Today's Devotion: 9 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. 10 Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in himd to make him stumble. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him. (d Or it; The Holy Bible : New International Version. electronic ed. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984, S. 1 Jn 2:9-11)

We cannot hate our brother. If we do, we are not walking in the light of Christ. We must put aside all of our hatred and ask that God give us his grace so that we can be obedient to him and walk in His love.

Today's Comments: Who is our brother? I think that our brother can be equated to our neighbor, or for that matter, any member of the human race. It encompasses our idea of the brotherhood of man. This is a concept that troubles me, because how should we Christians deal with illegal immigration? If we are against it, does that mean that we hate our brother? I am not quite sure that I can answer this question. However, whether or not we are against illegal immigration, we must show compassion for those who, despite their immigration status, are our neighbors and our brothers.

One example of how one should treat one's brother or neighbor comes from my own family history, during 1924 near downtown Los Angeles. This incident is well documented in Frank Feldinger’s A Slight Epidemic, the Government Cover-Up of Black Plague in Los Angeles, Silver Lake Publishing, Los Angeles, CA 2008.

An outbreak of Bubonic Plague, which then developed into Pneumonic Plague, occurred in a poor “Mexican” section, inside the area now known as “Koreatown.”[i] Between September 28th and November 1st, there was no admission of the diseases by either city or county health authorities, even though several deaths occurred. Authorities kept silent, probably because of fear that the Port of Los Angeles might be closed or placed under harsh quarantine. When, finally, the city and county had no choice, they set up quarantine lines around the affected area, but did little or nothing to help citizens inside the quarantine area deal with the disease. Although there were only 30 documented deaths, the count could have been much higher and disease could have spread to the rest of the city, had it not been for the efforts of the local principle of the Macy Street School, Nora Sterry,[ii] with help from one of her teachers, who, in deliberate disobedience of the law, illegally crossed quarantine barriers to set up a treatment and training center at the school. They opened the school’s kitchen and classrooms to feed, clothe, and teach the residents in a one-fifth square mile area how to keep their homes sanitized so that they might attempt to successfully escape this dreadful disease. Later on, Nora continued to crusade for better housing, piped in water, and sewers for her school district and, by speaking out, she helped quash a State Senate bill to segregate Mexican students in the public schools. (Footnotes: [i] On March 5, 2006, a historical article about this epidemic was published in the Los Angeles Times. [ii] Nora was my father’s adopted aunt.)

Christ’s Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37)[i] gives us a model of how one should treat a brother or a neighbor. There is no equivocation, here; Jesus’ words are clear and simple: “Go and do likewise.” ([i] http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2010:25-37;&version=31;)