Jerusalem will be the center of world controversy and the nations will gather to war against them.”
“So end-time prophecy is Jubilean.”
“It is,” he said, “but why do you say that?”
“Because the return is central to everything. Everything returns to where it was. And everything centers on the return even when it wars against it, as in the return of Israel.”
“Yes,” said the Oracle, “each shall return to his own possession—even the world itself.”
“A dark return,” I said. “Is there anything good that comes out of all this?”
“Most certainly.”
“What?”
“A return of a different nature.”
“What return?”
“That,” said the Oracle, “would be another mystery.”
“And that’s what you were shown next . . . the good.”
“Yes.”
“And what was it?”
“Another manifestation of the mystery, another return, very different from what I had just been shown me . . . and yet related to it.”
“And how was it revealed?”
“Through a stained-glass woman.”
Chapter 59
THE STAINED-GLASS METAMORPHOSIS
IT WAS LATE afternoon when I arrived at the Oracle’s tent. I had calculated that there would be enough time to share and then return to my tent before nightfall. But it didn’t turn out that way. When I entered his tent, he offered me a cup of tea and a plate of dried fruits. We spoke of everything but the vision. He asked me to share the story of my life. So I did. Before I knew it, the sun had set. Outside the tent the wind was picking up, beating against the curtains. But inside it was peaceful. He kindled clay oil lamps, seven of them, and distributed them evenly throughout the tent, I sensed that he was now ready to speak about the vision.”
“The stained-glass woman who journeyed to the ancient city . . . who was she, and what did it mean?”
“The city was Jerusalem,” he said. “Two thousand years ago the faith that would go out to all nations was birthed in the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem . . . a universal faith and a Jewish faith at the same time, born of Jewish soil, founded on the Jewish hope, built on the Jewish Scriptures, and centered on the Jewish Messiah. It was a radical faith, a revolutionary faith. It had no governmental sanction, no cultural support, and virtually no earthly resources. It had nothing to do with the status quo of its time but was a phenomenon separate, distinct, and contrary to the world. And the status quo waged war against it. It was born in persecution.
“And yet it was this form, as recorded in the Book of Acts, the original, most radical, most Jewish, least established, and most revolutionary form of what would become known as the Christian faith, that would overcome an empire and change the course of human history.
“The faith was never to have stayed inside the borders of its homeland. It was born to transcend them and go out to the world. So Jesus sent His disciples to all peoples and lands. But as it went out from Jerusalem and into the nations, something happened. The branches became increasingly estranged from the roots, and the roots from the branches. With the destruction of Jerusalem, the disappearance of Jewish believers, and more and more non-Jewish people becoming believers, what would be known as the church began to lose its connection to Israel, to it Jewish roots, to its ancestral heritage.
“And as the church departed from its ancestral land, its roots, and its origins, the power and glory recorded of the first believers likewise began to depart. At the same time, the church began gaining acceptance from the surrounding culture. And thus another transformation began. What was by nature a radical faith began moving increasingly toward the status quo, merging with the world, and losing the revolutionary power of its origins for the power of establishment.
“In time the church became an established part of Roman and Western civilization and all the more estranged from its Jewish origins and the Jewish people. What was born in Jerusalem was now joined to Rome, and what was birthed in the Spirit was now increasingly bound to the world.”
“So the departure from its Jewish roots and the departure from its radical nature happened at the same time.”
“Yes,” said the Oracle, “all part of the same departure from what had been in the beginning, the Book of Acts, the church’s long-lost possession.”
“So it was an exile,” I said, “the exile of the church from its ancestral possession.”
“And it paralleled the exile of the Jewish people.