By Jan Dorward

Christians and Jews don't always get along, but God still reaches out to His chosen people.

It took years for me to accept Jesus Christ as my Messiah. It didn’t happen in the blink of an eye as I’ve heard in some people’s stories, nor was it my privilege as a birthright—like Christ-followers raised in a Christian home. I was Jewish… and agnostic.

It was sometimes difficult growing up a minority Jew in a predominantly Italian-Catholic neighborhood in west suburban Chicago. I had to “fit in” with the Christian world surrounding me. I tried to ignore the many painful anti-Semitic remarks thrown at me, because of my people’s denial of Christ as the Messiah. A schoolmate would scowl at me and call me names: “Christ killer!” Or, an ignorant vendor might remark: “I’ll Jew you down in price.” Sometimes, a neighbor would act scornful, because we didn’t decorate our house with Christmas lights, inquiring: “Where’s your tree?” Those hurtful words and attitudes were embedded in my mind from people who falsely represented Christ. In fact, the pain was so overwhelming, I’d grown to despise the name of Jesus.

For years I was sent to Sunday school at a reform temple, but I didn’t take the teachings with great heart. (And, yes, we Jews had classes on Sundays at our temples and synagogues, although we worshipped on our Sabbath.) In my home, I don’t recall a Bible ever being opened or a prayer being lifted to God. I was a Jewess, and that was my heritage. But I didn’t have a clue Jesus was a Jew. I knew nothing about who He was other than being an historical figure. I was taught that, in the name of Christ, six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, and, in the name of Christ, countless Jews were persecuted during the Spanish Inquisition. And, throughout the Christian world, at least the one I saw back then, I heard many of those anti-Semitic remarks aimed at me which burned in my soul. It made me wonder what was the blessing of being one of God’s chosen people?

However, I was a child of the 60’s… a time of peace, love and rock ‘n’ roll. Oh, and Jesus freaks. Some of these well-meaning people began planting the tiniest seeds of belief in my soul during my college years, but they lay dormant. Friends told me about Jesus and His love for me and about the Bible. I always had respect for other people’s beliefs, so at least I listened. But when it came to my own convictions, my position was, “That might be great for you, but leave me out of it.” As long as I was able to reason, I didn’t need God, certainly not Who I perceived to be God in my confused little world. 

Over and over I argued with God, challenging Him: “Prove yourself to me, then I’ll believe You exist”… and eventually He did. He came to me in a time of tremendous need.

I was 28 years old, married to a believer who had prayed for me for years. God honored my husband’s prayers and began painstakingly peeling the blinders of stubbornness off my eyes. A month before the due date of my first-born child, I became very ill. After 10 days in a hospital with an undetermined illness, I started contracting premature and irregular labor, and my blood pressure became dangerously high. My life was at stake. The concern was not only with me but the welfare of my baby. How I needed God then! It was almost as if the Lord was saying to me, “All right, you stubborn woman, you want Me to prove I exist? Well, here I am.” 

I know that, though sickness itself is not of the Lord, He used one particular day during that close call with death to enter my life forever. I can hear the Christian doctor’s words of faith as if it were yesterday: “You’ve been through a lot. The only rationalization I have for you and your baby’s survival is Jesus. Your recoveries were nothing less than a miracle.” His statement of faith had such an impact on me that I finally conceded, There must be a God after all. I wasn’t persuaded about Jesus, but at least I was open to learning more about the power of God.

Now that I had inquisitiveness for God, many Christians who loved the Jewish people (Christians who behaved very different from the ones I’d met when I was younger) began coming into my life—God-style! Many were bold about sharing their faith. But despite how articulate they were, somehow my heart wasn’t ready.

It was through sweet Marty that I met my mentors in Christ. You see, I needed a babysitter, and through a friend of a friend—you know how that goes—I met Marty. Although she was shy, the love of Christ shone through her, illuminating the words of the Bible I was just beginning to read. This time I was ready.

I knew God loved Marty, and she showed this same love and respect to me. Her friendship allowed me to meet literally dozens of new acquaintances who were used by God to continue unveiling the truth that salvation comes through Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. These mentors were watering, fertilizing and tending the seeds sown many years earlier. But, the little sprouts set to spring forth would have to fight their way through a tangled garden of weeds left there by people who represented themselves as Christians but who didn’t have His light. Instead, they’d cast darkness with their thoughtless—even cruel—remarks.

Other conditions may have contributed to the darkness. My own stubbornness? My own ignorance? Maybe it was even a result of the hurtful sting of persecution the Jews have felt for centuries. Yet, somehow buried beneath this thick tangle of lies was a fact—the Truth—which had been concealed from me before and I was now beginning to understand and accept. It was who God really is, why His Son came to earth, and how I needed to repent and accept Him as my Messiah. It took Christians who knew no bias, showed no barriers, and loved what might have been the utterly unlovely to convince me that Jesus was the way for both Jews and Gentiles alike.

In showing me this “good news,” God revealed to me the Jewishness of His Son. At first, this was as difficult to accept as it was to verbalize the name of Jesus as my miracle worker. But, as time went on, instead of cringing at the sound of His name, a special type of pride began welling up in me to be known as part of His lineage. I was a chosen person who had found the Messiah—a completed Jew! “Not all the Jews have turned away from God; there are a few being saved as a result of God’s kindness in choosing them.” (Romans 11:5)

I was becoming deeply aware of my heritage, the rarity of my conversion (or should I say completion) and the Jewishness of Jesus. With gratitude, I acknowledged the fact that Jewish people, originating from the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, were, and still are, God’s chosen people (Deuteronomy 7:6-8)—or succinctly stated, God’s roots (Isaiah 11:1-3). I began to understand and accept that, because God’s chosen people were to be the recipients of His holy blessings, it only made sense that the prophesied Messiah should come from the Jewish lineage, too.

I discovered Jesus was a devout Jew, who adhered to the laws and commandments of His Father. He came not to cancel the laws of Moses but to fulfill them. There was no separation between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Jesus is the cohesive link that melds these two books together. Although the Jewish people were the first to hear about the good news of salvation (Romans 1:16), many of Abraham’s stubborn offspring were blindly unable to receive eternal life through Christ by faith alone. They were much too heavily engrossed in trying to observe God’s laws. The thought of putting aside the formality of God’s laws by simply resting and trusting in the Messiah by faith seemed just too easy, especially for the Pharisees. (This was similar to the way I once thought… God, prove that you exist, and I’ll believe in you.) No man of their blood, prophesied in their scriptures, and claiming to be the fulfillment of their prayers was going to change all their work and toil. I could identify, because I, too, worked and toiled for my own recognition and glory.

The Lord showed me it was through the grace of God and the rejection of His Son by the Jewish people that salvation was extended to the Gentiles as well. I read a story in Romans 11:16-20 which allowed me to knit my spirit with Gentile believers. Paul told the parable of a special olive tree grafted together by God. Through that, I could visualize the roots of all Christians. An olive tree is beautiful to see. It’s full of fruit and one of God’s most precious trees (Jeremiah 11:16). The roots of this prized tree are the Jews, the descendants of Abraham. Jesus, the main root, a Jew and the Savior, holds this tree together and sustains its life. Many branches have been broken off or died because they rejected the main root. However, in their place, wild olive branches (the Gentiles) have been grafted. These new branches then received the nourishment they needed from all the roots to live a strong and abundant life.

Like a baby who opens her eyes for the very first time, I finally saw Jesus as the great link between God and every person, Jew and Gentile alike, who needed a relationship with the Lord. Now, I saw the terminology that had been so distinctively Christian to me before as having a powerful new Jewish connection. The so-called “last supper” was indeed the Jewish observance of Passover, a bridging of the Old and New Testaments. The declaring of the New Covenant (when Jesus told the disciples at the “last supper” that His body would be broken and His blood would be spilled for them) never would have taken place if Jesus hadn’t been obedient to God’s commanded observance of the Passover. Even the Jewish law of how to observe the Sabbath (being home for the beginning of the Sabbath day) played a role in the prophesy and Jesus’ promise to miraculously rise from the dead on the third day. His body had been hastily concealed in the burial cave belonging to Joseph of Arimathea. According to the Jewish way of marking days—from sundown to sundown—He indeed came back to life on the third day.

I gave my life to Jesus after two long years of study, prayer, inspiration and guidance. I was then and am now very proud of my Jewish heritage, because I understand its link to our Messiah. I’ve received love and acceptance from my Gentile brothers and sisters in Christ—those who truly live by faith and follow Jesus’ commandment to love others, even enemies—and I sometimes think they’re as Jewish as I am. “A real Jew is anyone whose heart is right with God. For God is not looking for those who cut their bodies in actual body circumcision, but He is looking for those with changed hearts and minds.” (Romans 2:29) “But now God has shown us a different way to heaven—not by ‘being good enough’ and trying to keep his laws, but by a new way. Now God says He will accept and acquit us—‘declare us not guilty’—if we trust Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And, we all can be saved in this same way, by coming to Christ, no matter who we are or what we have been like.” (Romans 3:21-22) I added the emphasis in this passage, because it means so much to me personally.

Long ago, I overcame the animosity I once felt as a Jew and the resentment I harbored against those who wrongly represented Christ. The Lord took away the hurt and the hatred.

I am no longer apart from Christ but a part of Him. God has shown me, through His grace, that we are all grafted onto the body of Christ. Some of us are Jews, and some are Gentiles, but the Holy Spirit has brought us all together into one body with Christ being the head. I thank the Lord for the privilege of salvation and for His grace. Let us all pray for the Jewish people everywhere that they too can discover the salvation of Christ, that they too can find the Messiah.

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