destroyed in AD 70, it altered not only the course of Jewish history but the history of Christianity. Up to that time everything had been centered in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the home of its leadership, the ‘mother church.’ But when Jerusalem was destroyed, the faith was cut off from its Jewish leadership, its spiritual fathers. So the end of Jerusalem would usher in the ending of the age of Jewish disciples.
“But in the Jubilee of 1967 everything was reversed. Jerusalem was restored to the Jewish people. So what would happen?”
“If the disappearance of Jerusalem ushered in the disappearance of Jewish believers” I said, “then the restoration of Jerusalem would mean . . . the reappearance of Jewish believers.”
“Yes,” said the Oracle. “And so the Jubilee of 1967 would mark not only the return of Jerusalem but the beginning of an age of spiritual revival among the Jewish people. The return of Jerusalem would usher in a massive return of Jewish people to their Messiah, to Jesus, and the reappearance of Jewish believers and disciples in numbers not seen since the first century. Many of these revivals and movements would trace their beginnings to the year 1967. Others were born of the Jesus Movement. The Jesus Movement was birthed in the Summer of Love. And the Summer of Love began in 1967.”
“And in the year of return,” I said, “the year of Jubilee. And when in that year did the Summer of Love begin?”
“It all began in the month of June, the same month of the Six-Day War and the return of Jerusalem. Both returns and restorations began, after two thousand years, the same year, the same month.”
“You said you would tell me two mysteries. What was the other?”
“The other has to do with the man who convened the gathering of Jewish believers in 1867. His name was Carl August Ferdinand Schwartz. It has to do with his origins.”
“His origins?”
“When he was born.”
“When?”
“In the year 1817.”
“1817 . . . that would be the year of Jubilee . . . before the other Jubilees. So the mystery goes back even further.”
“Yes,” said the Oracle. “So in 1817 a child is born, destined to play a key part in the Jubilee of 1867, his fiftieth year . . . during which another child is born, John Patterson, destined to play a central part in the Jubilee of 1917, his fiftieth year . . . during which a third child is born, Shlomo Goren, destined to play a central part in the Jubilee of 1967, his fiftieth year . . . each one a piece of the puzzle . . . of the mystery . . . the mystery of return—where everything returns to the state in which it was at the beginning of the age—a Jewish land, a Jewish capital, a Jewish nation, Jewish soldiers, Jewish farmers . . . ”
“And Jewish disciples.”
“Yes,” said the Oracle. “Everything returns . . . but not all returns are by nature good.”
“What do you mean?”
“There is another return that has not yet been revealed to you, a return of a very different kind and nature.”
“What other return?”
“The dark Jubilee.”
“The next time we met, he would reveal it.”
“The dark Jubilee? It almost sounds scary.”
“A Jubilee unlike all the others.”
“And how was it revealed?”
“Through the awakening of a dragon.”
Chapter 58
THE DARK JUBILEE
I WOULDN’T HAVE made the journey at the time I did if not for the vision, if not for its disturbing and ominous nature. It was near sunset when I reached the Oracle’s tent. And it was at night, by the light of the campfire just outside his tent, that we spoke.”
“The dragon,” I said, “the red dragon in the ruins . . . ”
“Yes,” he said, “That will take us into another realm, that of the dark Jubilee.”
“The dark Jubilee—what is it?”
“A Jubilee that follows the same pattern as that which God gave to His people . . . and yet is not of God.”
“I don’t understand.”
“A Jubilee that parallels the Jubilee of Israel and that corresponds to it but is of the opposite nature, an anti-Jubilee, a Jubilee of darkness.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“The fate of Israel and the fate of the world are bound together. Israel is a microcosm of the world, and the world, the macrocosm of Israel. And so if Israel’s destiny is determined by the Jubilean mysteries . . . ”
“Then so too the destiny of the world?”
“Yes. The repercussions of the Jubilean mysteries always go beyond the borders of Israel and