Masada!! Refuge?

- Dennis Kresier, Layperson,Last Mountain Anglican Parish

April 16, 2025

This fortification was built around 30 B.C. by Herod the Great as security from enemy attacks. The siege of Masada by Roman troops from 73-74 B.C. at the end of the first Jewish-Roman war, was ended when Roman soldiers finally reached the fort. Imagine the shock they received when they discovered that all 960 Jewish Zealots had committed suicide and there was nothing left to conquer or capture. The Jewish high priest had persuaded his followers to end life on their own terms, stating that it, “would be better to die by their own hands than to be enslaved by Rome.”

Approximately 2000 years ago, another “High Priest” on another outcropping of land in Jerusalem, was crucified to pay the price for our sins. On Golgotha’s Mt. Calvary, Jesus shed His precious blood for all of us. Masada could not offer total or lasting refuge for the Jewish Zealots, but Christ did all of that for all of us by His sacrificial death.

“Years I spent in vanity & pride, caring not my Lord was crucified
Knowing not it was for me He died on Calvary
O the love that drew salvations plan
O the grace that brought it down to man
O the mighty gulf that God did span, at Calvary
Mercy there was great, and grace was free
Pardon there was multiplied to me
There my burdened soul found liberty—at Calvary!”

– At Calvary by Daniel B Towner 1923

Who is your Masada?