“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”
Last week at this time Nancy and I were sitting at Newark International Airport waiting for a shuttle bus to take us to JFK and from there to Israel on El-Al. We were part of a group of twenty-two, most of whom we’d known for some time, along with a few folks we’d never met before. As we sat and reminisced I felt the glow of Christian love envelop the small part of the airport where we were gathered. I found myself occasionally glancing around, then hesitating for a moment while I brought up a memory or two of the person I was focused on. One of our group leaders, a woman we’ve known for close to twenty years, looked as young as when we first met her. I thought of the dreams she’s recounted to us over the years. I’ve always found them interesting, although I’ve never been much of a dreamer myself. One of my enduring memories of her has always been her boldness and courage in her Christian witness. She’s absolutely fearless. If I were ever in a dark alley and needed a fellow Christian to be with at a time when I was facing some creature from the pit of hell, she would be one of the first people on my 9-1-1 rolodex to call. I next turned my gaze to her husband. I’ve always seen him as a country guy. He speaks in slow, measured terms, with a slight twang or drawl and sometimes ends his conversations with a quiet, almost imperceptible sense that what he’d just said had originated in another world, which, of course, it had. You would almost have missed it due to his humility, but there was a very deep well of wisdom lurking around inside of him, the kind you might find in fishermen like Peter that’s been honed through experience.
And so it was for a couple of hours. As the time passed I began to look forward to our trip and the times beyond. Nancy and I have been to Israel three times and each one has been memorable. I’ve especially loved the last two, thanks to our guide, a man named Amos Davidowitz. I’ve never met a man quite like him. He’s part soldier, part archeologist, part raconteur, part historian, part peacemaker, and thoroughly human. I remember having a brief conversation with him once about our military experiences. He asked me if I’d drafted a will before I shipped to Vietnam in 1965. I told him I had. It had been quite brief – ship the body back home, put a flag on the coffin and keep sending the allotment to my mother. His will was an incredible masterpiece of thought and reflection. It was 149 pages long. A hundred and forty-nine pages. He’s actually published it. It’s available on Amazon (it looks like the Kindle edition is under five bucks) under the title “A Path of Peace in the Field of Battle: An Israeli Officer’s Ethical Will to His Children the Eve of Battle.” A small sample of what Amos has written follows to give you some flavor of the man he is – “I have led men into battle, through battle and to the end of battle, but you can never lead men out of battle. It always stays with you. I fight because my country is at war, but I choose to labor for peace because I know war will solve nothing. This book is about my life as a veteran combat officer and my quest to make peace around me. I do not fight for peace, I try to gently pick up the pieces of a world I shattered and mend them. This book is about what you do not read in the papers. This book is about what I want my children to know when my luck runs out.”
As I thought of seeing Amos again, I began to wander in my mind’s eye to trudging around the Golan Heights, Masada, Nazareth, the Dead Sea, even a kibbutz, and most especially Jerusalem. I’ve never been in such an alive city in my life. I grew up in the shadow of Boston’s Freedom Trail and dodged what seemed to be millions of pedestrians on New York’s Forty-Second Street. I’ve walked the Champs Elysee in Paris, Dublin’s Grafton Street, London’s Portobello Square and wandered aimlessly around Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station, but none of them compare with Jerusalem. Jerusalem is alive. I think it’s due in large measure to the fact that the people of Israel are living their daily lives on the edge of disaster. They know how to live life to the full!
At about two o’clock I began to put the pieces together. We were going to be in Jerusalem soon with our friends and Amos’ firm guiding hand opening Israel’s story for us to behold. After a few minutes of projecting a day or two ahead, I began to consider an even richer future. I realized there will one day be a New Jerusalem, a beautiful, impregnable city where I will live for all eternity and I sensed deeply that I’d be living there with the people I was waiting with at Newark Airport. I thought of Amos. What of him? Will he be with us in the New Jerusalem. Some scholars say he won’t, but I believe he will be. Paul, one of the great apostles of the Christian faith, said very clearly that he and all of Israel will be there. His words written to the church at Rome centuries ago are unmistakable – “I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”
We gentiles, the ones who have been grafted in to Israel’s age-old promise, get it wrong so often. Christianity is not a western religion. It is at its heart a Jewish religion and has a Jewish Messiah as its leader. We are the ones grafted in and, as Paul himself also said in his letter to Rome, we should not gloat as though we are superior to the true vine that sprang from God to Abraham long ago.
The anticipation and comfort I felt in knowing this overwhelmed me and I walked away from the group for a few moments to shed a tear or two of joy at what I was sensing.
Then, the announcement came. Israel had all but shut down all travel into the country. I’m still a bit fuzzy on the details, but from what I understood, we could go, but would need to self-quarantine in Israel for two weeks if we did. Or, we could get there and be given three days to find a way back to the United States.
At about nine o’clock Nancy and I boarded a United Airlines flight back to Kansas City. We got to our house at about midnight.
It’s now early afternoon on Monday, the 16th. Nancy and I are hunkered down like just about everyone else in America. The tentacles of Coronavirus have stretched from China to Europe to America, the great oceans, and every other point on the globe. The markets are crashing. 401K’s are evaporating, as are nest eggs. The shelves in the stores are depleted. Schools are closed. Churches are shutting down. Restaurants are closing. Even bars and pubs are closing. It appears that people have nowhere to go to drown their sorrows.
Interestingly, while much of our world seems to be running around with its collective hair on fire, our critters don’t seem to be overly concerned today. They’re not foraging around looking for toilet paper, face masks, hazmat suits, or hand sanitizer.
Me? I actually feel quite good. If I must be quarantined, I can’t think of a better person to be quarantined with than Nancy, the prettiest girl in town, We’ve got a few jars of peanut butter and several pouches of tuna. Nancy even got some corned beef, cabbage, rutabagas, carrots, Irish soda bread, pickled beets and a bit of Guinness for tomorrow. We had a wonderful visit with our son, his girlfriend, our granddaughter, her husband, and our great-grandson on Saturday. While we missed being with our brothers and sisters at church last night, we still got to attend online. The lesson for the night was right on target, from Matthew 14, the place where Jesus, after speaking to a multitude, gave his disciples a few loaves of bread, broke it and gave it to them with the following simple instruction – “Feed them.” They seem like appropriate marching orders for any time, especially today I think.
I’ve read what some folks have written about the reality that’s crashed down upon us. I get it. Coronavirus could get many of us. Nancy and I understand we’re part of a high risk group. We’re boomers, after all. This scourge could kill us. And, if it doesn’t, what then. Are we going to go belly up? What then? What then? What then?
Years ago, Nancy and I watched as her dad went through the final stages of his life. He’d had several heart attacks over the years and not long after we got married Nancy sensed that he was nearing the end. She could tell by the way he was doing everything in his power to ensure that his wife would have everything she needed when he was gone. I remember watching him work on some cedar closets, never complaining that the task that had once been so easy for him had become painful and difficult. More than anything, though, I remember the night he died. He’d been hospitalized and the doctors were going to try one more procedure to keep him alive. He was very much at peace. Nancy had already asked him sometime before that night, “Daddy, do you want to go or do you want to stay?” A hint of a smile came over his face and he said, “If I can still be useful I wouldn’t mind staying, but if not I’m ready to go home.” As he was being lifted on to a gurney, he asked the young candy striper by his bed, “Young lady, do you have a license to drive this thing?” She laughed a bit and then he asked her, “Do you love Jesus?” She said she did and that made him very happy. Then they wheeled him into the procedure room. That was the last time we saw him alive. The medical team came and told us they’d tried their best, but that he had passed from this life to the next. A friend of the family and I went into the room where he was laid out on the gurney. I’ll never forget it. I’ve been around a lot of death in my life. My everyday duties during my year in Vietnam took me by the base mortuary at Tan Son Nhut. I worked in a funeral home at night when I was attending graduate school. I know what death looks like, but I’ve never seen a death quite like Nancy’s father’s. Hospitals are always well lit. The rooms are usually painted bright white. But I’ve never seen a room so brightly lit in my life as the room where Nancy’s father laid. It was surreal. It was as if all of heaven were there to greet him when he passed. “Look everyone, look everyone, Smith’s home. Let’s celebrate.”
The cares of this life had passed for Nancy’s father. He was home. He was now a citizen of the New Jerusalem.
All too often, the cares of this life overwhelm us. Our sensibilities get us too grounded in to this life. While this life is good, it’s really not our home. It’s not all there is. As the old song says so rightly, “we’re just passing through.” We who are Christians really are bound for the New Jesusalem.
I’ve given thought to all of this for the past week. I think of our Christian friends we got together with at Newark Airport. While we didn’t make it to the earthly Jerusalem last week, I see so clearly that we will be with them and great multitudes of others in the New Jerusalem where we will all be lit up with the light of everlasting life. And, yes, Abraham’s children, including Amos will be there too.
I’ve read the descriptions of what lies ahead. Amazing is the only way I can describe what I read. A city that encompasses millions of square miles, with bejeweled walls that are over two hundred feet thick, two hundred feet high, and streets that are paved with gold.. While I tend to think that the language of the Book of Revelation is often symbolic, it conveys beauty and security and peace like nothing we are ever able to experience on this earthly plane. It’s the place where the first are last, the last are first, and there is a Lamb seated on the throne. It’s a realm that is ruled by that Lamb, not some politician with a polished stump speech or a committee. There will be no deep state overseeing events. There will be no thought of rebellion. Harmony and love will be the twin coins of the realm.
When I consider these things and the home that awaits me, thoughts and fears of Coronavirus, market crashes, food shortages, societal chaos, and even its possible collapse don’t have the sway that the purveyors of fear and dread seem to want it to have over me. The transient nature of this world and its so-called treasures will one day be swept away and the new will come. That’s why I’m happy today. That’s why I’m at peace. I’m on my way home, with fellow pilgrims trudging that narrow road with me. We will get there. We will!