The Controversy of Zion, Part 5: The Season of the Lamb

For everything, there is a season. The challenge, especially if you live in a place like northeastern Wisconsin, is knowing what season you’re in. It’s not always easy to estimate when it’s safe tuck the snowblower away in the shed. Which seedlings can weather the cool, spring nights? How many hours of daylight are still left in midsummer to start a new batch of greens for a robust fall harvest? In autumn, the temperatures drop, evening falls quickly, and there is an urgency to get everything done before the first snowfall. Eventually, we settle in for a deep winter, waiting patiently, trusting that new life will once again emerge from the frozen ground.

For everything, there is a season. Even for us. Even for Zion.

The land of Zion and the controversies surrounding it’s borders and people run deep, wide, and immensely ancient. As we approach October, it seems the world is no closer to ending the war between Israel and Hamas than it was a year ago. The current conditions of Israel, the Middle East, and the nations are a sign of a season, and one which believers must carefully evaluate.

Truthfully, we cannot know the day Jesus will return or the hour He will begin His reign from Zion. However, He instructs His followers to know the season of His return. He expects that we not only know the signs quite well, but that we are discerningly watching for them. A random earthquake in Asia, disease outbreak in Africa, or an eclipse across the southern United States doesn’t mean the end of the world is coming. Instead, we need to study these apocalyptic texts in the context in which they were given, which is Jerusalem-centric. When we see war, food shortages, economic collapse, disease outbreak, violence, and severe persecution in and around the land of Israel and the people who live there, Jesus instructs His followers to pay attention and discern those events through the lens of scripture (see Luke 21:29-31).

This is, in my opinion, the greatest challenge facing the modern Church in the West. Our hyper-individualism and ultra Christian-centric hermeneutic often blinds us from discerning the larger picture. But we needn’t look far to see the state of the world. I gave ten dollars to a homeless beggar outside our local Walmart last week. My own church is full of ill, hurting people enduring tremendous physical and emotional pain. Just one town over, migrant workers are hungry, barely able to speak English let alone make ends meet, shunned by our culture for the soiled reputation they bear. Our nation’s leaders are fools, dominating with force and violence, their limp promises brittle and empty. Our culture exalts what is broken as good, leaving swaths of victims in its wake.

Overseas, its worse. Nations wage war, scheming and threatening, while rumors of alliances and escalations shift daily. A fairly sharp line is being drawn in the geopolitical sand north and south of Israel, the nations deciding with whom they want to align. A devout woman I know serving children in Eswatini struggles to raise money to feed a starving eight-month-old baby and his fifteen-year-old mother. Blood soaks the land as innocent life is ripped away. If a person is lucky enough to survive the crossfire, they either run from terror in the night or give themselves over to the evil.  

What more evidence do we need to discern the season? True, there has always been war and poverty. But at the very minimum, the status quo of the world has sharply changed within recent months.

Surrounded by bloodshed and unimaginable violence, Noah faithfully proclaimed the gospel in his day. No one listened. Things went along as they always had, until the rains came and humanity was swept away, the waters prevailing against the mighty ones who once thought their own lifestyles and worldviews reigned supreme. These people, either captive or numb to the powers of darkness, did not survive the flood of judgment that God mercifully warned them was coming.

As I look out at the world today, I see the window for God’s tolerance of Christian ignorance rapidly closing. He abounds in mercy. He is patient, and He is loving across thousands of generations. Who is a God like Him, who pardons iniquity and forgives transgression? Yet He also expects us to know the story He has spoken to today us through His Messiah, the Son. He expects us, as people who fear His Name, to know our place within His plan. 

The internally focused, nominal Christianity and western-centric gospel message that governs so much of the Church today will be hopelessly inadequate to weather the storm that is coming. In the days ahead, it will not be politics, sexuality, or cultural agenda that divides and shatters the Church as we know it. It will be the controversy of Zion. It will be the question of Israel and the Jewish people, a question that frankly, few of us care to know much about. It’s everywhere in Scripture, but the past twelve months have proven that, on a whole, the Christian response to the question of Israel in our day is eerily similar to Jeremiah’s words.

…they have called you an outcast. “It’s just Zion. No one cares about her.”

Jeremiah 30:17

However, there is a remnant of light in the darkness. It’s a small number, but more and more believers are engaging this question. People are showing interest in things like the biblical feasts. One church in our town is even hosting services that honor the Jewish high holidays this year, something I have never once seen outside of messianic Judaism. Mainstream Christian leadership has mostly proceeded with ministry as usual, but a few influential leaders have boldly spoken up sensing “a change in the season” since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war. Christians across denominations are slowly recognizing the ongoing importance of Israel and seeking to understanding the role they play as non-Jewish believers in the Messiah. Across the globe, conferences in support and worship of the God of Israel have popped up cultivating a reconnection for Christians with the “elder brother” of their faith. In the land, even secular Jews are flocking back to their religious roots, looking for answers. Last month on the 9th of Av, the saddest day in Judaism and the day both Jerusalem temples were destroyed, Jews openly prayed on the temple mount, an action that would normally result in arrest.

The cry for Messiah is rising. 

In Zion there is weeping as the outcry for Messiah ascends to the heavens simultaneously around the world. In a bold countermove, the nations take up their taunt, hurling hateful accusations that call for the very things that will bring about the time of Jacob’s Trouble.

Like the good servant who fed the household at the proper time and like the wise virgins who had extra oil to light their way in a time of darkness, I believe our only right response to this as followers of Jesus is to discern the season in which we are living. Each of us must be attentive to what that Lord has asked of us and move forward to carry out our work faithfully. For many of us, it starts with diving deeply and diligently into the Word of God. The scriptures give us immense insight. They are our fuel, the light for our path in this dim world. We would do well to fill our lamps with oil now, investing ourselves so deeply into the Word that we have extra to go on when the dark times come. As Peter says, in these last days we must stay sober minded for the sake of our prayers. Without sound discernment and a biblical lens through which to evaluate the world, we will find ourselves praying for things out of step with the season.

For myself and most of the believers I know, our lives move forward usual. The saga in the Middle East drones on while we focus our attention closer to home, a move that is not entirely wrong. We have lives to live, jobs to do, families to raise. We must be faithful in the small and mundane things, too. But let us not forget that Jesus Himself has spoken. He has given us His word, provided rich instruction, and outlined His exceptions. The season for putting off study and prayer or telling ourselves “I’ll get into it tomorrow” is over. There is much work to be done.

As Jesus instructs the church in Ephesus, Christians need to remember from where we have fallen, repent, and work hard to recover our love for the Jewish root which supports us. We will need strong, deep, well-watered roots to stand firm in the days ahead. Suffering is coming, and just as Jesus instructed the community of His followers at Symrna, He implores us too, to remain faithful even in the face of the darkest evil. 

Like Jesus warns to gathering in Pergamum, believers must not forsake the holy covenant, barring God’s people from our hearts or standing in their way during their time of distress. Instead, we ought to nourish them with bread, water, and refuge, proclaiming the truth of God’s covenant promises for Zion until all are fulfilled. And like His warning to Thyatira, the Church must resist the false diplomatic rhetoric that violating God’s land and turning a blind eye to the brutal murder of His covenant people is the key to achieving peace and maintaining the global balance of power.

Like the church at Sardis, we must strengthen what is about to die off while we still can, because a day is coming when He will return. We must not be caught like fools, clinging to our “good Christian name” yet totally unaware of our Master’s plans. To Philadelphia, Jesus offers encouragement because this gathering of believers had not denied His name. Instead, they proclaimed the truth about who He is, the office He holds, and the people He represents. The hour for testing is coming, and like the Philadelphians, we must hold fast to our confession that all glory, power, honor, and dominion belongs to the Lamb. And to Laocdica, the message is as chilling as it is clear. Jesus has no tolerance for spiritual atrophy. He would rather they take a stand, make a decision about who He says that He is, than continue on in the blind stupor of their hollow, naked, vomit-inducing worship. He is merciful, willing for them to repent.

The Master’s words to the churches of Revelation have been applicable for all time, across all generations. They will have heightened and intense implications for the generation of Jesus-followers living in the days of His revelation from heaven. We ought not to take the slain Lamb lightly if we desire to follow Him into the glory of His reign and ultimately, into the New Creation. His kingdom is coming. All of heaven urges Him who is worthy to arise and settle, forever, the controversy of Zion.

This short series has been, at times, difficult to write. I’ve struggled to take big, controversial topics and boil them down to something appropriate for a personal blog. In the end, written words only get us so far. I hope these posts have provided a needed perspective and sharpened our hearts and minds as we live in these equally illuminating and foreboding days. Our world is captivated by the allure of wealth and war, the powers of the heavens enraged with God’s chosen one, jealously hurling themselves headlong into a house of death.

But that does not have to be our story. We are not children tossed by the wind. We are not destined for fiery wrath; we are sons and daughters of the Giver of life and light. Without question, trouble is coming in this world, but our Brother has overcome the world, and He will return. He will bind up the brokenhearted, exalt the lowly, restore the human heart, crush the head of evil, and bring God’s unfathomable glory to Zion.

Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Messiah.

1 Peter 1:13

Each of us must go forward on our own journeys, apprenticing under Jesus ourselves, discerning His wisdom in our own lives. I have full confidence that the Spirit is up for the task and will faithfully incline our hearts to follow the Lamb into the New Creation.

May Yahweh Himself look with eternal, covenantal favor on His chosen people, Israel, and their king, our master, Yeshua the Messiah, and His holy city, Jerusalem. May Zion forever be the city of the Great King so that all humanity can be blessed and live in the everlasting light of shabbat and shalom.

May we who follow the Lamb hold fast to Him and hold fast His people, for as long as it takes. Strengthen us now and tune our hearts to be sensitive to the season. How long, oh Lord? How long?

Come Yeshua. We want you to come! Come Lord Jesus. Maranatha.