What is Karma?
Karma, a concept prevalent within Eastern religions, is the basis of the universal law which simplistically means, what you sow is what you reap. Karma says that the sum of a person's actions decides his fate, good or bad.
What is faith?
Faith is confidence or trust in God and in His revelation.
Abraham, often referred to as the Father of faith, discovered God as one, and it is upon his faith in the one true God that the 3 Abrahamic religions: Moses’ Judaism, Muhammed’s Islam and Christ’s Christianity, found their root.
Abraham believed in God, and God credited this belief to him as righteousness (Gen 15: 6). Moses built Judaism on the basis of Abraham’s faith. Shahada, the uppermost pillar of Islam, has a claim rooted within the archetype of Abrahamic faith. Christianity insists that a person is justified by an expression of a faith in Christ that is rooted with Abraham.
The scandal within these 3 beliefs whose foundations are entrenched upon the faith of Abraham is that they are themselves involved in a seemingly unending tussle of faith within and between each other.
These historic crises of belief began with the Christianisation of Judah, followed by a long persecution of the Jews by Christians from the 4th century, culminating in the holocaust of the early 20th century.
The long Jihadist insurrection in the 7th century which Islamised the entire Middle East, Turkey, North Africa and parts of Europe, the Crusade years between the 11th and 13th century, the Ottoman Jihad of the 16th century, have also struck indelible roots of discord that are still just fresh today.
The 19th and 20th century rise of Zionism, and the recent rise in Islamic radicalism are the present situation which appear as the tipping palates marking the future trajectory of the world’s fate.
All these crises amongst and between Abraham’s descendants, may be traced to a strategic miscalculation, starting from a well-meaning suggestion from Sarah, the wife of Abraham in the book of Genesis.
Since they could not bear any child, Sarah’s suggestion was that, her husband should sleep with Hagar their Egyptian slave girl with a view towards having a so much needed offspring (Gen 16: 1-4). Hagar got pregnant and had a son and named him Ishmael, whom the Moslems claim to be descended from.
Sarah fell out with Hagar and would have her sent packing into the desert. Abraham was distressed about this, but God admonished him to acquiesce to Sarah’s request, promising also to make Ishmael into a great nation (Gen 21: 9-17).
While Abraham’s impatience may be looked at as a consolation towards confronting our own imperfections, this did not remove the ordeals already transfused from the consequences of an action that has resulted into deep schisms amongst the 3 Monotheist Faiths descended from him, up till this day.
Had Abraham and Sarah waited on the Lord a little bit more, perhaps the present crises would have been abated or lessened. The intricacies of destiny and free will- but, Que sera sera.
This singular mistake from Abraham has translated into varied schisms through generations, beginning from his two grandchildren: Esau and Jacob( Gen 25:19-34; 27: 1- 45), down to the wider schism from David’s house (1 Kg 12: 20), through the rupture between Judaism and Christianity in the 1st century, the separation of the Eastern and Western Church in the 11th century, the massive cracks within Catholicism during Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, the long standing disagreements between Sunnis and Shiites, and every form of rivalry as already enumerated amongst the descendants of Abraham.
Woe unto a culture that alienate women, for it would be a woman who, with faith, would begin to make right this Abrahamic error. A daughter of Abraham has become a Mother of faith. She is charged with the providence of undoing the knot behind Abraham’s decision with Hagar, bringing about a reconciliation that is poised towards turning every error around, down to its very roots.
Both were specially chosen and blessed by God, changing the course of history.
One, was a father of faith, ushering in the Old Testament, the other, a mother of faith, ushering in the New Testament.
One gave it all up for the benefit of a promised land and a multitude of descendants (Gen 12).
The other gave it all up for the pain of being mother of God and of all that live (Lk 1: 30-32, Rev 12).
For both, a child was promised, they both did not understand the possibility (Gen 15: 1 -8, Lk 1: 34)
Sons were born by both. One’s son is a creature; the other’s son is the Creator (Gen Lk 21:1-7).
His descendants are held bound by the law. Her descendants are free of the law (Rom 8: 1-3).
Each surrendered their sons, one’s son was spared, the other’s son was slaughtered (Gen 22: 1 -19; Jn 19.
One’s son was replaced by a ram; the other’s son was the Lamb of God who replaces the descendants of the first (Gen 22: 8, 12-14; Jn 1: 29, Rev 5:6; 21: 14).
One, the father of nations, the other, the mother of the Lord of nations (Gen 17: 4- 7; Tim 6:15, Rev 17:14, 19: 16).
Mary, is making right a karma beleaguering Father Abraham through her total abandonment to God. She is not only the mother of Christians, she is also the mother of all humanity.
Mary, Maryam the mother of Christ, was confirmed by Mohammad in Islam, as foremost of the women who have attained perfection, and she seem to have initiated the Marian civilisation as a means of Christian reconciliation with Islam, by choosing to appear at Fatima in 1917, a town named after Mohammad's daughter, a woman believed within Islam as second only to Mary in perfection.
Karma exists, but it is by Mary that a path is introduced in Christ the God man, where the consequences of causes and effects are positively warped, and every mistake, error, weakness, fault, sin and evil, shall be leveraged, mitigated, exorcised and changed into a happy fault.
The crises of faith between the children of Abraham would be resolved by the continual acknowledgement of this daughter of Abraham. The more that Marian consciousness grows, the more the synergy between the 3 Abrahamic faiths would be developed and streamlined. And why is this needed? It is for mercy’s sake.
The covenant of God with Abraham is that of mercy, which, starting from the forgiveness of sins (Ps 130: 3-4), leads to a multitude of blessings and abundance, in good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, which are poured into our bosom, and where, starting from the faith of Abraham, the measure that we use, shall not be measured back unto us (Lk 6: 38)
