The Time Is Nearer

Isaiah : 61:1-4 The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to provide for those who mourn in Zion-- to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, to display his glory. They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.

In the Advent of 2020 we are preparing our spirits for the Joy of the 2020 Christmas. Although this Christmas is enwrapped in the stocks of the epidemics, we still can not say that this is the worst thing which happened on the planet in the last one hundred years, however it is bad enough to put a gray shadow on the Christmas lights of 2020. At least, having the vaccination soon in the global reach, practically we are hopefully able to see the light at the end of this dark tunnel.

Even when the pandemics will leave us for the better hopefully in the foreseeable near future, it is more than certain that the sad domino effect of the pandemics caused so much untimely death of good people and long lasting injuries in many that it will be remembered in the history books as a tragic chain of events with lingering effects on society and economy.
Whatever happened, whatever happens, whatever will happen, as a comfort, encouragement and perspective we have to keep the broader picture in front of our eyes, always.

Having Advent in 2020, we can have the Advent as the precursor of the greater Holiday, because we are awaiting the return of Jesus, the King of the Christmas. We are awaiting the arrival of the Messianic era, awaiting the descension of the Heavenly Kingdom to Earth. Every century there had been a couple of self appointed visionaries who had proclaimed many times in history that the so called end times were here, and the people should have been prepared for the immediate coming for the Messiah. It is 2020, and we are still waiting.

However, there are certain things lately which can not be ignored, and almost all of them Biblically foretold. It is not really too easy to identify and match Biblical prophesies with modern occurrings because of the obvious possibility of erring in the identification of the events or erring in theological approach or in the interpretations of the biblical text. Nonetheless, with some surety to say, there are some obvious events which project the coming of the Messianic era. Until they occur we have to wait a bit longer, when they occur, we can be a little bit more convinced that the gears of the universe profoundly shifted.

One of events is the reestablishment of Israel on the Holy Land. Just as the prophecy says in the text of Isaiah in our readings which reads that “They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.”
The other preliminary occurring which must happen before the arrival of the Messianic era is the ingathering of the Jews from all the lands of the Earth, from all continents, from all directions.

The most famous among all the prophesies is written in the Bible as early as it is in the Deuteronomy, chapter 30, which is the Fifth Book of Moses, where according to the given promise Moses says that “When all these things have happened to you, the blessings and the curses that I have set before you, if you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and return to the Lord your God, and you and your children obey him with all your heart and with all your soul, just as I am commanding you today, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you, gathering you again from all the peoples among whom the Lord your God has scattered you. Even if you are exiled to the ends of the world, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will bring you back. The Lord your God will bring you into the land that your ancestors possessed, and you will possess it; he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors.”

A medieval sage and famous philosopher, Maimonides tried to put together a couple of criteria of the Messiah who is going to come at the end of the age, but none of them is Biblical, except that the upcoming Messiah will gather the dispersed of Israel back to the land.
Isaiah 43:5-6 corroborates the idea of the gathering of the exiled Jews back to Land, where the Lord says that "Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your descendants from the east, and gather you from the west; I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ And to the south, ‘Do not keep them back!’ Bring My sons from afar, and My daughters from the ends of the earth."Isaiah 43:5-6.

Just as the Book of Ezekiel repeats it as well, in chapter 20 that the Lord says that : “ With a pleasing savor I shall accept you when I take you out of the nations, and I shall gather you from the lands in which you were scattered, and I shall be hallowed through you before the eyes of the nations. And you will know that I am the Lord when I bring you to the land of Israel, to the land that I lifted My Hand to give to your forefathers.”

Some Bible scholars hold that the Bible attested to a period, not a person, the period in which the People of Israel return to their homeland, the land of Israel, as the act of ingathering of the exiles of the Jews in the land of Israel, will bring about the coming of the end-time Messiah. Putting aside any politics and any disputes from any sides, it is seen as an obvious sign of the hand of God.

The old tradition also agrees with the view of Jesus expressed in the Gospel of Mark that before the Messianic era, great tribulations will hit the Earth, like earthquakes, floods, famines, plagues and great wars, where the major characteristics of these trying events, that they are global in their effects.

We can see that the world profoundly changed in the last two centuries, how the events on Earth reached the global scale, and since from the first radio transmission we also entered the information age as well, which means, that any small local report can go fully viral and shared almost immediately. The global consciousness is achieved, however the global conscientiousness is yet to come.

We can also see that very nowadays we are reaching a new level of an other new era where the global level is transforming into the newer one, into the interplanetarian age, which should be followed by the interstellar age. Also we have not only a newer and final frontier, the galaxy, but the traditional warfare and even the nuclear warfare, have a new battlefield as well, the space. It is not a joke. The USA officially established its Space Force, according to its government website that the U.S. Space Force (USSF) is a new branch of the Armed Forces. It was established on December 20, 2019 with enactment of the Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, headed by a four-star general.

All these occurrings, including global plagues are not only dark shadows over the human life, but also milestones. By reaching them, step by step, we are closer and closer to the Messianic age, when and where the Bible promises us to have lasting peace finally not only in Heaven but on Earth too, with abundance and prosperity, and direct spiritual connection to God.

Thus, as the vaccination gives us a little hope to see the light at the end of this bitter tunnel framed by the epidemics, so not the bitter and cataclysmic events in themselves, but the foreseeing prophesies and the given divine promises give us certain hope, that the tribulations will not last for ever, and sooner or later the Lord will arrive with power and might. We pray for the sooner schedule, so be it, AMEN.