For the past few years I have been interested in what took place during the Roman war in the province of Palestine in 66-70AD/CE. It ended in horrendous tragedy with at times 500 captured Jews being crucified in a day by the walls of Jerusalem; with reported cannibalism inside the besieged city; with bodies of those who had died in the city being thrown over the walls into the valleys outside (including the valley of Gehenna). Inside over those years there was a battle to keep faith alive – faith that God would deliver the city, for after all they were a covenant people, and there right in the city was the Temple the place where the God of heaven dwelt with them. The prophets were essential to keep that faith alive. The might of Rome… no hope of survival, but God, but the prophets, but if only they keep the faith. And then in 68CE the Romans withdraw as Rome goes into a major crisis with civil war and the ‘year of the four emperors’.
Keep the faith. I told you so – God comes through.
Alas a temporary victory.
The danger is always we lose sight of the bigger narrative and this is clearly what took place in Jerusalem, for the bigger narrative centred on Jesus, and perhaps they lost the sight of the bigger picture of God’s love for the world.
Of course claiming that one has a bigger narrative is something that can only be done tentatively, for even those with incredible sight ‘see in part’. So hoping that what follows contains a considerable element of tentativity and is also read in that light let me suggest a few aspects that might be applicable for us in the West.
- When we centre hope for change in any government we have lost sight of the pivotal chapters of Revelation, that a slain Lamb, and only a slain Lamb can open the scroll of human destiny. And it behoves us to ‘follow the Lamb wherever he goes’.
- That path of the Lamb was one that withstood the powers of religion, economic oppression (the biblical prophets say that such oppression is bloodshed and the Scriptures say nothing can atone for bloodshed), and perverse political power. That still is the path.
- We cannot ‘other’ those who change the nature of the population of a land – Scripture attributes a change to the failure to steward land. The prophets in Jerusalem knew who the enemy was – the Romans, and failed to see / acknowledge that the problem lay elsewhere – the very claim that ‘we have God’ being problematic in the extreme.
- Jesus came in the spirit of Jeremiah with his denunciation of the city, because of what he found in the Temple (den of robbers). He disturbed the economic system, that could be justified as serving the sacrificial system, as he exposed a deeper motivation within it.
- The Jeremiah prophets who call us to pray into the shalom of Babylon – this is not a time to pray into the shalom of our ‘Israel’. [‘Our’ Israel – as Israel is another Babylon, but we create Israels that suit us.]
What lies ahead in the coming few years? Trauma for sure. Trauma that will be heard in the cry of the land (nothing prophetic there as global temperatures rise and as planet and people are exploited for economic gain by the few). And beyond that, unless something changes, we will find that literal armed conflict will be present in the lands that have been privileged to enjoy peace – to be clear ‘war’.
Unless something changes… the body of Christ has to wake up that Christendom is over – and it has to be over if the Gospel is to make a difference in our world. That we lose the desire for something to happen that has the word ‘again’ in it. The future is the air we are to breathe, that future based on what has always been seen – a new heaven and a new earth where there is no more death, nor weeping. The Christian faith is much more than a philosophy or an ideology – it is air (or if you like Spirit) from another age – that blows through everything.
The future is challenging – leaving behind the supposed safety of what has been; relocating; experiencing ‘both growing together’ side by side. The past repeated is a downward spiral, the future could be the embrace till there is no other.
The idea of a ‘cultural Christianity’ is a very appealing one to the Western church at the moment and its ascendancy of late has been applauded by Christians all over social media. I was nearly convinced for a while but the gaping holes in it were increasingly noticeable. It is a Christianity without Jesus and more about form of worship, set of ethics, used to dehumanise other religious groups etc etc rather than real, radical following of one who was utterly counter cultural and deeply complex at times, very straightforward at others he often spoken in parables that children could understand better than the adults? I fear you are right in your predictions, we marry politics and Jesus at our peril and idolatry will not be tolerated by God especially when it is specifically using his name in vain (what will happen due to Trump’s pseudo messianic crowning in US is scary). I think God is far more accepting of non believers making idols out of other things and may cut them more slack I believe. Yes let us pray into the shalom of Babylon because he wants our hearts to be soft. Loving enemies even unto death like he did! I hope I would or could do that one day but I’m not sure? Thank you Martin for your ability to deeply challenge and to give hope in one single article! Not an easy thing to do but your optimism is encouraging. The Zeitgeist seems so grim and even the weather in Britain is echoing that as had dull skies for days!!!! I know is far worse in Spain praying for end to flooding there.
Well thought out Martin. You seem to cut to the heart of the issue so many times. The recent US election outcomes are disheartening and somewhat bewildering. The finger pointing has begun and little or none of it is useful. The climate chaos means radical transformation and that means political and economic instability for many.
I watched the terrible flooding in Spain and thought about you both. I realized what we were seeing was similar to what is described in Isaiah 54:10. The mountains are being shaken and the hills literally removed with flood waters and landslides. The question becomes can we who look ahead, who build towards the future, find stability, a place to stand while doing so? It might be very temporary places. We might have to be really flexible in our thinking. But can we, with that forward vision of a new creation, provide stability for others too? For me, the answer is the garden. In beauty (brings rest to the soul), in productivity (we all need to eat), in community (as we work together), and as a taste of what we need to build in this new world. That is my vision and task. What are others doing?
I saw a recent post by a well known “7 mountain mandate” preacher who said that “Donald Trump is now our voice”…and I thought it strange that any christian culture would identify that way…but then it occured to me that the whore of babylon sits on top of the 7 mountains in the Apocalypse…and oddly enough there never seems to be a mandate in the text to take over those seven “heads/mountains”, just an exposition that the promiscuity of a babylonian model likes to sit there.
Nuance seems to be a lost art…
I make no claim to understand or impose these texts upon modern times and for the record it seems to me that the “10 horns” do not ascend to the mountaintops but instead they simply destroy the whore make her naked and consume her…as it has always been…eventually everything gets exposed and then the world just kind of eats it and on we go…but I find it odd that the Lamb himself does not deal with her…he “puts it in their heart to give their power to the beast”…
If ever a time we could see and expose the naked will for power it would probably look at lot like this.
Of course I would never suggest such a thin s actually happening…I’ll leave that to the prohets.
Sorry for the spelling mistakes…although its better than normal…my spelling usually takes a bigger beating than this.
Last sunday evening I went to a nearby Anglican church where my grand-daughter was due to preach at their youth service! Listenng to the simple, faith-filled prayers of the young people at first caused me to think, “but look at the world around you. Don’t you listen to the news!” Then, of course, I repented. Such prayer seems illogical, irrational, but I guess God loves it. I’ve now begun to change how I’m seeing what’s going on…. still some way to go though.