Friday, January 31, 2020
1 Maccabees 12:39-52: Convolution
Below is a site which makes an attempt to unravel this highly complicated plot we see unfolding in 1 Maccabees. It is difficult to sort through the intricacies of this period in Jewish history just prior to the arrival of Jesus. All of these double faces and double plots with their twistings and turnings are sometimes too difficult to witness, too difficult to watch . . . and yet we ought to spend here. We must observe, witness and learn from what we experience. These convolutions may well be too close to home.
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Diodotus_Tryphon
This betrayal, capture and murder of Jonathan paint a clever piece of political strategy which – – – in the end – – – backfires on Tryphon. His life terminates in suicide. This is an old story, an old theme, with characters familiar to all of us. We see this drama played out in our families, in sensational headlines, in history books, in memoirs, and sometimes in our own lives. Tryphon presents himself as a reasonable friend while plotting to use Jonathan’s trust to his advantage. This is a story repeated in big and little ways daily. Hearts are won and then broken. Promises made and then abandoned. Lives buoy upward on the tide of events only to be ruined.
What do we do when we too frequently find ourselves the victims of the Tryphos in our lives? Do we cease to trust and go within to barricade ourselves from danger? Do we resort to revenge and add to the violence and atmosphere of mistrust? Or do we pray for those who harm us, hope for an impossible but just outcome, and place our faith ultimately in God?
Isolation leads to our own depression and suicide. Violence ushers us swiftly to our own corruption and brutal end. The sign of our spiritual development is that we are able to ask God to convert hard hearts and stiff necks, that God right an immense wrong, and that God abide with us just as we struggle to abide with God.
We can predict our own ends when we examine this story and ourselves.
Verse 39 reads: Tryphon was determined to become king . . . When we determine our destiny without consulting God we enter into a dark convolution of self.
Verse 40: Looking for a way to seize and kill . . . When we first seek to do away with opposition rather than listen to disparate voices we create a crooked image of God.
Verse 49: Tryphon sent soldiers . . . to destroy . . . When we enlist our friends in a warped plan of retribution we give ourselves over to a darkness that is ultimately overcome by light.
Our lives are repeated patterns of options from which to choose: life or death, light or darkness, mercy or violence, justice or destruction. We are moving toward Lent and later Eastertide. We will witness the promise fulfilled; we will be rescued. In which direction do we steer ourselves? Onto the straight yet narrow paths of light which lead to completion? Or into the dark convolutions of a distorted sense of self?
We know the road signs. We know the feeling of despair when we suffer the little deaths of self through betrayal that escort us to our own destruction. We also know the sensation of love, the exhilaration of hope and the power of faith.
Let us witness and watch . . . and let us become accustomed to looking for the light that pierces the darkness . . . and steers us away from the convolutions of darkness.
First written on April 24, 2009. Re-written and posted today as a Favorite.
To read more about the Selucids and others, click on the coin image above or the citation.
The Noontimes 