Ringo
A WATCHMAN
This is the first week of my two-week visit to Israel. This is not my first time to visit the Holy Land, but it seems just as fresh as the first time. Yes, I've seen all the sites. I've seen most of the holy places, and they are amazing. But what most surprises me is not the sites themselves, for they have been there for millennia. What is most fresh to me is not the felafel and shawarma made right before my eyes. Rather, it is the fact that my feet are standing on the sovereign territory of a nation called Israel.
For most of the history of both Western civilization and the church, Israel was simply the ancient country of an awkward, misfit people called the Jews whose history was contained in the Bible. It was a source of instructive stories, lessons and epic tales of both defeat and victory, but had very little to do with anything else. It was a thing of the past, a memory and irrelevant except as a source of allegory and metaphor for a world that had simply moved on. The Jews were a scattered, beleaguered, non-national "nation," always at the mercy of others and constantly subjected to the oppressive and, tragically, too often genocidal whims of their "hosts."
And then came 1948. Seemingly out of nowhere, the nation of Israel arose from the ashes of the Holocaust, but not just anywhere: in their ancient homeland. They were, for the first time in nearly 2,000 years, a nation again. The mythical nation of folklore and legend was again ... there. For the first time in human history, a people who had been dispersed throughout the entire world was regathered in their homeland and became a sovereign nation once again. There is zero historical precedence for this. And in this case, it was not just any people, but the Jews, the pariah race. Why not the Cannanites? The Jebusites? The others who had lived there before? Why were all of these peoples who had lived in the same land not only not regathered, but did not even exist anymore, and yet the Jews did? Why? The question begs for an answer.
Regardless of what one makes of the fact of the Jews being regathered in their ancient homeland as a sovereign nation once again, it is at the very least curious to find so many prophecies in the Bible that seem to predict the event precisely. Even for those who take these prophecies in a figurative sense, it is still quite thought provoking and difficult to reconcile with the indisputable fact of history: The nation of Israel is alive once again. How strange that such a singular event without any precedence in history whatsoever should happen to this peculiar people, and that their ancient scriptures just so happened to declare that it would happen as if it already had, almost as if they had seen from afar what we see up close.
This is why being in Israel is always so surprising and refreshing. More than the holy places, more than the tourist attractions, more than the amazing food, the interesting personalities or the raw history of the place, this is a nation that once was dead and yet now lives. Not only was it dead, but this nation was gone. Emergency room patients regularly "die," but are revived within a short period. Not so with Israel. Israel was not just dead, but dead for so long that it was an assumed fact that it was gone. The idea that it would be revived was chimerical at best.
This is why Israel is always so fresh and alive for me - because it is living. And it is for this reason that Israel is far more than simply a surprise to me. On the contrary, it is much more. I fairly regularly have conversations with atheists, and we banter back and forth about the various arguments that have been articulated by many and which seem to accomplish so little. "Give me proof," they ask. "Give me proof that God exists, and not only that God exists, but that he is active in the world." My answer? "Israel." "What?" they respond. "Israel," I repeat, for it is my firm belief that the single most obvious, undeniable, empirical, right-before-our-eyes proof of a God who not only exists, but is intimately involved in human affairs, is the rebirth of this small nation in a relatively insignificant piece of real estate by a misfit race of Jews, and the fact that this rebirth was seen, as if already real and present, by not only the prophets of old, but Jesus himself, thousands of years before it ever happened.
Israel's existence cannot be denied. Its historically singular regathering cannot be denied. The prophecies of this regathering, even for those most dedicated to allegorizing anything and everything religious, can be denied only with the greatest of difficulty. Can the God of Israel truly be denied then?
So why do I love Israel so much? Not because it is Israel (though that is the cherry on top). My love of Israel has as its foundations almost nothing to do with Israel. My love of Israel is entirely founded on my love of God, for Israel never was about Israel. Look at God's covenant with Abraham. Israel was not to be a container of blessing, but a conveyor of it to the world. Israel was never supposed to be about Israel, but about God. And this remains true today. The Jews are not in their homeland today because of some inherent merit, or because they deserve it. No. The Jews, the nation of Israel itself, exists today because of a sovereign God who made a covenant, a promise, a commitment, one whose efficacy we can witness with our own eyes today. To be surprised by Israel is to be surprised by God.
And what a surprise it is.
- Joshua Charles -
For most of the history of both Western civilization and the church, Israel was simply the ancient country of an awkward, misfit people called the Jews whose history was contained in the Bible. It was a source of instructive stories, lessons and epic tales of both defeat and victory, but had very little to do with anything else. It was a thing of the past, a memory and irrelevant except as a source of allegory and metaphor for a world that had simply moved on. The Jews were a scattered, beleaguered, non-national "nation," always at the mercy of others and constantly subjected to the oppressive and, tragically, too often genocidal whims of their "hosts."
And then came 1948. Seemingly out of nowhere, the nation of Israel arose from the ashes of the Holocaust, but not just anywhere: in their ancient homeland. They were, for the first time in nearly 2,000 years, a nation again. The mythical nation of folklore and legend was again ... there. For the first time in human history, a people who had been dispersed throughout the entire world was regathered in their homeland and became a sovereign nation once again. There is zero historical precedence for this. And in this case, it was not just any people, but the Jews, the pariah race. Why not the Cannanites? The Jebusites? The others who had lived there before? Why were all of these peoples who had lived in the same land not only not regathered, but did not even exist anymore, and yet the Jews did? Why? The question begs for an answer.
Regardless of what one makes of the fact of the Jews being regathered in their ancient homeland as a sovereign nation once again, it is at the very least curious to find so many prophecies in the Bible that seem to predict the event precisely. Even for those who take these prophecies in a figurative sense, it is still quite thought provoking and difficult to reconcile with the indisputable fact of history: The nation of Israel is alive once again. How strange that such a singular event without any precedence in history whatsoever should happen to this peculiar people, and that their ancient scriptures just so happened to declare that it would happen as if it already had, almost as if they had seen from afar what we see up close.
This is why being in Israel is always so surprising and refreshing. More than the holy places, more than the tourist attractions, more than the amazing food, the interesting personalities or the raw history of the place, this is a nation that once was dead and yet now lives. Not only was it dead, but this nation was gone. Emergency room patients regularly "die," but are revived within a short period. Not so with Israel. Israel was not just dead, but dead for so long that it was an assumed fact that it was gone. The idea that it would be revived was chimerical at best.
This is why Israel is always so fresh and alive for me - because it is living. And it is for this reason that Israel is far more than simply a surprise to me. On the contrary, it is much more. I fairly regularly have conversations with atheists, and we banter back and forth about the various arguments that have been articulated by many and which seem to accomplish so little. "Give me proof," they ask. "Give me proof that God exists, and not only that God exists, but that he is active in the world." My answer? "Israel." "What?" they respond. "Israel," I repeat, for it is my firm belief that the single most obvious, undeniable, empirical, right-before-our-eyes proof of a God who not only exists, but is intimately involved in human affairs, is the rebirth of this small nation in a relatively insignificant piece of real estate by a misfit race of Jews, and the fact that this rebirth was seen, as if already real and present, by not only the prophets of old, but Jesus himself, thousands of years before it ever happened.
Israel's existence cannot be denied. Its historically singular regathering cannot be denied. The prophecies of this regathering, even for those most dedicated to allegorizing anything and everything religious, can be denied only with the greatest of difficulty. Can the God of Israel truly be denied then?
So why do I love Israel so much? Not because it is Israel (though that is the cherry on top). My love of Israel has as its foundations almost nothing to do with Israel. My love of Israel is entirely founded on my love of God, for Israel never was about Israel. Look at God's covenant with Abraham. Israel was not to be a container of blessing, but a conveyor of it to the world. Israel was never supposed to be about Israel, but about God. And this remains true today. The Jews are not in their homeland today because of some inherent merit, or because they deserve it. No. The Jews, the nation of Israel itself, exists today because of a sovereign God who made a covenant, a promise, a commitment, one whose efficacy we can witness with our own eyes today. To be surprised by Israel is to be surprised by God.
And what a surprise it is.
- Joshua Charles -
~ ISRAEL...God's Prophetic Timepiece ~
