WHAT IF I told you of a mystery so vast that it spans the world and the ages, from ancient times to this very moment . . . a mystery that moves behind and through all human events, directs and turns the paths of leaders, determines the future of nations and empires . . . and of the world itself . . . to bring all things to their appointed end?”
“I wouldn’t believe it.”
“No,” he replied, “I wouldn’t have either if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”
“What do you mean, ‘seen it with your own eyes’? And what mystery?”
“One made up of many others . . . a mystery of mysteries.”
“OK. What mysteries then?”
“The Jubilean mysteries,” he replied.
“I’ve never heard of them.”
“Their origins are ancient. They were birthed in a desert not unlike this one and on a mountaintop not unlike the one on which we sit . . . thousands of years ago.”
“How could something from ancient times be doing that?”
“That,” he said, “is the mystery.”
They were silent for a time as a warm desert wind swept across the mountaintop. The traveler laid down his backpack on the ground by the rock on which he was sitting. His boots were covered with sand, his jeans were torn, and he was tired from the journey. But what he was hearing made him forget his weariness. He had set out in search of answers. The one he had come to see, the man on the mountaintop, didn’t look as he had imagined he would have. He appeared to be in his early thirties, not much older than the traveler himself, and was without a beard, clean-shaven, ordinary looking. But there was something about him. He spoke with an authority and a sincerity that gave the traveler confidence that his journey may not have been in vain. And yet he was still as puzzled by the man as he was intrigued.
“I don’t see how something like that could exist,” he said.
“But nevertheless the mysteries have determined the course of empires and superpowers, kings and presidents . . . ”
“Do you mean ancient principles or guiding truths that still have meaning for the modern world?”
“Such things do exist,” he replied, “but no. I’m speaking of something much different and much more specific . . . ancient mysteries that have determined the events of our world so precisely that they tell us not only what must take place . . . but when.”
“But in ancient times they didn’t number the years as we do now.”
“There are other ways by which the appointed times are marked.”
“It doesn’t seem possible.”
“And yet it is.”
“I just don’t see how something so ancient could reveal . . . ”
“More than that,” he replied, “they contain ancient words and messages appointed to be spoken at specific times, even on the specific days on which the events of which they speak are to take place.”
“It sounds so . . . ” the traveler paused, looking for the right word, which never came.
“And the mystery of the end.”
“The end?”
“The end that was foretold.”
“This is so unlike anything I’ve ever heard.”
“Then you’ve never heard of prophecy?”
“Is this something that requires faith . . . like faith in God?”
“It requires nothing,” he said. “It exists whether you believe or not. Your belief doesn’t make it any more real, and your doubt doesn’t make it any less so. If you’re ever going to find that which you don’t already have, then you have to be open to what you’ve never known . . . or believed could exist . . . And I should be the last person telling you this.”
“Why is that?”
“I wasn’t a believer. I was a skeptic. I didn’t believe there was any purpose to life . . . any significance, any meaning. I saw everything as a series of random events, chance occurrences, accidents . . . sorrows with no purpose, joys with no meaning. Everything was meaningless. So I’m the last person to be telling you about the fingerprints of God.”
“The fingerprints of God?”
“The signs, the markers, the witnesses in this world of the purpose behind everything . . . that it’s not an accident.”
“That what isn’t an accident?”
“History, life, existence . . . that there’s a reason, a purpose, and a plan. The mystery reveals the threads of the master loom.”
“You were a skeptic,” he said. “So what happened? What changed you? And how did you end up here, in