Magyar Egyház, 1989 (63. évfolyam, 1-6. szám)
1989-07-01 / 4. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 11. oldal resurrection, after several of the appearances of Jesus. The disciples have often misunderstood their Master or rather they did not understand him fully. It was too much for them what Jesus said and did. Why did he have to provoke the hostility of the leaders to the extent to be killed? By now, however, they must have realized that the Master would not stay with them forever, that he would “go to the Father” and that they would have to fulfill the Master’s command proclaiming the divine Gospel by themselves without the presence of their Master. We can well assume that at the time of our story the disciples at the lakeside have told themselves: “Well, this is it, we may not see the Master anymore. They may have waited a day or two, or even five — Jesus did not come. So, Peter said: “I am going fishing.” A lot depends on the tone of his voice. It could have been with a tone of resignation: “Well, he does not come. That’s it. I can’t bear this tension any longer, I’m going fishing.” It, however, may have been a normal tone, saying matter-of-factly: “Well, here we are at the end of the miracles, no more being together just we and the Master. Here comes what we told us and we better return to our daily routine and make a living. So, I’m going fishing.” Here is, then, Lesson Number Two from the Lakeside. Christian life is not an unbroken sequence of wonders and miracles. Christian faith does not absolve us from doing our daily work honestly and rightly. There must be a proper balance here. It is dead wrong if our busyness keeps us back from watching out for the Gospel, if anyone says having no time for listening to God because he/she is busy with life’s duties. On the other hand, it is also dead wrong to say that we are so busy with religion and church that we have no time for our common duties. The “holy roller” who has no time to do a day’s honest work is just as bad as the person who is so busy working that he has no time to pray. Then, so the story goes on, they went out fishing but caught nothing. In the gray of the dawn they heard a voice from the shore asking if they had caught any fish. To their negative answer the voice told them to cast their net at the right side of the boat. So they did and the catch was enormously rich. Then they suddenly recognized the Lord. It should be noted: there was nothing miraculous in the catch. The person standing on the shore was able to see by the rays of the rising sun the dark shadow in the water indicating a shoal of fish. In this conjunction we must keep in mind that parables and allegories are ways of expression in the Gospel narratives. Here is, then, Lesson Number Three from the Lakeside. Our lives are often frustrated, at times nothing goes right. Yet everything turns right if we follow the guidance of Christ’s Gospel. No miracle will happen, just what has been wrong will turn right. We can put it this way: where and when there is trouble and frustration God is always near with His guidance if we are only willing to follow it. Don’t ever miss the Gospel’s guidance for you may miss the catch of your life. We said that this story written by a masterful writer contains lots of allegories. One is about the number of fish caught set at 153. Commentators and bible-scholars tried to figure out: why exactly 153? No answer was good enough until the 4th century biblical scholar St. Jerome discovered that 153 was the number of the kind of fish in the Sea of Galilee. Here then, is the allegorical meaning of this passage and Lesson Number Four from the Lakeside: all nations, all people are part of the Church of Jesus Christ The Church is not exclusive. This is very important to stress this in our age where there are many attempts to exclude a number of people from the Christian community declaring that only white people are genuine Christians, or that only Christians rooted in the Western culture can truly interpret the Gospel, or that the Christian Church can properly function only in the so called “free” societies. The Lesson Number Four from the Lakeside is that Christians of every color of skin, Christians rooted in the cultures of Africa, Asia or any country of the globe, and Christians living out their faith under socialist regimes have a right place in the world Christian community. Here we went to school to the Apostle John. He taught us about the reality of Christ in the midst of the everyday routine of Christian life. He taught us that if someone wants to be a Christian one must not look for some heavenly ecstasy but must live day by day under the divine guidance of Jesus Christ the Lord. We should enroll in the Apostle John’s Lakeside School. Andrew Harsanyi BIBLE NEWS Hungarian Bibles for the Visu-ally Handicapped Large Print New Testament in Hungarian for the visually handicapped have been printed in Hungary. The publication takes up eight volumes. 176 Million — 13 Thousand — 843 The above figures mean that for the 176 million people in Indonesia who live on 13 thousand islands the Bible has been printed in 843 languages. GORBACHEV: "I AM BAPTIZED." Asked by a journalist during his recent trip to France if he had been baptized, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev answered he had, “and,” he added, “I think there is nothing strange about that.” Gorbachev’s mother was a Christian. (Ecumenical Press Service) The 30th Hungarian Protestant Ball will be held on Friday, November 9, 1989 at the Wayne Manor, 1515 Route 23, Wayne, NJ. The proceeds from the Ball will be used for the benefit of the Scholarship Fund. The Ball will be preceded by cocktails and dinner at 7:00 p.m., and the dance will begin at 9:30 p.m. with the presentation of the debutantes. All are welcome. For further information, call Ms. Priscilla Hunyady (201) 381-6413 or Rev. Barnabas Roczey (201) 828-3165 or 545-5841.
