a hope.”’” 1
“That’s in the Scriptures?”
“Yes, and that promise is also more real than the world and than all the circumstances of your life.”
At that he became silent. He looked into the distance to the cloud resting beneath us, now accented with the orange-golden radiance of the rising sun. And then he spoke.
“Did you ever wonder,” said the Oracle, “why all these things?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why the Jubilean mysteries?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Why everything revolves around them, prophecy, revelation, world history? Why this particular mystery and not another?”
“Why?”
“What is the Jubilee about?” he asked.
“Return and restoration.”
“And you can only return to that which you’ve left and only be restored to that which you’ve lost.”
“And the Jewish people left their land and lost their ancestral possession . . . but they would return and be restored.”
“That’s only the beginning of the mystery,” he said. “The mystery concerns more than the Jewish people.”
“Who else then?”
“Everyone,” he replied. “The Jewish people stand for all peoples. What happens to them has to do with all.”
“To the world.”
“Not just to the world,” he said, “and not just to all . . . but to each. Everything you’ve been shown, every one of the Jubilean mysteries, has to do with each one, each life.”
“But everyone hasn’t left their land or lost their ancestral possession.”
“And yet everyone has. Therein is the mystery. Everyone has departed. And everyone has lost what belonged to them.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Because you were born into it and haven’t known anything else.”
“Born into what?”
“A world of separation . . . a world fallen and separated from that which is perfect . . . and pure . . . and good, a world estranged from the purpose for which it was created . . . a world fallen into darkness and evil . . . fallen from the light. And so everyone born of this world is a child of separation, separated from God by the darkness . . . by sin. Remember,” he said, “with the nation of Israel, what happens in the physical realm speaks of the spiritual.”
“So the physical exile speaks of a spiritual exile.”
“Yes, but it speaks of an exile that has to do with everyone.”
“An exile from what?”
“As the children of Israel dwelt in exile from the Promised Land, so the children of this world dwell in exile from a spiritual Promised Land.”
“Which is what?”
“An exile from the life you were created to know . . . ” he said, “the life you long to live, a life of fullness and purpose, of blessings, of joy. That is your inheritance . . . and the inheritance of all those created in His image . . . the life they were born to know and live . . . their ancestral possession.”
“But how can something be your ancestral possession or your homeland if you’ve never been there?”
“The same way the Promised Land was the homeland for generations of Jewish people who had never been there. But they knew that they could never truly be at home apart from it. So it is for those of this world.”
“What does that mean?”
“Tell me,” said the Oracle, “why is it that you never feel at home?”
“At home where?”
“In this world . . . when you were lying on the grass, looking up at the sky, longing for Heaven . . . when you knew in your heart that there had to be more to life than what you found in this world, when you cried out in your tears . . . you and every child of this world.
“Did you ever think it strange,” he said, “to spend your entire life in this world, to know nothing else but this world . . . and yet to never feel at home within it?”
“Why is that?”
“Because it isn’t home. So no matter how long you live in it, and no matter how familiar it becomes, your heart can never be fully at peace within it. How could you feel at home in a world of sorrows and pains and fears and rejections and broken dreams and tears and heartbreaks and losses and failures and sins and shame and evil and emptiness? You could never feel at home in this world because it’s not your inheritance. It’s not your land. And it’s not what you were created for. That’s why you feel what you feel. That’s why you always sense something missing . . . you and everyone else in this world. Everyone senses it