Constantine appropriated a bourgeoning movement and then vitiated its very existence in order to give cover to a Pagan religion that Yeshua castigated. We now celebrate an idolatrous day that pays homage to the winter solstice as Christ’s birthday and recognize a profane “holiday” that pays virtue to a Roman goddess of Spring named Ostern by associating it with the last supper of Yeshua.
Yeshua’s true gift and what made Him a compelling figure who drew a dedicated following was not His supernatural power but His natural abilities. Instead of “leading from behind” or lording over the masses, Yeshua walked among the broken and was one with the people. He was at the front lines instead of being disconnected from His followers; it was this ability to relate with the “least among them” that led to His rise and His eventual demise. What the plutocracy have feared for ages is the emergence of a leader who is one of us instead of one who covets acceptance from “high society”.
The grisly fate that was doled out to Yeshua was not an outlier but a norm; messengers of peace and teachers rooted in love are turned into martyrs only for history to be rewritten using their blood to normalize what they denounced. One of these days, we will shake out of our collective cognitive dissonance and rise up against the very institutions that keep killing our prophets. Until that day arrives, we will keep getting the very governments we deserve. If we keep offering our backs to Pharaohs, we should not be surprised when Pharisees build pyramids on top of us:: #InvertingYeshua Click To Tweet
“A fortune made by people who tell lies amounts to nothing and leads to death, but the conduct of those who are not guilty is honest.” ~ Proverbs 21:6-8
Teodrose Fikremariam
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