Optimism For Mahdi And Messiah – OpEd
A Paris based International Energy Agency report found that solar power capacity increased nearly 50% in the last two years and electric car sales increased by 240%. But the world’s oceans have now experienced an entire year of unprecedented heat, with a new temperature record broken every day for the last 52 weeks. So is the glass half full or half empty?
The majority of Christians, Jews, and Muslims do not believe that all of humanity is moving closer and closer to a catastrophic Judgement Day. The minority who do think that Judgement Day is coming soon share the usual negative, fear-filled views of most end-times thinkers: Christians, Jews and especially Muslims, who do believe that: “The hour (of Judgement) is near” (Qur’an 54:1); and ˹The time of˺ people’s judgment has drawn near, yet they heedlessly turn away.” (Qur’an 21:1)
According to a 2012 poll by the Pew Research Center, at least half of Muslims in nine Muslim-majority countries believe that the coming of the Mahdi is “imminent,” and could happen in their lifetime. Sadly these end-times thinkers always see pre-ordained threats of cataclysmic world wide doom; and not a just warning of the consequences if we humans do not repent and change our behavior.
There’s a 40% chance that the world will get so hot in the next five years that it will temporarily push past the temperature limit the Paris climate agreement is trying to prevent. A new World Meteorological Organization forecast for the next several years predicts a 90% chance that the world will set yet another record for the hottest year by the end of 2025; that the Atlantic will continue to brew more potentially dangerous hurricanes; meteorologists say large parts of land in the Northern Hemisphere will be 1.4 degrees warmer than recent decades, and the U.S. Southwest’s drought will continue.
Yet there is always good news that you probably have not heard about. For example, Dengue fever cases have been cut by 77% in a “groundbreaking” trial that genetically manipulates the mosquitoes that spread Dengue. The World Mosquito Program team now says it’s a solution to a virus spreading worldwide. In 1970, only nine countries faced severe dengue outbreaks, now there are 300-400 million infections a year.
It is true that human society has changed more rapidly, violently, and fundamentally in the last century of the second millennium than ever before in history. Doctors saved the lives of millions. Dictators sacrificed the lives of millions. Populations exploded and birthrates declined. Technology produced both worldwide prosperity and pollution at the same time.
Knowing all this, should we look upon the first century of the third millennium with optimistic hope or with fatalistic trepidation? Are the world and our society heading towards a wonder-filled new age, or toward a doomsday; or are both occurring concurrently because breakdown is always a prelude to breakthrough?
Many who believe in the Biblical vision of a Messianic Age use the insights of the Prophets of Israel to provide guidance in understanding the social, economic, scientific, and cultural upheavals sweeping society. Usually, it is the dramatic dangers of the pre-Messianic tribulation that are emphasized. I will focus on the positive signs developing throughout the world that accord with the Messianic vision of the Biblical Prophets.
In most non-Abrahamic religious traditions, redemption is defined only in terms of individual enlightenment or personal salvation. However, the Abrahamic Prophets conceived of redemption as a transformation of human society that would occur through the catalyst of the transformation of the Abrahamic religious community. This transformation, which will take place in this world at some future time, is called the Messianic Age.
The transition to the Messianic Age is called the birth pangs of the Messiah. The birth of a redeemed Messianic world may be the result of easy or difficult labor. If everyone would simply live according to the moral teachings of his or her religious tradition, we would ourselves bring about the Messianic Age. But, if we will not do it voluntarily, it will come through social and political upheavals, worldwide conflicts, and generation gaps. The Messiah refers to an agent of God who helps bring about this transformation.
The Jewish tradition teaches that this agent of God (and there will be three or four such agents) will be a human being, with great spiritual leadership qualities similar to Prophets Moses or Mohammed. For Jews, the Messianic hope helped them to survive many years of oppression and evil. For Christian and Muslims the Messianic hope will be the second coming of Jesus/the Mahdi, leading up to God’s Judgement Day vindication for righteous believers; and the establishment of God’s kingdom on Earth…
The arrival of the Messianic Age is what’s really important, not the specific personality of the agents who bring it about since they are simply the instruments of God, who ultimately is the real Messiah-Redeemer. As Prophet Isaiah states: “Declare, approach; yes, let them take counsel together. Who made this known from antiquity? Who preached it from long ago? Did not I, The Lord? There is no other Deity besides Me: a righteous (Tzaddik) God and Moshi’a (Messiah), there is no one besides Me. (Isaiah 45:21)
The amazing rescue 30 years ago of 15,000 Ethiopian Jews in an airlift lasting less than 48 hours stirred and inspired people for a few weeks. Subsequently, the difficult problems the newcomers faced (similar to those of the 900,000 Soviet immigrants) occupied the Jewish media. Now both are taken for granted. The miracle has become routine.
But if you had told the Jews of Ethiopia two generations ago that they would someday all fly to Israel, they could only conceive of this as a Messianic miracle. If you had told Soviet Jews a generation or two ago that the Communist regime would collapse, the Soviet Empire disintegrate, and hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews would emigrate to Israel, they would have conceived it only as a Messianic dream.
In our own generation therefore we have seen the dramatic fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy: “I will bring your offspring from the (Middle) East and gather you from the (European) West. To the North (Russia) I will say ‘give them up’ and to the South (Ethiopia) ‘do not hold them’. Bring my sons from far away, my daughters from the end of the earth.” (43:5-6)
In 1948 only six percent of a global Jewish population of 11.5 million lived in Israel. Today 45% of the world’s 14.7 million Jews reside in the Jewish state.
Isn’t it amazing how people adjust to living in a radically new world and forget the past? Indeed, the Prophet Isaiah himself proclaimed God’s message, “Behold, I create a new Heaven and a New Earth, and former things shall not be remembered.” (65:17)
Where does the Messiah fit in with all of this? He will still have lots to do when he arrives. Now that a large part of the Jewish people have returned to the Land of Israel, and resurrected a Jewish State, one might think that rebuilding a temple of the site where Solomon originally built one almost 3,000 years ago, would be relatively simple.
And it would, except for the fact that a Muslim Shrine called The Dome of the Rock presently occupies the Jerusalem Temple of Prophet Solomon site. Often erroneously called the Mosque of Omar, it is not a mosque and it was not built by Omar. It was built in 691 by Abd-Al-Malik and it is regarded by Muslims as the third holiest site in the world. Any attempt to replace the Dome of the Rock would provoke a Muslim Holy War of cataclysmic proportions.
There is, however, vacant land on the Temple Mount, and a three dimensional virtual reality broadcast station could be erected adjacent to the Dome of the Rock fulfilling the vision of Prophet Micah (4:1-3) “In the end of days the mountain of the Lord’s Temple will be established as the highest mountain; it will be exalted above the hills, and (monotheistic) peoples will stream to it. Many (not all) nations will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the Temple of the God of Jacob. who will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths. Torah will be broadcast out from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” provided that Muslim leaders would cooperate.
Most observers agree that anyone who could arrange such Jewish-Muslim cooperation would really be the Messianic Ruler of Peace (Isaiah 9:5) Christian support for such a cooperative venture would also be very important, and anyone who can bring Jews, Christians, and Muslims together in mutual respect and cooperation would surely fulfill the greatest of all Messianic predictions: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning knives; nation shall not take up sword against nation, they shall never again teach war.” (Isaiah 2:4)
Indeed, such Jewish-Christian-Muslim cooperation would not be possible without great spiritual leadership in all three communities. Thus, each community could consider its leadership to be the Messiah and this would fulfill the culminating verses of Isaiah’s Messianic prophecy as enlarged upon by Micah (4:3-5),
“They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning knives. Nation shall not take up against nation, they shall never again teach war, but every man shall sit under his grapevine or fig tree with no one to disturb him, for it is the Lord of Hosts who spoke. Though all peoples walk each in the name of its God, we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.”
With the help of the Abraham Accords; the Mid-East may start a swing towards redemptive optimism and peacemaking that will make possible the fulfillment of another vision of Prophet Isaiah: “In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together.
On that day Israel will join a three-party alliance with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing upon the heart. The LORD of Hosts will bless them saying, “Blessed be Egypt My people, Assyria My handiwork, and Israel My inheritance.”…(Isaiah 19:23-5)
I know that both Prophet Jesus and Prophet Muhammad warned their own communities about trying to calculate a specific end-time date for Messianic events. In the New Testament when prophet Jesus was asked in private by his disciples, “What will be the sign for your coming (back) and the end of the (present) age?” (Matthew 24:3)
Prophet Jesus warned his disciples about all kinds of upheavals and false Messiahs that will come; and then concludes by saying, “But about that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, not even the son: only the Father.” (24:36)
A similar statement was made by Prophet Muhammad when he was asked, “Tell me about the Hour”. He replied: “The one questioned about it knows no better than the questioner.” (Muslim book 1:1&4)
Yet we should never give up the positive redemptive Messianic hope that if each of the three Abrahamic religious communities truly follows the best of its own religious teachings; God has assured us that the Messiah will arrive, and one way or another, God’s Judgement Day and God’s Kingdom of worldwide peace and prosperity will be established.
The Qur’an refers to Prophet Abraham as a community or a nation: “Abraham was a nation-community [Ummah]; dutiful to God, a monotheist [hanif], not one of the polytheists.” (16:120) If Prophet Abraham is an Ummah then fighting between the descendants of Prophets Ishmael and Isaac is a civil war and should always be avoided. If all Arabs and Jews can live up to the ideal that ‘the descendants of Abraham’s sons should never make war against each other’ is the will of God; we will help fulfill the 2700 year old vision of Prophet Isaiah:
“In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt, and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. On that day Israel will join a three-party alliance with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing upon the heart. The LORD of Hosts will bless them saying, “Blessed be Egypt My people, Assyria My handiwork, and Israel My inheritance.”…(Isaiah 19:23-5) May it happen soon in our lifetime.
