My friend, Nancy Turner, and I were sitting on the back patio of her porch one summer morning this year in Tulsa and I was listening. Ever since Kirk, her husband, came out here to pray many years ago, we have all been close friends and companions. I try to visit there every year. They have helped to keep us going by great generosity and encouragement.
I have come to value listening. When folks come here for prayer, I spend many hours listening to them. Listening is not passive and it is often informed by asking questions that prompt more listening. Active listening is an art and a work of the Spirit. Most people, I find, have not been listened to; they have never been able to fully express those voices of destruction that are constantly speaking and to get them out. Listening creates space for a person to find their own voice. There is also a need to listen to wise people.
So, when space is created with a person like Nancy, I pay attention. After a discussion with Nancy and Kirk the night before, I was convinced I needed to listen to her concerning a subject that she was passionate and well-informed about, the return of Jesus and its signs and implications for believers in Jesus and our friends, the Jews, and the State of Israel. Until then, I had paid little attention to "end times" discussions except to be clear about the truth that he is coming back. I love the liturgical reminder and conviction: "Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again." Mainly, I thought, " let all that take care of itself. This is the age of grace and we have work to do." All true but an age has an end in time and prayer had been teaching me how to better number the days and listen to the Spirit.
I decided to really listen to this very passionate and smart woman, wife, mother of two sons and a lover of the verbena flower, at the top of the many flowers and plants she enjoys in her garden. She began to tell me what time it is, not the day or the hour (Luke 24:36), but the signs in the fullness of time. I had always responded to inquiries concerning his return: "Well, it is closer than it was. " This is true, but now I could feel the prompting of the Spirit to get into this. We had this space and I wanted to listen. I wanted to be taught and I was. She also sent me home with four books, all of which I have read, including their Biblical references in both Testaments.
Later in the Fall, I found myself among a whole flock of Jewish friends whom I had shared almost seven years of life with while working in Washington DC after law school. I was there for the funeral of one of those friends, a precious woman, Sherry, and dear wife of Cary Sherman. Cary and Sherry were next door neighbors of mine in the 1970's. They were best friends of Gary and Rainey Klein. Gary and I were both working at the same law firm. We all became friends together. There was a time in my life that only these friends shared and some of it was very painful, especially as my first marriage fell apart. Given their love, their shared pain at the loss of their “closer than a friend”, Sherry, their affection for me and their conviction that Cary would be impacted for good after, I overcame every obstacle in getting there on hours notice. They literally called me back into their lives. We gathered in the Klein’s kitchen for coffee. We gathered at the synagogue for service. We hugged. We cried as this beautiful life of a person I had known spilled forth from family, friends, husband and the Rabbi. I only knew that it was good for me to be there. I could only hope and pray it was good for Cary and my friends.
I have realized that God was reconnecting me at this time, through this great grief, and impressing upon me his own great love for the Jewish people even as it was welling up in my own heart for my friends. At the same time, I was studying the signs concerning Israel. Also a member of our intercessory prayer team is in Israel and is communicating with us from her perch in Jerusalem and we with her. Convergences like these have deep personal meaning and very well may have larger meaning.
For now, for me, these convergences free me up to communicate a brief message concerning the signs and to encourage you, at this time in time, to make your own examination. Of course, many or most of you may be well ahead of me and some may dismiss the subject altogether.
All of the reading and conversations in the last few months concerning the signs argue that certain signs in the heavens, during the year September 2014 to September 2015, have huge significance for Israel and for us. At the end of 2014, I bring it up because, frankly, in many of the circles I travel in it is a rare topic. There is also a call upon us from Jesus' words, and an admonition, in Matthew 24:45-51 to continue in our devotion and work in the kingdom with greater passion and love and to get our lives in better order: to examine ourselves, our work concerning the kingdom of heaven, our comfort level and our love quotient for the Lord and each other, still not knowing the hour or the day of his coming, but being attentive.
In exhortation, then, I would urge a careful and prayerful reading of Matthew 24, also known as the beginning of the Mount of Olives discourse between Jesus and his disciples. They bring up the very question to Jesus in a private time with him. "Tell us," they ask, "when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" Second, examine what some authors are saying concerning the signs in the heavens for 2014 / 2015. This concerns the four blood moons, or Tetrad, that are lining up with the feasts of Israel, the Feast of the Tabernacles and Passover, in both years, and in a Shemittah (sabbath) year according to the Hebrew calendar. The Shemittah year, occurring every seven years, at this time coincides exactly with the first day (Sept. 25, 2014) of the Feast of the trumpets or Jewish New Year and ends at the beginning of the next New Year feast (Sept. 13, 2015). A total eclipse of the sun will also occur during the blood moon series.
"There will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars ...Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to happen, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near." -- Luke 21:25, 27-28
These signs and convergences of moon and sun and feasts and sabbath year, noted above, are more than extremely rare. One author calls them astronomically rare.
Finally, consider (and how can we not?) what is occurring in around the State of Israel. Consider the quantity and scope of natural disasters. Look at our country's condition and its position toward Israel, as well as the realignment of nations. Even if these are the beginning of “birth pains” that Jesus speaks of in Matthew 24, they are telling. Let us look, examine, be alert, watch, listen and pray. It matters what time it is without regard to the more disputed issues within the Church concerning the “end times”.
"Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come." -- Matthew 24:42
"Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man." -- Luke 21:36
At this time of preparing for his birth, as we examine in Advent, and as we prepare in Lent for his death and resurrection, shall we not also prepare and watch, at this time, and say with John to Jesus, who says in the last verse in the Bible:
"Yes, I am coming soon.
Amen, Come, Lord Jesus."
-- Revelation 22:20
Christmas blessings and manifold thanks,
Trip and Laurie
The Verbena Foundation